Cardinal Robert McElroy, who is getting ready to take over as archbishop of Washington, D.C. in March, called for compassion and dignity for migrants Thursday.
Speaking at a news conference at the Diocese of San Diego, where he has served as bishop for over a decade, McElroy acknowledged that he will head the Catholic Church in the nation's capital as the country grapples with what it means to be a compassionate society.
The removal of immunity for houses of worship from immigration enforcement is particularly problematic, and a "deep moral question," he said, evoking the role of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Trump administration's crackdown.
“When these places become targets of ICE raids, it strikes fear in everyone's hearts, and it acts as a deterrent to people going to church and freely worshipping or going to schools,” he said. “That's why it's so deadly.”
The Trump administration order giving immigration agents more leeway to make arrests at churches is a “wider cultural attack on all those who are undocumented,” many of whom are fleeing persecution, violence or terrible economic conditions, McElroy said.
“A nation needs to secure its borders and a strong immigration policy, but what we're seeing is an effort to classify all of these people as criminals,” he said. “That casts them as the other or not having the same dignity.”
McElroy has previously stated that Trump’s threats of mass deportations of immigrants are “incompatible with Catholic doctrine.”
Yet he said his role as archbishop of Washington will not be political, but pastoral. McElroy, 70, replaces the retiring Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who steps down after having navigated the archdiocese through the fallout of the 2018 escalation of the clergy sexual abuse crisis.
The diverse Catholic community in Washington is one-third Hispanic, largely people from Central America, McElroy said, adding that he is looking forward to visiting parishes and getting to know the priests and the people.
"An additional pastoral challenge is that many federal workers are losing their jobs, and they are members of our community, too," he said.
The church's role is not to solve political or policy issues, but it does have “a moral role to comment on policies and directions in society in light of the Gospel and Catholic teaching," he said.
McElroy's appointment as archbishop came in January. He is considered one of Pope Francis' most progressively like-minded allies. McElroy said Thursday that Francis has broached the topic of the border in nearly every conversation they had.
“He has a knowledge of the vibrancy of the church here (in San Diego),” he said. “The border and the situation of the migrants is and has always been a great concern for him.”
McElroy said he is praying that Francis, hospitalized in Rome with double pneumonia, has a few more years to press on with his vision for the church. He described Francis as "a man of joy and a man of deep prayer" who works tirelessly and does so with a sense of humor.
“He is a man who listens and truly engages with other people and believes that others have something to teach him,” McElroy said.
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