An informal organizational meeting will be held Feb. 9 for pastors at the Pastoral Center at One Peter Yorke Way in San Francisco, to build ties of hope and action between the archdiocese and parishes at a time of growing fear among immigrants.
The archdiocese is coordinating with committees of parishioners on concrete ways for both immigrants and non-immigrants to work together for a stronger community. The plan, outlined last week by the archdiocesan Office of Human Life and Dignity, calls for four areas of collective work: 1) Proclaiming hope, solidarity and expanding the circle of human concern; 2) education; 3) community response if ICE raids occur; and 4) accompaniment activities.
The first category includes “the church is with you” activities – public, faith-centered events to spread the message of hope and reassure those who are afraid, including processions and prayer walks.
Education and community response activities include workshops at key parishes on immigrant rights; parish teams trained on how to stop and fight deportations that will hurt/separate families in coalition with attorneys and community partners; education to report raids and where to get help; and training a team of U.S. citizens/allies and clergy on how to document violations, observe and report abuses during ICE home visits.
Accompaniment activities include a solidarity network of churches and institutions that can be “sanctuaries”; rapid response to raids to support families affected; interfaith dialogues to build relationships; and outreach at schools and other institutions of hope.
St. Agnes community responds
Almost 350 people showed up to St. Agnes Parish on Jan. 29 to begin training for San Francisco’s rapidly developing rapid response network, “a team of people of faith” who will serve as “moral and legal observers” during what is believed will become increasing local immigration raids. The team will report to the site of a raid to pray, film the raid with phone cameras and be a presence for the family.
The network is a project of the Faith in Action Bay Area, PICO and the Archdiocese of San Francisco in collaboration with Pangea Legal Services and California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance.
Catholic Charities affirms support for immigrants
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco affirms its commitment to serving refugees and immigrants and welcoming the stranger with love and compassion, despite executive actions taken Jan. 27 in Washington.
“The mission of Catholic Charities is strengthening families and reducing poverty and we do that by serving the most vulnerable in our communities. The church has always been a sanctuary for the poor and marginalized and we will continue to be an advocate for protecting the dignity of all,” said Jeff Bialik, Catholic Charities executive director. “Immigrants make our community stronger and more vibrant and we are saddened by the actions taken by President Trump today that target deserving families looking for safety and hope.”
California has more immigrants than any other state with 27 percent of the population being foreign born. Immigrants represent more than 30 percent of the populations of San Francisco and San Mateo counties.
Faith in Action offers training
Faith in Action is offering a series of trainings and actions to help congregations and communities in response to executive orders by President Donald Trump. In a Jan. 26 announcement, the San Carlos-based organization said its goal is “to build a rapid response network to resist deportation and discrimination.” Here is a partial list of planned events:
Feb. 12: Rapid Response Network (San Mateo countywide), 4- 6 p.m., Congregational Church of San Mateo, 225 Tilton Ave, San Mateo.
Feb. 26: Training, Know Your Rights (in Spanish), 2:30-4:30 p.m., St. Mary’s Cathedral, 1111 Gough St. San Francisco.
Feb. 28: Training, Rapid Response Network (San Francisco citywide), 6:30-8:30 p.m.
March 12: San Mateo countywide meeting, 4-6 p.m.
March 16: San Francisco clergy meeting, 12:30-2:30 p.m.
March 28: San Francisco citywide meeting, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Phone (650) 592-9181; email fiaba@faithinactionba.org.
Mercy High School, San Francisco, issues statement
Scott McLarty, head of school at Mercy High School, San Francisco, released a statement Feb. 3 on the president’s travel ban. “There are those who think that Mercy and other Catholic schools should remain neutral in the face of politics and the decisions of our government. If neutral really means ‘silent’ or ‘compliant’ this idea must be rejected outright,” the statement reads in part. “Our Catholicity and Mercy charism demand that we not be neutral in the face of injustice – it means, among many things, speaking and acting on behalf of the poor, the marginalized, the immigrant, and the refugee. Why? Because Jesus was all of those and more. How we treat the refugee is how we treat Christ himself. Whether we like it or not, there are political implications to the Gospels.”
Full story at Catholic San Francisco.
I didn’t see the word “illegal” anywhere in the statement, as in reference to “illegal immigrants”.
Illegal immigrants have no right to remain in America. They should be deported, and Catholics and Catholic institutions who obstruct the enforcement of American immigration law will make themselves enemies of the state and criminals themselves.
The statement above is a manifesto of immorality and subversion of American government and society masquerading as faith-inspired justice. The confused Catholics who support such things as detailed above don’t have the faintest idea about authentic justice.
San Francisco can fall into the ocean, for all I care.
Sawyer, your comments represent a point of view not unlike hundreds of thousands of other people. Good people can disagree on issues. But, how we say things sometimes takes away from our primary point. The use of the words “enemies of the state” are what we came to identify, and still do, with the government of Russia and the old Soviet Union, or China, or Iran, or ISIS. Americans take pride in their ability to disagree with the government without retribution.
“Catholicity and Mercy charism demand that we not be neutral in the face of injustice – it means, among many things, speaking and acting on behalf of the poor, the marginalized, the immigrant, and the refugee.”
What about the criminal immigrants who are let loose to prey on the innocent? What about the fear of citizens of terrorists?
