Venezuelan family members talk April 2, 2019, after receiving food and other emergency support from the Consolata Missionary Sisters in Boa Vista, Brazil. Two Catholic-backed organizations opened a center in Brazil’s capital to host Venezuelan migrants relocating from the refugee centers in the Amazon region. (CNS Photo/Paul Jeffrey)
OFFICE FOR SOCIAL MINISTRY
“Migrations, more than ever before, will play a pivotal role in the future of our world.” (Pope Francis, “Fratelli Tutti”)
In celebration of the 108th World Day of Migrants and Refugees on Sept. 25, many Catholics around the world are responding to Pope Francis’ call to “welcome, protect, promote and integrate” migrants and refugees within their communities in hopes of “building a better future for all.”
Dioceses across the country have been responding in creative and innovative ways that also align with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ pastoral plan to participate in the National Eucharistic Revival. Indeed, one of the best ways to be the Body of Christ is to witness to Jesus by accompanying vulnerable persons who have been forcibly displaced by war, natural disasters, extreme poverty and human trafficking.
Recently, a diverse group of Catholic women and men ministering with migrants and refugees gathered in Milwaukee for the Catholic Immigrant Integration Initiative (CIII) Conference. The annual event brings like-minded lay and religious advocates to strengthen Catholic ministries with immigrants. This year’s event featured in-person site visits to migrant programs, plenary presentations, workshops and lessons on working with immigrants during the COVID-19 crisis; building welcoming and inclusive parishes; immigrant youth participation; rebuilding U.S. refugee and legal immigration systems; and forming leadership in Catholic institutions based on Catholic social teaching on migrants and refugees.
Bishop Mark Seitz of the Diocese of El Paso, the incoming USCCB committee chairman on migration, delivered the opening plenary session with personal stories about integration efforts at the Texas-Mexico border, as well as reflections from our Holy Father’s encyclical, “Fratelli Tutti,” which focuses on God creating everyone to be brothers and sisters all in one human family. At the heart of the encyclical is the parable of the Good Samaritan, who was an outsider — a stranger from a foreign land — who stopped to help a person in need, when others did not.
Bishop Seitz urged participants to consider sharing this type of “hospitable love” across all borders. “The pope is clear — he wants the church to be a field hospital, a place of hospitality. Our job is to take care of the wounded on the way, to walk with communities torn apart by hatred. Our place is with those who are beaten and worn down from racism and every other sin. Being the field hospital can be deeply renewing for the spiritual life personally. It can re-center the pastoral work of the church and our work for a more just society. This type of work is medicine for the soul.”
Father Daniel Groody from the University of Notre Dame spoke on the significance of the Eucharist in the context of the global refugee crisis. He recalled the pope’s first pastoral visit to the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa on July 13, 2013, when he celebrated Mass using a chalice made from the wood of a refugee raft shipwreck when 300 African migrants were lost at sea. Father Groody challenged the group to counter thoughts of indifference from those who consider migrants and refugees as “no-bodies” by recognizing them as persons like all human beings on a “journey to becoming some-bodies.”
He says the Eucharist can be an inspiring way to connect migrants and refugees to the body of Christ by calling all people together to the sacramental table, “where all are some-body, where all can be nourished to become together the body of Christ in the world.”
A migrant from Africa whose relatives and friends were among the persons drowned near Lampedusa responded to Father Groody’s presentation with a very moving story of his struggle to be integrated into American society as somebody contributing to building a better future for all.
Those gathered in Milwaukee were acutely aware of the current bussing of migrants and refugees from the border to cities such as Chicago, New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C., and the efforts of the churches in these communities to welcome, protect, promote and integrate these brothers and sisters of one human family building a future together.
For more information on the recent CIII conference, and how to be part of Christ’s Body in the world, please visit cmsny.org/event/2022-catholic-immigrant-integration-initiative-conference.
Mahalo,
Your friends from the Office for Social Ministry
