To confront the refugee crisis, this Catholic turned to music
The International Orchestra of Refugees empowers displaced musicians to become musical ambassadors of peace.
“You should probably sit down for this.”
A teenage Sebastian Agignoae had stumbled across a confusing document from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in his family’s security box. When he approached his parents about the mysterious item, his father thought it was time to fill in his son about their personal journey.
Laypeople, sisters share a common space and mission at the border
These women are breaking down walls in more ways than one.
They crowd together in the narrow kitchen—septuagenarians and octogenarians, Millennials and Generation Zs—preparing lunch for guests in an El Paso house of hospitality known as Casa Vides. The three Irish Catholic sisters and four lay volunteers currently cohabitating in this old, two-story building share one mission: to serve immigrant families. Yet every morning they gather upstairs in the cramped dwelling for reflection, regardless of their religious affiliation, as Christians, non-Christians, and “Nones” alike.
The new parish ministry empowering immigrant Catholics
Pastoral Migratoria is putting religious and civic agency into the hands of immigrants.
In a third-floor classroom of a Chicago urban Catholic school, about 25 adults gathered on a chilly October night to learn about Catholic social justice teaching and how to take steps to make it happen.
Some came straight from work in their employee uniforms. Others gulped down a hasty snack before class. All were immigrants to the United States and participating in Pastoral Migratoria, a leadership peer-to-peer empowerment ministry that is spreading across the country.
5 things Catholics should know about asylum seekers at the border
In the past two years, the situation of migrants has changed drastically, says a Claretian priest working at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Claretian Father Carl Quebedeaux has worked in Juárez, Mexico for the past four years. The parish he serves, Parroquia Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza, or Our Lady of Hope, is located near the fence on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The nun working to bring justice to immigrants at the border
Sister Ann Durst believes that the immigration crisis requires a faith-based response.
Two nuns in a condo. That’s all Casa Cornelia Law Center was in 1992 when it began. The San Diego-based pro bono immigration law center now employs more than 30 full-time staff members and hundreds of volunteers. Since its beginning, the law center has provided critical legal assistance and humanitarian protection to more than 15,000 vulnerable men, women, and children.
How the Christmas story calls Catholics to action
Christians are called to harbor refugees as if they were the Christ child on the run.
It’s nearly lunchtime in the west Michigan city of Kalamazoo. “Auntie” Saheeda Perveen Nadeem, 64, stands over the stove in the kitchen at First Congregational United Church of Christ (FCUCC) preparing a nutritious lunch for 20 children living in poverty.
The Christmas story, for grown-ups
The real story of Jesus' birth can't be tied with a pretty bow.
The account of Jesus’ birth in Luke’s gospel is a familiar story. It relates a miraculous conception announced by an angel; a young girl’s trusting assent to this divine message; a birth in a cozy stable (the rude smells overlooked by countless Christmas pageants and Las Posadas processions); a joyful announcement by an angelic chorus; and a touching scene of awestruck shepherds greeting a newborn child. Luke’s infancy narrative shapes our imagination of the Christmas story into a tale of glad tidings and hope-filled joy.
What did Jesus think of immigration?
Those who welcome the stranger step into eternal life.
Anyone who imagines Jesus has no stake in the debate about our treatment of the stranger at our borders needs to attend more Bible study. One of his most beloved parables concerns a good Samaritan: unwelcome in Israelite territory because he wasn’t “one of them,” a descendent of despised transplants who didn’t belong. The Samaritan alone shows compassion for an injured Israelite who, if he’d been in full vigor, might well have cursed him. Jesus pronounces the Samaritan a true neighbor.
To help those facing persecution, the U.S. needs to revive its refugee program
The United States must protect all those facing religious oppression, whatever their faith.
Asia Bibi, perhaps the world’s best-known victim of religious persecution, may finally have found the peace and security she deserves when she joined her family in Canada on May 7. Imprisoned under Pakistan’s infamous blasphemy law, Bibi, a Catholic, had been accused in 2009 of making derogatory remarks about Islam by coworkers displeased about sharing water with a Christian woman.
At the border, a Texas town fosters hope in hospitality
The city of El Paso united to support migrants in the midst of crisis.
Ranchera music bounced out of the novelty and discount clothing stores as the 25-year-old Jesuit in formation made his way through downtown El Paso, Texas to Annunciation House, a shelter for migrants and refugees. Aromas of menudo, tamales, chorizo, and huevos frying in the pan wafted through alleyways. Storefronts and billboards advertised in Spanish as often as in English. Not far away, an 18-foot metal fence stretched for miles between the border, with familiar white and green Border Patrol vehicles stationed intermittently on both sides.
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