By Kate Scanlon
OSV News
WASHINGTON — A group including Catholic organizations announced Jan. 21 a new partnership — The Catholic Immigrant Prophetic Action Project — that aims to assist the Catholic Church in the U.S. in organizing a robust response on behalf of migrants and refugees in the country, including those with legal status, who are affected by mass deportation efforts.
The project — a partnership between the Hope Border Institute, a group that works to apply the perspective of Catholic social teaching in policy and practice to the U.S.-Mexico border region, and the Center for Migration Studies of New York — aims to assist the Catholic Church in the U.S. in offering a robust response on behalf of migrants and refugees through research, communications and other support. The project will directly support dioceses and archdioceses to strengthen the Catholic Church’s response to mass deportations, organizers said.
On a call announcing the partnership, Bishop Brendan J. Cahill of Victoria, Texas, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, pointed to the USCCB’s November “special pastoral message on immigration,” which voiced “our concern here for immigrants” at the bishops’ annual fall plenary assembly in Baltimore.
That statement, he said, “showed the unity of the bishops on the dignity, God-given, of every human person, and our almost unanimous desire to take that public. We oppose indiscriminate mass deportation, as the bishops are united in our statement.”
J. Kevin Appleby, senior fellow for policy at the Center for Migration Studies and the former director of migration policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the special pastoral message “really puts the wind at our backs in terms of doing this work.”
A key focus of the partnership, Appleby said, will be assisting dioceses in organizing events and communications related to migration issues.
“How can we amplify what the church is doing, both in the print media, but also in social media?” he said.
The partnership will also develop response plans in the event immigration enforcement officers come to sensitive locations like schools, hospitals or churches, he said.