The US Catholic bishops have released a special pastoral message on immigration that expresses their collective solidarity with immigrants amid the Trump administration’s aggressive enforcement tactics. Source: National Catholic Reporter.
In their 618-word statement, the bishops, meeting in their plenary session, said they are “disturbed” to see a climate of fear and anxiety pertaining to questions of racial profiling and immigration enforcement. The prelates added that they are “saddened” by the state of the contemporary immigration debate and the vilification of immigrants.
“We are concerned about the conditions in detention centres and the lack of access to pastoral care,” the bishops said. “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.”
Praising the “generations of immigrants” who have made “enormous contributions to the well-being of our nation,” the US bishops said they felt compelled to raise their voices in defence of God-given human dignity. The bishops called for comprehensive immigration reform and said they recognised the right of nations to regulate their borders to protect the common good.
“Human dignity and national security are not in conflict. Both are possible if people of good will work together,” the bishops said.
According to the bishops’ conference’s public affairs office, the statement marked the first time in 12 years that the conference invoked the “particularly urgent way of speaking as a body of bishops”. The conference last issued such a statement in 2013 in response to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate.
The bishops also unanimously approved amendments to the immigration statement to stipulate that the conference opposes the “indiscriminate deportation” of people without due process.
Meanwhile, in their public session, the bishops also approved the revised text of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, in which Catholic health care institutions are instructed not to perform any medical interventions “that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex”.
FULL STORY
US bishops show solidarity with immigrants, approve Catholic health care directives banning gender-affirming care (By Brian Fraga, National Catholic Reporter)
RELATED COVERAGE
U.S. Bishops Issue a “Special Message” on Immigration from Plenary Assembly in Baltimore (USCCB)
Catholic Bishops Rebuke U.S. ‘Mass Deportation’ of Immigrants (New York Times)
Catholic bishops condemn ‘indiscriminate mass deportation’ in rare statement (Washington Post)
