By Julio-Cesar Chavez
NOGALES, Arizona, June 27 (Reuters) - More than 100 Catholic bishops, nuns, priests and parishioners joined a procession across the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday evening, urging the U.S. government to treat migrants with dignity and respect.
The procession, from Nogales, Arizona, to its sister city in the Mexican state of Sonora, was planned to coincide with commemorations of America’s 250th anniversary.
“We want to be well together. This is what the Church is all about,” Tucson,
Arizona, Bishop James Misko said as he celebrated Mass at the Sacred Heart Church in Nogales, which overlooks the U.S.-Mexico border fence.
CATHOLIC LEADERS CRITICIZE IMMIGRATION POLICIES
After the service concluded, the clergy and parishioners lined up and started praying the rosary together as they walked across the border, where they were joined by their Mexican counterparts.
“The heat is terrible, the heat is actually deadly,” said Sister Eileen McKenzie, a Franciscan nun who works with migrants in Ambos Nogales.
She considered the procession a unique moment of solidarity as they endured temperatures peaking at 96 degrees Fahrenheit (36 degrees Celsius).
“We realized, there are people crossing the desert right now, and they don't have any (respite). It puts perspective on it. There are more and more people who are going farther and farther out. They are more desperate and they are still crossing.”
Catholic leaders in the United States, along with Pope Leo, have criticized Trump-era immigration policies, singling out mass deportations, conditions in detention facilities and enforcement raids among actions they say contribute to fear and suffering among migrants.
The Supreme Court ruled in two decisions on Thursday that the Trump administration could turn away asylum seekers at the border and strip deportation protections from hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants.
A gathering of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in November issued a statement expressing sadness over “the vilification of immigrants” and concern about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care.
BISHOP SAYS CHAPLAINS DENIED ACCESS TO SOME DETAINEES
Bishop Mark Seitz, who oversees the Diocese of El Paso, Texas, has been monitoring the situation at the Camp East Montana detention center in nearby Fort Bliss, where he said religious chaplains have sometimes been denied access to detainees.
“Most of these people that are being detained right now, they're not elderly people. They're not generally sick people. And yet they're dying. And, there are many emergency calls from there to people who are suffering mightily,” Seitz said.
He said Catholic priests have only been allowed to celebrate one Mass a week, on Sundays, with room for about 100 faithful, a fraction of the more than 1,000 detainees.
“These are people, 80% of which are probably Catholic and, and many of which, because of their circumstances, are even more needing God in their lives. It's so unfortunate that we can't serve them,” Seitz said.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security previously told Reuters that, "ICE is always looking at ways to improve (its) detention facilities," pointing to a change in contract administration at Camp East Montana following three deaths there between December and January.
The bishops and procession of the faithful were waved across the border into Mexico by federal officials, where they continued praying the rosary, following a banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
People walking past smiled at the procession as it made its way to the Church of the Immaculate Conception, where it was welcomed by the Nogales bishop.
Dylan Corbett — executive director of the HOPE Border Institute in El Paso and a member of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, a Vatican group that advocates for migrant rights — said the Mass was part of a wider, constant effort by Catholics around the world.
“In Central America, the exodus that we’ve seen from Venezuela, and (in) Haiti, the Church is there providing humanitarian support, standing up structures to be able to reintegrate those who have been deported, providing witness and also advocacy to advance policies that are more humane and will result in a more human and compassionate treatment of migrants,” he added.
On July 4, the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, Pope Leo will celebrate Mass in Lampedusa, an Italian island where hundreds of thousands of migrants have arrived over the years, fleeing war and poverty in parts of Africa and the Middle East.
(Reporting by Julio-César Chavez; Editing by Jesse Mesner-Hage, Edmund Klamann and Andrew Heavens)
