Cardinal Robert Mcelroy, Archbishop of Washington, pronounced on Sunday a homily urging Catholics to “host in a sustained, unwavering, prophetic and compassionate manner” to migrants in the United States, during a Mass for the 11th World Day of Migrant and Refugee.
“During the last 110 years, Mass has been held throughout our country to honor and support immigrants and refugees who have reached our nation as part of that current of men and women of all lands that have built the United States as a great nation,” Mcelroy said in his homily In the Cathedral of San Mateo Apostle, in the northwest of Washington, DC, on September 28.
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“But this year is different from the 110 years that have preceded him,” he said, “because this year we are facing – both as a nation as a church – an unprecedented attack against millions of immigrant men and women and families in the middle of us.”
Mcelroy described the Trump administration approach to immigration as “an integral campaign to uproot millions of families” that “is based on fear and terror in its nucleus.” The objective of the Trump administration, he said, “is simple and unit: stealing undocumented immigrants any true peace in their lives, so that in their misery ‘self-support’.”
When addressing the affirmation of the administration that all migrants who enter without documents to the country must be removed, Mcelroy argued that the Gospel “proposes a very different measure”, namely that migrants are “our bosses.”
When referring to the parable of the good Samaritan, Mcelroy argued that “the most striking element” in history was “that the Samaritan was willing to reject the norms of society that said that, because of its birth and status, he had no obligation with the victim, who was a Jew.”
“The penetrating understanding and glory of the Samaritan was that he rejected the narrowness and myopia of the law to understand that the victim to whom he passed by was truly his neighbor and that both God and moral law forced him to treat him as neighbor,” he said.
Mcelroy referred to the Catholic community in Washington, DC, who, he said, has witnessed many faith migrants who “have been arrested and deported in the offensive that has been unleashed in our nation.”
“We are witnessing a comprehensive government attack designed to produce fear and terror among millions of men and women who, through their presence in our nation, have been nourishing precisely religious, cultural, community and family ties that are more worn and that are more valuable at this time in the history of our country,” said Mcelroy.
Mcelroy pointed out that the Catholic social doctrine categorizes border security and deportation of criminals convicted of “serious crimes” as legitimate national objectives.
However, he added, “sometimes, our government states that these objectives constitute the essence and scope of their efforts to apply immigration laws, and if that were true, Catholic teaching would not present any objection.”
Ultimately, the Cardinal called Catholics to “form our position and action as a people of faith”, to “solidarity with undocumented men and women whose lives are being disrupted by the fear and terror campaign of the government.”
Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in CNA.
Low Elhabbal
Madalaine Elhabbal is a CNA journalist based in the Washington DC office in EWTN. He has published articles in Catholicvote and has also worked as a foreign language assistant in France. She is a graduate of Benedictine College.