From January 5-11, 2020 (last week) the Church in the United States celebrated National Migration Week. The theme for this year’s celebration was “Promoting a Church and a World for All.” This reflects the need for Catholics to be inclusive and welcoming to all our brothers and sisters. It is a call for unity to stand in solidarity with and care for those who are excluded and marginalized.
It is with this ideal in mind—that we call for a church that welcomes, protects, promotes, and integrates all, including immigrants and refugees. These four verbs have been used by Pope Francis to frame our obligations toward migrant populations. As he expressed in his 2018 World Day of Migrants and Refugees message:
Welcoming means, above all, “offering broader options for migrants and refugees to enter destination countries safely and legally.” We must nurture societies that aim as much as possible to include, rather than exclude. A culture of encounter that emphasizes humanity and inherent dignity best counters anti-immigration sentiment and welcoming is a vital step in that journey.
Protecting migrants “may be understood as a series of steps intended to defend the rights and dignity of migrants, independent of their legal status.” The Catholic Church has long emphasized the importance of protecting the human dignity of migrants, both through the implementation of humane policies and through their accompaniment.
Promoting essentially means a “ determined effort to ensure that all migrants and refugees—as well as communities that would welcome them—are empowered to achieve their potential as human beings, in all the dimensions which constitute their humanity.” Of importance here is our obligation to institute practices and policies that will promote and preserve the integrity of the family, reaffirm family reunification, and make allowances for family members to work following their arrival to new destination countries.
Integrating emphasizes the “opportunities for intercultural enrichment brought about by the presence of migrants and refugees.” Although the initial act of welcoming migrants is an important step, it is imperative that we go further and take the necessary steps that will help them to become active, participating members of our communities.
We have taken to heart here all four of these principles of Pope Francis to frame our obligations toward migrant populations. In a recent Flocknote I highlighted the efforts of our parish to help four refugee families through our Pax Christi ministry. These families, whose homelands include Syria and the Central African Republic, have fled their homelands because of civil strife and unsafe environments.
Since 2017 through the Montgomery County Interfaith Resettlement Neighbor organization, members of St. Francis and St. Rose of Lima Parish, other churches and a synagogue have helped these young families adjust to their new lives by providing emotional, social, educational, medical, and financial support. Last year they paid dental costs for adult family members, supplemented rent payments, paid utility costs, helped purchase back-to-school supplies for 300 refugee and needy children in Hyattsville and covered the cost of missing work when one breadwinner had necessary surgery. They continue to need the help of new volunteers with providing transportation, tutoring in English and school work, identifying housing, assisting with medical needs, helping with budgeting, legal documentation support, and other emergency support.
I am very proud of this work of dedicated members of our parish. But even with that I hope that we could take some time during this month to reflect on how we can better welcome, protect, promote, and integrate migrants living in our midst. What policies can we promote that will affirm the dignity of migrants and better secure the common good? How do we work more fully to promote a Church for all?