I was in Rome in March for the conference of the International Catholic Migration Commission held every four years. These were church leaders committed to the mission of responding to what Pope Francis called “the inhumane living conditions experienced by millions of our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters in various parts of the world.”[1] The Pope reminded us of the four verbs that should characterize the Church’s pastoral response in the face of contemporary migration: welcome, defend, promote, and integrate.[2]
One can parse out these four words and their specific requirements in the teaching of our Church at great length and with great profit. However, to take them to heart in our national political context, we should reflect on two things Pope Francis said to our gathering about God’s reaction in the book of Exodus to Israel’s enslavement in Egypt. Francis said, first: “The Lord hears their cry and sees their suffering” [Ex. 3:7]. We owe a debt of gratitude to those in ministry to immigrants and refugees and to our news media for bringing us the often painful pictures and stories of families torn apart on our borders and elsewhere by brutal political policies. These families put flesh and sinew on what can seem to be abstract historical and economic bones about “push factors” that drive parents with children and even children alone to flee war, gang brutality, and grinding poverty in their home countries.
These families invite us, as did Exodus, to hear their cries and see their suffering instead of succumbing to the worst forms of immigrant bashing, racism, and frankly blatant lies about people seeking biblical hospitality and home in a nation once distinguished worldwide as welcoming “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”
What are we to do, we ask? Pope Francis takes us back to the man chosen to lead his people from poverty and slavery to freedom—Moses. In doing this, Francis gives us our second set of directions in these words: “The Lord sent Moses into the midst of his oppressed people, to dry their tears and restore their hope” [Ex. 3:16-17]. Drying tears is the first step in our response. This means tending to the wounds of those brutalized by our draconian family-separation policies and denied the basics of longstanding international law: the right to apply for asylum and be heard.
Exodus and Pope Francis also call us to be messengers of hope. This is a call to solidarity. Solidarity, as Saint Pope John Paul II explained, is “not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far.” Rather, John Paul wrote, it is “a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good…”[3] That common good calls us to put our time, treasures, and talents on the line for those who cannot defend or represent themselves adequately in detention centers or jails, before immigration tribunals, around the family table, or in the forum of public opinion.
[1] Pope Francis. (March 8, 2018). Address to the Members of the Plenary Council of the International Catholic Migration Commission.
[2] Pope Francis. (August 15, 2017). Message for the 2018 World Day of Migrants and Refugees.
[3] Saint Pope John Paul II. (1989). The Social Concerns of the Church. 38.
[2] Pope Francis. (August 15, 2017). Message for the 2018 World Day of Migrants and Refugees.
[3] Saint Pope John Paul II. (1989). The Social Concerns of the Church. 38.