Share the Journey
Pope Francis has launched a two-year global migration awareness campaign, calling the Church around the world to show our love for our immigrant and refugee neighbors. The global Share the Journey campaign focuses in the United States on the call to Love Your Neighbor. The US Catholic Bishops want to inspire communities to learn more about our brothers and sisters and what the Church teaches about migrants and refugees. They encourage communities to share their support through social media, and to take action to promote respect for the dignity of every person. Please visit the U.S. campaign website sharejourney.org for resources and more info.
“ … The Church's teaching on immigration is very clear and is rooted first and foremost in the dignity of the human person. While it does not directly correlate to every public policy decision, it does clearly rule as out-of-bounds any kind of language that seeks to segment and separate God's people. Sadly, the language of exclusion has dominated much of our debate around this issue. What is that teaching? Well, as with all doctrine it begins with God. The story of God is the ultimate migration story, a migrant people following a migrant God. As our Jewish sisters and brothers remind us, welcoming the stranger is the most repeated theme in Scripture. God reminds the people: "You shall treat the stranger who resides with you no differently than the native born among you; you shall love the stranger as yourself; for you too were once strangers in the land of Egypt" (Leviticus 19:34). For Christians, in the ultimate migration God became man and dwelt among us. Jesus the Son is born to a family that shortly thereafter flees to Egypt under threat of King Herod. Even upon return to their homeland, they lived under occupation of a foreign power. Jesus taught welcome of the stranger as a criterion for the final judgment. Jesus, the Good News tells us, lived, died, and rose from the dead that we might have life. The Son returns to the Father, journeying back to Heaven that he might eventually bring us - his migrant people - and the whole world with him …. The Church's teaching on immigrants begins and ends with the human person and human dignity. In order to be just, whatever systems or institutions or orders or rules are adopted by nations at the very least must respect the human persons involved. The many tenets of the Catholic Church's teaching on immigration are well known. They include the right to migrate to sustain life and the life of families; the right of a country to regulate borders and control immigration for the common good; and that such regulation must be characterized by justice and mercy. There are pages upon pages of Catholic doctrine on immigration that the reader can easily access and read. Pope Francis continues in the footsteps of his predecessors and powerfully accompanies migrants. In fact, along with Catholic Relief Services and Catholic Charities USA (as stateside partners), he is launching a special campaign encouraging us to "Share the Journey" with migrant sisters and brothers (You may find teaching, as well as ways to pray and act here: loveyourneighbor.us) ….” (excerpt from Sept 2017 letter by Bishop Vann)
Let us keep our refugee brothers and sisters in our prayers.
A Moment for Grace - A Prayer for Refugees
God of our Wandering Ancestors,
Long have we known that your heart is with the refugee:
That you were born into time in a family of refugees
Fleeing violence in their homeland,
Who then gathered up their hungry child and fled into alien country.
Their cry, your cry, resounds through the ages: “Will you let me in?”
Give us hearts that break open when our brothers and sisters turn to us with that same cry.
Then surely all these things will follow:
Ears will no longer turn deaf to their voices.
Eyes will see a moment for grace instead of a threat.
Tongues will not be silenced but will instead advocate.
And hands will reach out - working for peace in their homeland,
working for justice in the lands where they seek safe haven.
Lord, protect all refugees in their travels.
May they find a friend in me and so make me worthy
Of the refuge I have found in you. Amen.
Statement on Immigration Reform by the California Catholic Conference of Bishops on May 1, 2013
The Most Rev. Gerald Wilkerson, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and president of the California Catholic Conference, released the following statement today in recognition of the historic introduction of immigration reform legislation in the US Senate and rallies taking place throughout California in support of immigration reform:
The California Catholic Conference of Bishops, in solidarity with all the bishops of the nation, applauds the introduction of U.S. Senate bipartisan legislation to reform the broken U.S. immigration system. Throughout our dioceses, as pastors called by the Good Shepherd to care for those in need, we are sharing our own immigration stories and teaching the principles found in our Catholic Social Teaching.
For many years we have advocated for comprehensive reform of the nation’s immigration laws. Our country has a right and responsibility to protect its borders, and effective immigration laws are part of that enforcement. Right now, however, the current system fails both the nation and those seeking to contribute to American society.
We believe that the necessary elements for reform ought to include:
- An earned path to full legal status, and eventual citizenship, that is reasonable and attainable;
- Provision for immigrants brought here as minors to swiftly gain legal status to continue their education and enter the workforce;
- The reduction of immigration application backlogs so that families may be united more quickly;
- A temporary worker program that is safe, workable for families, and fair to all workers, immigrants and non-immigrants, alike;
- Restoration of due process protections restored for all immigrants involved with the immigration justice system;
- Vulnerable populations protected, such as refugees and unaccompanied immigrant children; and
- A way of addressing the root causes of immigration.
The U.S. Senate proposal is welcomed. As people of faith, we are compelled to care for the least among us in loving response to Jesus who says to us: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” We look forward to meeting with legislators and working to ensure that the final bill brings immigrants out from the shadows so that all of us together can make America stronger.
Even as we join with others in carefully reviewing the 844-page bill, we will continue and expand our efforts to enlist California Catholics-and others of good will-to advocate for this much needed reform of our national immigration laws.
Migration Issues
In January each year, as we celebrate the feast of the Epiphany, we hear of the Holy Family forced to flee their homeland and go to a strange land seeking shelter, safety and support. That week is celebrated as National Migration Week; in 2012 the theme was Welcoming Christ in the Migrant. The US Catholic Bishops stated “Just as on the road to Emmaus, Christ’s disciples met him in the guise of a stranger, this year’s theme helps remind us that Christ makes himself present to each of us in the lonesome traveler, the newcomer, and the migrant. We are called to open our hearts and provide hospitality to those in need. It is our duty to create a space of welcome and acceptance to the migrant who finds himself or herself far away from home and in a vulnerable situation.” (USCCB)
Unaccompanied refugee and migrant children are among the most vulnerable people on earth. Refugee children who have lost their families through war, violence, or other causes are often forgotten when they arrive in refugee camps, alone, scared and, at times, abused and exploited. Another vulnerable population is the children traveling alone to the United States without legal status. Upon entering the country without documentation, they often are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and placed in the custody of the Federal government. The Catholic Church has tirelessly advocated on behalf of migrant children, sought legislation that would provide greater protections for this population, and worked closely to provide them with any unmet needs that they might have. Visit the US Bishops’ web page at http://www.usccb.org/about/children-and-migration/index.cfm for more information about how the Church acts on behalf of migrant and refugee children.
Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration
The U.S. bishops have taken the Gospel teachings and the teachings of the Popes and applied it to the immigration reality in the United States. In January, 2003, the U.S. bishops issued the pastoral letter, Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope. In that document, the U.S. bishops articulated the following five principles that govern how the Church responds to public policy proposals relating to immigration:
1. Persons have the right to find opportunities in their homeland.
This principle states that a person has a right not to migrate. In other words, economic, social, and political conditions in their homeland should provide an opportunity for a person to work and support his or her family in dignity and safety. In public policy terms, efforts should be made to address global economic inequities through just trade practices, economic development, and debt relief. Peacemaking efforts should be advanced to end conflict which forces persons to flee their homes.
2. Persons have the right to migrate to support themselves and their families.
When persons are unable to find work and support themselves and their families, they have a right to migrate to other countries and work. This right is not absolute, as stated by Pope John XXIII, when he said this right to emigrate applies when “there are just reasons for it.” In the current condition of the world, in which global poverty is rampant and political unrest has resulted in wars and persecution, migrants who are forced to leave their homes out of necessity and seek only to survive and support their families must be given special consideration.
3. Sovereign nations have a right to control their borders.
The Church recognizes the right of the sovereign to protect and control its borders in the service of the common good of its citizens. However, this is not an absolute right. Nations also have an obligation to the universal common good, as articulated by Pope John XXIII in Pacem in Terris, and thus should seek to accommodate migration to the greatest extent possible. Powerful economic nations, such as the United States, have a higher obligation to serve the universal common good, according to Catholic social teachings. In the current global economic environment, in which labor demands in the United Sates attract foreign laborers, the United States should establish an immigration system that provides legal avenues for persons to enter the nation legally in a safe, orderly, and dignified manner to obtain jobs and reunite with family members.
4. Refugees and asylum seekers should be afforded protection.
Persons who flee their home countries because they fear persecution should be afforded safe haven and protection in another country. Conflict and political unrest in many parts of the world force persons to leave their homes for fear of death or harm. The United States should employ a refugee and asylum system that protects asylum seekers, refugees, and other forced migrants and offers them a haven from persecution.
5. The human rights and the human dignity of undocumented migrants should be respected.
Persons who enter a nation without proper authorization or who over-stay their visas should be treated with respect and dignity. They should not be detained in deplorable conditions for lengthy periods of time, shackled by their feet and hands, or abused in any manner. They should be afforded due process of the law and, if applicable, allowed to articulate a fear of return to their home before a qualified adjudicator. They should not be blamed for the social ills of a nation.
(From USCCB “Justice for Immigrants”)
Immigration’s Future: Human Dignity Not Up for Debate
(4/27/12 from Catholic Legislative Network)
Writing in the Washington Post, Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles pointed to the important values that have shaped U.S. immigration policy for decades. On that day, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on the controversial Arizona immigration law. Much of the debate focused on how much freedom states have in enforcing immigration policies. “[T]he federal government is in the best position to balance competing goals of enforcing of immigration laws while upholding long-held American values such as family unity and human dignity,” wrote the Archbishop. “These values help define America as a nation. They should not be taken for granted. “In recent years, we have witnessed an alarming rise in the number of undocumented parents being seized and forcibly removed and separated from their U.S.-citizen children. Arizona-type laws will only increase the circumstances of a child waiting at home for a parent or parents to care for them, only to never have them arrive,” pointed out Archbishop Gomez.