N.B. I will not ordinarilly post my letters to the parish I serve because they are focused on local matters. However, I think this letter addresses an issue of broader importance.
This week our parish was shaken. ICE came into our community and people were taken away. Fear was left behind. Many of our parishioners are now afraid to go to work, to go to the store, and even to come to mass. Attendance at mass in Spanish dropped. Our trained liturgical ministers were absent. When civil enforcement creates fear that keeps the faithful from the Eucharist and prevents ministers from serving at the altar, it injures the worship owed to God. We must face this as Christians before anything else.
With three great feasts and the new encyclical of our Holy Father, the Church is calling us to communion. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit undoes the pride and division of Babel. The Church is empowered to speak every language so that all nations may profess the one faith. On Trinity Sunday, we contemplate God himself as a loving communion of Persons, and we remember that every human being bears his image. On Corpus Christi, we adore the Body and Blood of Christ, who makes us one body and feeds us so that this unity may become visible in daily life. In Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV teaches that human dignity precedes wealth, usefulness, position, and choices, and that the treatment of migrants is a test of social justice.
Our communion has been wounded. Some of our brothers and sisters are suffering quietly. Some are afraid to answer the door. Some children do not know whether a parent will return home. Some parishioners wonder whether the Church sees them, loves them, and will stand with them. Our answer must be clear: we see you, we love you, and you are not alone.
Catholic teaching acknowledges the responsibility of nations to establish borders, protect those borders, and regulate immigration for the common good. That responsibility, however, must be exercised under God and in obedience to his moral law. The goods of this world were given by our Creator for the good of all. We are stewards of what God has entrusted to us, and we will answer to him for how we treated the poor, the stranger, the worker, the family, and the frightened.
Let me speak plainly. The support, promotion, or enforcement of policies or laws that permit or require the indiscriminate arrest and deportation of human persons violates the natural law and offends God. Enforcement, when it occurs, must be targeted, proportionate, humane, respectful of families, attentive to due process, and careful not to hinder pastoral care or the worship of God. No one may be treated as disposable because he lacks proper documentation. No child should have to wonder whether going to church places his family in danger.
Jesus Christ died for all and offers salvation to all. That is our highest concern. Economics, politics, and personal preferences cannot become our gods. We must not sacrifice the many for the comfort of the few. We must show every person the love of God and offer every person Jesus Christ.
So I ask you to get to know your neighbors. Learn their names. Listen to their stories with patience and charity. Refuse dehumanizing speech. Correct falsehoods. Help families who are afraid. Pray with them. Speak up for them. At the judgment, the Lord will not ask whether we avoided controversy. He will say, “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”
Pastor
St. Alphonsus Catholic Church