‘We need time,’ Synod on Synodality organizers tell German-language media

Pope Francis celebrates Mass in Gyumri, Armenia, June 25, 2016. / L’Osservatore Romano/CNA

Vatican City, Dec 10, 2022 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Pope Francis told seminarians on Saturday that praying the rosary can “unveil the mysteries of the priesthood” in its moments of joy, sorrow, and the glory to come.

In a meeting with seminarians from Barcelona, the pope urged the young men to remember that “when you are a priest your first obligation will be a life of prayer.”

“Dear seminarians, take up your rosary and ask Mary, Queen and Mother of Mercy, to help unveil the mysteries of the priesthood to which God calls you, contemplating the mysteries of his Son, realizing that the joy of discipleship and perfect identification with the cross are the only way to glory,” Pope Francis said on Dec. 10.

The pope explained that the joyful mysteries of the priesthood are “born of gratitude for that preferential love that God showed you by calling you to his service.”

He recommended that seminarians contemplate the Blessed Virgin Mary’s attitude at the Annunciation and ask: “How was she when God called her? And how was I? With what zeal do I consider my future priestly life? Will I rise up … with love, to bring God to the world? Will I take him up the most arduous and painful of mountains?”

Pope Francis added that the fifth joyful mystery of the rosary, the finding of Jesus in the temple, contains a particular lesson that should never be forgotten.

Throughout life, we must always return to look for Jesus in the tabernacle, he said, encouraging the future priests to “lose yourselves there with Him.”

In the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary, a priest is reminded that he “must aspire to a crown of thorns,” to be identified with the Lord in his suffering, the pope said.

“There is the sacrifice of assuming one’s own cross and beginning a path, often of abandonment. It is the sacrifice of life. Looking at the cross we raise our eyes to heaven and see our destiny,” Pope Francis said.

For a priest, the glorious mysteries are found in the Mass in thanksgiving for the Passion of Jesus, he explained.

“After the triumph of the resurrection, Jesus entered the sanctuary of heaven and from there he perpetuates this continuous thanksgiving. Seeing him seated at the right hand of the Father calls us to hope and fills us with joy because he assures us of heaven,” he said.

“For this God sends the Holy Spirit, the only one who can teach us these mysteries, and one day he will give you the gift of being priests of Christ. Never cease to savor and remember this love of predilection that is poured and will be poured abundantly into your heart, at your ordination, and for the rest of your days.”

“Never extinguish this fire that will make you fearless preachers of the Gospel, dispensers of divine gifts. Unite your flesh to that of Jesus, like Mary, to immolate yourselves with him in the Eucharistic sacrifice, and also in the glory of his triumph,” Pope Francis said.

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Bishop Xavier Novell Gomà, Bishop Emeritus of Solsona. / Conferencia Episcopal Española via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Solsona, Spain, Dec 13, 2021 / 18:19 pm (CNA).
The apostolic administrator of Solsona announced Saturday that the diocese’s former… […]

Dainelys Soto, Genesis Contreras, and Daniel Soto, who arrived from Venezuela after crossing the U.S. border from Mexico, wait for dinner at a hotel provided by the Annunciation House on Sept. 22, 2022 in El Paso, Texas. / Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

CNA Staff, Sep 9, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Long a champion of immigrants, particularly those fleeing war-torn countries and impoverished regions, Pope Francis last month delivered some of the clearest words in his papacy yet in support of migrants — and in rebuke of those who turn away from them. 

“It must be said clearly: There are those who work systematically and with every means possible to repel migrants,” the pope said during a weekly Angelus address. “And this, when done with awareness and responsibility, is a grave sin.”

“In the time of satellites and drones, there are migrant men, women, and children that no one must see,” the pope said. “They hide them. Only God sees them and hears their cry. This is a cruelty of our civilization.”

The pope has regularly spoken out in favor of immigrants. In June he called on the faithful to “unite in prayer for all those who have had to leave their land in search of dignified living conditions.” The Holy Father has called the protection of migrants a “moral imperative.” He has argued that migrants “[must] be received” and dealt with humanely.

The Catholic Church has long been an advocate and protector of immigrants. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) notes on its website that “a rich body of Church teaching, including papal encyclicals, bishops’ statements, and pastoral letters, has consistently reinforced our moral obligation to treat the stranger as we would treat Christ himself.” 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that prosperous nations “are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin.”

Popes throughout the years, meanwhile, have expressed sentiments on immigration similar to Francis’. Pope Pius XII in 1952, for instance, described the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt as “the archetype of every refugee family.”

The Church, Pius XII said, “has been especially careful to provide all possible spiritual care for pilgrims, aliens, exiles, and migrants of every kind.” 

