US bishops grieve ‘climate of fear’ for migrants in rare message

‘We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety. We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants.’

US bishops overwhelmingly adopted a “special pastoral message on immigration” at their annual plenary assembly.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) meeting in Baltimore last week approved the message by a vote of 216-5.

It was the first such pastoral message adopted by a plenary session in over a decade, highlighting the dire effects the Trump administration’s crackdown on migrants, many of whom are Catholics from Latin America.

“We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement. We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants,” said the statement issued on 12 November.

“We are concerned about the conditions in detention centres and the lack of access to pastoral care. We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status. We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools.

“We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones.”

Presenting the text, outgoing conference president Archbishop Timothy Broglio said there was no time for amendments, but Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago insisted the document should specifically state that the bishops “oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people”. His amendment was passed on a voice vote.

Bishop Oscar Cantu of San Jose, California said he wished the document was stronger: for example, it does not mention the Trump administration by name. Cantu thanked Cupich for his amendment, saying it strengthened the text. Nonetheless, the rarity of such documents resulted in it making national headlines in secular media.

The Trump administration’s “border czar” Tom Homan, who is a Catholic, rejected the bishops’ concerns, telling reporters: “The Catholic Church is wrong”.

“A secure border saves lives,” he said. “I’m a lifelong Catholic, but I’m saying it not only as a border czar, but I’m also saying this as a Catholic, I think [the bishops] need to spend time fixing the Catholic Church.”

Deportation raids are ‘profound social crisis’, warn US bishops

Where have all the ‘illegal’ migrants to the US gone?

Stay updated — add us as a preferred news source on Google: