An Archbishop’s View on Immigration and Social Justice

A high authority in the Catholic Church in Los Angeles, where he is a well-known outspoken activist on immigration, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, visited DePaul University for a day during Fall term 2012. He had been invited for activities in commemoration of Hispanic Heritage Month. He delivered the fourth annual Archbishop Oscar Romero Latino Breakfast Speech, organized by the Center for Intercultural Programs in the Student Center, and then spent the day traveling between the University’s two campuses in the Loop and Lincoln Park, to participate in conversation groups and panels.

Now retired from the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Mahony has stated that his new vocation will be to advocate full-time for the cause of undocumented immigrants, and to initiatives toward their legal residency status.

The DePaul Breakfast was attended by more than a hundred faculty, staff and students. Mahony’s words tiptoed between poetry and politics, as he peppered his talk with immigration figures, citations from Oscar Romero’s historic sermons (with pauses to add his own social commentary), and his views on the Catholic Church’s urgent need to help marginalized immigrant groups. He encouraged the group to understand that, “we cannot do everything, but it (the Church) compels us to do something.” As he recited the eloquent words of the martyred Salvadoran archbishop, the clinking silverware remained silent and inspired eyes clung to his every word.

Linking the struggle for social justice in 1980s El Salvador to that of the extensive population in the U.S. called “illegal,” Mahony drew from observations during his many years of social service in Los Angeles. The Archbishop Emeritus made it clear that the Church, its educational institutions, and everyone in this country, stand to gain from comprehensive immigration reform. He proclaimed the issue of immigrant rights “the Civil Rights issue” of this generation.

After the breakfast, he attended a brief Catholic mass in the St. Louise de Marillac campus chapel. In the afternoon, he commuted to the Loop campus to address a group from the DePaul Law School. In his talk titled, For I was a Stranger and You Welcomed Me, he applied Biblical foundations, Catholic Church and Catholic higher education principles to the need for immigration reform, supplementing these with a historical review of immigrant arrivals to the U.S. He then concluded with five key elements to arrive at a solution for legalizing those in residence. First, facts must be separated from myths by understanding the history of immigrants in the U.S.; second, there needs to be a personal connection with immigrant families to understand their stories; third, immigrants and their children must be humanized; fourth, the immigrant activist community must shift the emphasis toward the future, to work toward the fifth and final element: working for, and urging, immigration policy reform at the federal level.

As Mahony put it, “people want to stay home,” thus efforts by home countries must become part of the larger solution. He stated that people often have and should be able to migrate to provide a better life for their families, echoing the stance taken by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, “that migration should be driven by choice not necessity.”¹ The Cardinal conceded that “nations have the right to protect their borders,” but that it should be done in a measured and succinct manner with greater concentration on actual threats to national security. He stressed the need for a practice of providing asylum for refugees, reiterating the importance of recognizing the human rights and dignity of populations: to bring focus to “reuniting families, not separating them.”

His address met some skepticism in the room of future litigators. One unconvinced student expressed a lack of faith in the ability of politicians to solve this issue, stating that, “politicians nowadays only care about getting reelected. They never listen to the people.” Mahony responded with various examples in which social justice advocacy brought changes to government policy. As the event concluded, the question-and-answer portion quickly turned into a heated debate among audience members, which was made up of current and past DePaul Law School...