For several years now the Catholic bishops of the United States have called for passage of comprehensive immigration reform. It is anticipated that immigration reform will be considered in 2010.
With that in mind, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) held a teleconference to promote its immigration efforts including a new Justice for Immigrants revamped Web site at www. justiceforimmigrants.org and a national postcard campaign to Congress.
According to David Lopez, Ph.D., diocesan executive director of faith formation, all four Iowa dioceses have opted to participate in the postcard campaign.
“This kind of issue is an opportunity to demonstrate or witness the love to which Christ calls us,” he said. “Immigration reform is both a national and a local issue, and so our diocese, cooperating with the whole church, needs to be involved in order to support, teach, and lead our people. But also, precisely because our diocese is not one of the large urban dioceses, how we deal with this issue here will have an effect out of proportion to our numbers.”
Lopez pointed out that the Catholic Church hopes to do three things with immigration reform. First, she hopes to point out the concrete ways in which the current immigration policy fails to respect the dignity of persons, both as individuals and in terms of the natural right of families to remain together. Second, she hopes to articulate, at the level of vision or concept, what kinds of policy changes or goals would protect that human dignity. Third, she hopes to form more deeply the conscience of people and government leaders, so that they will better protect that dignity as they work to change immigration policy in the near future.
The postcards ask members of Congress to support the bishops’ policy vision: immigration reform that respects the dignity of the human person, especially by keeping families together, by more “smart and humane” enforcement of laws, and by creating a possible path to citizenship or legal residence for all immigrants.
Parishes will distribute the postcards on either or both of the last two Sundays in January – Jan. 24 and Jan. 31 - either in the pews, or on a table in the gathering area, or something similar. Parishioners will be asked to sign the postcards, which will be collected and returned to the Chancery for delivery to the USCCB. USCCB officials will deliver postcards from the four dioceses of Iowa to congressional representatives in the House and Senate, en masse for greatest impact. Parishioners may also mail the postcards directly to Congress, if they choose.
The commitment of the small rural dioceses, like those in Iowa, to follow thoroughly and consistently Christ’s unchanging teaching on love for neighbor, even on what may be a politically unpopular issue, he said makes that love much more real and compelling.
“How we love our neighbor, and who we judge our neighbor to be, is still as thorny an issue today, as it was when Jesus recounted the parable of the Good Samaritan,” Lopez said. “But that parable is relevant, because immigration is a ‘life issue:’ how we treat those who hope to share the fruits of American liberty touches directly on everyone’s – both their and our – God-given personal dignity. The Church always has the natural right and divine duty to teach the Gospel, and to apply the Gospel to issues of the day.”
It is believed that in order to support the common good, immigration policy must respect human dignity. Lopez posed this question: Can we treat immigrants as our neighbor, and accord to them the dignity and justice which God loves?
And while Catholic leaders are hopeful that Congress is ripe to consider immigration reform, Lopez said the Catholic Church always believes that the time is right to pursue Christ’s mandate of a more just society. For a generation, in her social teaching, she has been calling attention to how immigration policy may fail adequately to respect personal dignity.
“Right now, there seems to be a broad recognition of the insufficiencies of our current immigration policy, and a growing willingness to address them,” Lopez said. “This is being driven, I think, by the increasingly evident challenges to local communities to deal with the results of those insufficiencies, and who are therefore demanding that state and federal governments enact more just and reasonable policy.”
He added that many people expect the issue to surface at the federal level this year, whether the church is involved or not.
“When the church teaches about the meaning of the Gospel in political issues, she is often accused of being partisan or divisive. It’s worth noting explicitly, then, that the position of the Catholic Church on immigration reform is not a ‘partisan’ position, and it does not coincide with or wholly support the position of either major party,” Lopez stressed. “It is based entirely on the inherent dignity of the human person, and on protecting all the rights and duties which derive from that divine gift, for both citizens and non-citizens.”
He pointed out that the Catholic Church seeks neither an amnesty without just recompense for past violations of law, nor deportation of all those who have entered this country illegally. The church recognizes many motives for immigration, not merely the economic lure of a better job, and the positive contributions to society, not only to the economy, that immigrants have always, on the whole, made.
“The positive result of the church’s involvement in this issue is not a political victory for some group over some other group, but Christ-like justice, which benefits all of us,” Lopez said.