U.S. bishops visit with migrant kids

Fact-finding mission began with Mass for separated families

Some of the United States’ most prominent Catholic bishops will make a dramatic pastoral visit Monday, when they will minister at a detention center on the U.S.Texas border to migrant children separated from their parents.

The unusual high-profile visit by the top spiritual leaders aims to draw attention to unresolved questions around immigration and around the treatment of migrants. Yet there will be no cameras when the clerics pray with the separated children, no audiotapes.

That’s because the bishops, who arrived for the two-day fact-finding mission Sunday, are walking a fine line among their divided flock on the topic of immigration. American Catholics, like Americans overall, are divided about immigration policy. And 2018 is a time when Americans’ deference to institutional leaders of any stripe is already thin.

Which means bishops of the Roman Catholic Church who want to affect policy are being cautious. Telling immigration reform activists not to carry signs. Don’t use the word “protest.” And when you come to the border to make a point, do it primarily through prayer.

On Sunday, when the fact-finding mission began, that meant Mass in the San Juan Basilica, where the service is celebrated with the accompaniment of a 12-piece mariachi band. But behind the celebratory music was powerful symbolism: The shrine is renowned as a pilgrimage site for migrants. The worship was dedicated to migrant children separated from their families.

“As a church, we have to be the ones who say ‘there’s always a human face, and the human face always points to Christ in whatever suffering there is.’ If we don’t stand up and say this, who is going say it?”, said Bishop Daniel Flores, of the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, which adjoins the Mexican border.

The delegation of around a halfdozen bishops is led by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and archbishop of the Archdiocese of GalvestonHouston. In addition to worship at the detention center, the clerics will visit a humanitarian respite center that has provided meals, shelter, clean clothes, and medical and mental health care to more than 100,000 migrants, mostly from Central America, since 2014.

The bishops are scheduled to report on their findings at a press conference on Monday night here in San Juan.