Meanwhile, “devout associations” throughout the centuries have spearheaded “innumerable hospices and hospitals” in part for immigrants, Pius XII said. 

Implications and applications of Church teaching

Chad Pecknold, an associate professor of systematic theology at The Catholic University of America, noted that the catechism “teaches that nations have the right to borders and self-definition, so there is no sense in which Catholic teaching supports the progressive goal of ‘open borders.’”

“There is a ‘duty of care’ which is owed to those fleeing from danger,” he told CNA, “but citizenship is not owed to anyone who can make it across a national border, and illegal entry or asylum cannot be taken as a debt of citizenship.”

Paul Hunker, an immigration attorney who previously served as chief counsel of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Dallas, agreed. 

“States have to have responsibility for their own communities, they have to look out for them,” he told CNA. “So immigration can be regulated so as to not harm the common good.”

Still, Hunker noted, Catholic advocates are not wrong in responding to immigration crises — like the ongoing irregular influx through the U.S. southern border — with aid and assistance.

Many Catholic organizations offer shelter, food, and legal assistance to men, women, and children who cross into the country illegally; such groups have been overwhelmed in recent years with the crush of arriving migrants at the country’s southern border.

“It’s the responsibility of the federal government to take care of the border,” he said. “When the government has created a crisis at the U.S. border, Catholic dioceses are going to want to help people.”

“I completely support what the Catholic organizations are doing in Mexico and the United States to assist people who are there,” Hunker said. “The people responding are not responsible for these crises.”

Latest crisis and legal challenge

Not everyone feels similarly. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation of multiple Catholic nonprofits that serve illegal immigrants in the state. Paxton alleges that through the services it provides to migrants, El Paso-based Annunciation House has been facilitating illegal immigration and human trafficking.

A lawyer for the group called the allegations “utter nonsense,” though attorney Jerome Wesevich acknowledged that the nonprofit “serves undocumented persons as an expression of the Catholic faith and Jesus’ command to love one another, no exceptions.”

There are considerable numbers of Church teachings that underscore the need for a charitable response to immigrants. In his 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris, Pope John XXIII argued that man “has the right to freedom of movement and of residence within the confines of his own state,” and further that “when there are just reasons in favor of it, he must be permitted to emigrate to other countries and take up residence there.”

In the encyclical Caritas in Veritate, meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 acknowledged that migration poses “dramatic challenges” for nations but that migrants “cannot be considered as a commodity or a mere workforce.” 

“Every migrant is a human person who, as such, possesses fundamental, inalienable rights that must be respected by everyone and in every circumstance,” the late pope wrote. 

Edward Feser, a professor of philosophy at Pasadena City College in California, noted that the Church “teaches that nations should be welcoming to immigrants, that they should be sensitive to the hardships that lead them to emigrate, that they ought not to scapegoat them for domestic problems, and so on.”

Catholic teaching does not advocate an ‘open borders’ policy

Yet Catholic teaching does not advocate an “open borders” policy, Feser said. He emphasized that the catechism says countries should accept immigrants “to the extent they are able,” and further that countries “may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions.”

There “is nothing per se in conflict with Catholic teaching when citizens and politicians call on the federal government to enforce its immigration laws,” Feser said. “On the contrary, the catechism backs them up on this.”

In addition, it is “perfectly legitimate,” Feser argued, for governments to consider both economic and cultural concerns when setting immigration policy. It is also “legitimate to deport those who enter a country illegally,” he said.

Still, he acknowledged, a country can issue exceptions to valid immigration laws when the moral situation demands it.

“Of course, there can be individual cases where a nation should forgo its right to deport those who enter it illegally, and cases where the manner in which deportations occur is associated with moral hazards, such as when doing so would break up families or return an immigrant to dangerous conditions back in his home country,” he said.

“Governments should take account of this when formulating and enforcing policy,” he said.  

The tension between responding charitably to immigrants and ensuring a secure border was perhaps put most succinctly in 1986 by the late Father Theodore Hesburgh, who served as chairman of the U.S. Select Commission for Immigration and Refugee Policy that was created by the U.S. Congress in the early 1980s.

Writing several years after the commission, Hesburgh explained: “It is not enough to sympathize with the aspirations and plight of illegal aliens. We must also consider the consequences of not controlling our borders.” 

“What about the aspirations of Americans who must compete for jobs and whose wages and work standards are depressed by the presence of large numbers of illegal aliens?” the legendary late president of the University of Notre Dame reflected. “What about aliens who are victimized by unscrupulous employers and who die in the desert at the hands of smugglers?”

“The nation needn’t wait until we are faced with a choice between immigration chaos and closing the borders,” Hesburgh stated nearly 40 years ago.

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