Immigration and the Church

For readers who want to go behind the rhetoric from either the right or the left to the nuts and bolts of the immigration reform issue, link to the columns of Mary Sanchez in the Kansas City Star. www.kansascity.com/opinion/mary_sanchez/.

Sanchez, a veteran reporter and fact-based columnist, neatly identifies the divide in the State of Kansas between the anti-immigrant agenda of Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who played a significant role in the drafting of Arizona SB1070, and the pragmatist politics of Governor Sam Brownback.

In continuing with the push for more discussions on immigration, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and The Catholic University of America will host an immigration conference, “The Catholic Church and Immigration: Pastoral, Policy and Social Perspectives,” at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. on March 21.

NEW YORK -- Thursday evening, Daniela Alulema looked out into the pews of the Church of the Holy Family and asked everyone gathered for a Woodstock Theological Center forum on migration to think back to when they were 14 years old.

“Now think about what would happen if, all of a sudden, your parents told you tomorrow you were leaving -- ‘We’re going to start a new life,’” she said. “That’s what happened to me when I was 14 years old.”

LOS ANGELES -- In speeches the same day, Los Angeles' cardinal and its coadjutor archbishop talked about immigration in the United States, with one calling some of the rhetoric about the issue "not worthy of the Gospel," and the other saying the current system "is an immoral system that thrives upon the weakness and suffering of those without a voice."