The half truths are leading to the downfall of the United States of America and the rising of the Divided States of America.
Let’s apply Aquinas:
In I-II.19.10 he considers differing perspectives on what is good: “A judge has a good will, in willing a thief to be put to death, because this is just: while… the thief’s wife… who wishes him not to be put to death, inasmuch as killing is a natural evil, is also good…. The judge has care of the common good, which is justice, and therefore he wishes the thief’s death… the thief’s wife has to consider the private good of the family, and from this point of view she wishes her husband, the thief, not to be put to death.”
Replace “thief” with “illegal alien” and “put to death” with “deported”, and the cases are analogous.
Aquinas continues: “But a man’s will is not right in willing a particular good, unless he refer it to the common good as an end.” Therefore the more universal good is determinative in right judgment.
Applying that insight to the immigration enforcement resistance movement among Catholics in San Francisco, they are wrong to place the particular goods of illegal aliens above the common good of the nation, which consists in part in having its just immigration laws respected and enforced.
Therefore the Catholics described in the story fall short in justice and in right judgment. Their actions are neither just, nor Catholic. They are seditious anarchists who are undermining America’s national sovereignty and the rule of law.
The problem is that our tithes go to pay not just for the particular parish we attend but a portion goes back to the archdiocese whether we like it or not and therefore supports this wrongdoing. I already refuse to support the Annual Appeal for just this sort of unlawful business but they will still wring the money out of each parish.
People who sneak into this country illegally are lawbreakers, if not criminals. They mock those who obey the law and enter legally and follow the proper course. I have no quarrel with immigrants, both my parents were immigrants, but they came here legally and did not break the law. Helping someone to break the law is called conspiracy.
Federal Immigration and Nationality Act
Section 8 USC 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv)(b)(iii)
“Any person who . . . encourages or induces an alien to . . . reside . . . knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such . . . residence is . . . in violation of law, shall be punished as provided . . . for each alien in respect to whom such a violation occurs . . . fined under title 18 . . . imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.”
Section 274 felonies under the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, INA 274A(a)(1)(A):
A person (including a group of persons, business, organization, or local government) commits a federal felony when she or he:
* assists an alien s/he should reasonably know is illegally in the U.S. or who lacks…
Does this mean you don’t believe in religious liberty?
WHAT WE CAN DO AS CITIZENS REGARDING THE LAW ON THE BOOKS-
RICO — Citizen Recourse
Private persons and entities may initiate civil suits to obtain injunctions and treble damages against enterprises that conspire to or actually violate federal alien smuggling, harboring, or document fraud statutes, under the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO). The pattern of racketeering activity is defined as commission of two or more of the listed crimes. A RICO enterprise can be any individual legal entity, or a group of individuals who are not a legal entity but are associated in fact, AND CAN INCLUDE NONPROFIT ASSOCIATIONS.
Would Scott McLarty, Head of Mercy HS, defend the right of educational refugees from public schools to attend classes at Mercy without officially registering or paying tuition? I think not.
Mercy HS has a wall/fence around the property to secure it and relies on security to protect its property and students and faculty. Will Mercy tear down its fences and walls and permit everyone on its property in the interest of furthering McLarty’s flawed understanding of justice? I think not.
Why would McLarty insist the US allow things he is unwilling to allow at Mercy HS?
Mercy is also the HS with the female teacher pretending to be male, and the school is pretending she is male and forcing students to pretend she is male.
Mercy HS is…
The first step to enforcing the law should be to cut off all federal funds to the city and remove tax exempt status from any individuals or organizations participating in hiding fugitives who have violated U.S. immigration law. There is no need to have raids, their love of the almighty dollar will deter these hypocrites.
If you really want to know the story on the world mass migration of Muslims, many of them extreme or perfect soil for radicalizing by their extremist imams from Qom, Iran (Shi’a), Najaf, Iraq (Shi’a), or Wahabi sharia schools in Saudi Arabia, then one should view the constantly unreported daily violence by Islamists against others, including other Muslims in the daily briefing report from Robert Spencer at jihadwatch.org.
Spencer is a Melkite Catholic, fluent in Arabic, who has studied jihad Islam for decades and is the expert on the present world jihad. And they are winning. Our bishops, cardinals and especially the pope, is/are sleeping.
Bashar Al-Assad asserts that many of the Syrians coming into the US he knows to be terrorists:
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/02/syrias-assad-some-refugees-are-definitely-terrorists
Even more of note, Al-Assad states that his task is to safely re-settle Syrians in Syria, not in the West: so why is the West so eager to take over the 4.7 million Syrian migrants and induct them into their countries? They will never fit in.
Because Assad is an evil man who uses his own military against his own people.
Oops! Man arrives from Iraq with substantial credible evidence of planning jihad attack:
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/02/uk-man-from-hertfordshire-arrested-arriving-from-iraq-on-suspicion-of-jihad-plotting
2/10/17, UK, Gatwick airport. Soon (or already) here in SF.
Forwarding this to the 9th Kangaroo Court of Appeals. They are now in charge of your immigration system.
If you do a little research, you will find that Saint Thomas Aquinas had some interesting viewpoints regarding immigration.
Catholic bishops support mass migration of Muslims into US:
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/02/us-catholic-bishops-heedless-of-jihad-terror-risk-welcome-block-of-trump-immigration-ban