The late Pope Francis, who died final April on the age of 88 following an sickness, was a stalwart defender of the rights, dignity, and humanity of immigrants and refugees. A brand new joint effort by a Catholic parish and native service suppliers in southern California resides as much as these values.
The Pope Francis Heart, positioned throughout the road from Our Girl of Guadalupe Catholic Church in San Diego’s Logan Heights, “will function a welcoming and supportive area that connects immigrant people and households with our three areas of ministry: important useful resource navigation, religious and emotional accompaniment, and authorized companies,” the group’s web site mentioned. “This heart will embody Pope Francis’ imaginative and prescient of a church that’s welcoming, una iglesia en salida, a church of encounter.”
Brinkley Johnson, supervisor of the Pope Francis Heart, “has spent months listening to instantly from church members to seek out out what the best want is,” KPBS reported. “Psychological well being companies are one thing that got here up repeatedly, particularly for mixed-status households the place the youngsters is likely to be U.S. residents, however their dad and mom are undocumented.” Nationally, an estimated 4.4 million American citizen kids have not less than one undocumented mother or father, in accordance to the American Immigration Council.
And when a visit to the grocery retailer or faculty drop-off can now end in detention and household separation, requests for authorized help have additionally been a significant concern, Johnson mentioned. In coordination with Alliance San Diego, Casa Cornelia Regulation Heart, and the American Bar Affiliation’s Immigration Justice Mission, the Pope Francis Heart hopes to handle a few of these issues and assist the every day lives of immigrant neighbors who assist make up this vibrant group.
“What we need to do right here is create an area of hope and an area for welcome,” Johnson instructed KPBS. “We would not be capable to remedy all the issues — the truth is, we definitely can’t — and we aren’t in a position to cut back all of the struggling our authorities is inflicting. However we need to provide one thing that’s significant and worthwhile.”
Religion in motion continues to play out in communities all throughout the nation in latest weeks. Amid rumors that federal immigration enforcement actions might subsequent goal Haitian group members in Springfield, Ohio, locals have been organizing to guard their neighbors, The nineteenth stories.
“Church-supervised hubs to accommodate and care for kids separated from their dad and mom. Cellphone chains to activate citizen networks if federal immigration brokers are noticed locally. Volunteers to ship meals to hungry neighbors from their very own vehicles as an alternative of meals pantry vans. Coaching on what to do if brokers breach one of many church buildings planning to offer sanctuary to immigrant households,” the report mentioned. “These are simply among the preparations that residents of Springfield, Ohio, have made in latest days because the nation barrels towards the top of an immigration program that has allowed some 330,000 Haitians to legally stay and work in the US due to the rampant violence and political volatility in Haiti.”
In Maine, one other latest goal of the federal authorities’s mass deportation agenda, clergy shaped a “religious ‘protect’ exterior workplaces to guard immigrants from ICE,” Faith Information Service reported. The Rev. Jane Discipline, a Presbyterian Church minister and chief from the Maine Council of Church buildings, mentioned that round two dozen clergy members gathered every day over the previous week to kind a type of “protect” round an area enterprise that employs quite a few immigrant neighbors. Whereas they cannot intrude with immigration actions, their presence was an ethical one. Recall that when religion leaders together with San Diego Bishop Michael Pham accompanied immigrants to their court docket dates final yr, brokers “scattered.”
“The rotating band of clergy has gotten used to staring down brokers throughout what has grow to be a twice-daily ritual, she mentioned, with officers usually driving by or typically lingering within the car parking zone,” the Faith Information Service report continued. “‘ICE has been there nearly each time,’ Discipline mentioned.”
US Capitol Police arrest demonstrators, together with many clergy members with the group Religion in Motion, as they maintain a prayer protest towards funding for ICE and DHS forward of a attainable authorities shutdown on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC📸 Saul Loeb
— AFP Information Company (@en.afp.com) 2026-01-30T02:45:23.840Z
Additionally this week, a number of hundred folks of religion protested in Washington, D.C. to demand that federal lawmakers vote towards mass deportation funding. A number of of these arrested by police included clergy leaders like Unitarian Universalist Affiliation President Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt.
“I’m right here in the present day with my siblings of many religion traditions as a result of we all know that budgets are ethical paperwork,” she mentioned on the interfaith “Praying with Our Toes” occasion. “There isn’t a ethical justification for voting for a finances that can put extra assets towards the violation and dehumanization of our neighbors. As non secular leaders, we’ve an moral obligation to indicate up and say that this won’t be carried out in our title.” In her remarks, the Rev. Dr. Betancourt alluded to highly effective demonstrations of solidarity and group all throughout the nation.
“We’re faithfully following the management of those that are giving all the things they’ve to guard their neighbors,” she continued. “And we’ll do all the things in our energy to finish the desecration and to revive the soul of this nation.”
