Cardinal Robert W. McElroy sharply denounced the Trump administration’s immigration policies during a Sept. 28 Mass at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C., calling them a “comprehensive governmental assault designed to produce fear and terror.”
During his homily for the 111th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, Cardinal McElroy said this year’s celebration comes amid an “unprecedented assault upon millions of immigrant men and women and families in our midst.”
“Our first obligation as a Church is to embrace in a sustained, unwavering, prophetic and compassionate way the immigrants who are suffering so deeply because of the oppression they are facing,” he told the congregation. “Our Catholic community here in Washington has witnessed many people of deep faith, integrity, and compassion who have been swept up and deported in the crackdown which has been unleashed in our nation.”
The cardinal, who was installed as archbishop of Washington, D.C., on March 11, argued that the scope and intent of federal enforcement go far beyond legitimate border security.
“We are witnessing a comprehensive governmental assault designed to produce fear and terror among millions of men and women,” he said, adding that the campaign “seeks to make life unbearable for undocumented immigrants” by separating families and inflicting “horrific emotional suffering” on children born in the U.S.
Cardinal McElroy acknowledged the Church’s teaching that nations have the right to control their borders and deport those guilty of serious crimes, but said the current reality is “far different.”
“This campaign relies on fear and terror at its core,” he said. “Its goal is simple and unitary: to rob undocumented immigrants of any real peace in their lives so that in misery they will ‘self-deport.’”
He then turned to the Gospel’s Parable of the Good Samaritan as the proper lens for judging immigration policy.
“Today’s Gospel proposes a far different measure for determining whether ten million men and women and children and families who have lived alongside us for decades should face terror and expulsion: are they our neighbors?” he asked.
Cardinal McElroy said the parable challenges Christians to reject interpreting the law with “narrowness and myopia” and instead adopt a disposition of understanding.
The cardinal concluded by calling the Church to “console and peacefully stand in solidarity with the undocumented men and women whose lives are being upended by the government’s campaign of fear and terror.”
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