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Office for Mission and Ministry

Immigration

 “Part of the process of conversion of mind and heart deals with confronting attitudes of cultural superiority, indifference, and racism; accepting migrants not as foreboding aliens, terrorists, or economic threats, but rather as persons with dignity and rights, revealing the presence of Christ; and recognizing migrants as bearers of deep cultural values and rich faith traditions” (Strangers No Longer, 2003)

 

"Why is there greater poverty, less access to education and health care and lower wages in our border community? Not because anyone is inherently inferior, criminal or lazy. But because on these criminal pretexts people on the border have had less opportunity. This is institutional racism. And yet the people of the borderlands are not victims. Resilience and dignity are the jewels in the crown of this long and ongoing struggle and are the mark of our people. The people of the borderlands have built a real community. Against walls and inequality and fear, we have maintained our vital connection with Ciudad Juárez. In spite of this story of oppression, railroads and highways are built, food is grown in abundance, our sons and daughters battle and die with valor in the armed services, our people build wind turbines and airplane consoles, we paint murals of beauty, we speak many languages, our young people are passionate about justice and the environment, we thrive in the desert" (Night Will Be No More, 2019)

Strangers No Longer Together on the Journey of Hope, A Pastoral Letter Concerning Migration from the Catholic Bishops of Mexico and the United States, January 22, 2003

 

Books

Collier, Elizabeth W.. Global Migration: What's Happening, Why, and a Just Response. Winona, Minn.: Anselm Academic, 2017.

Collier, Elizabeth W.,, and Charles R. Strain. Religious and Ethical Perspectives On Global Migration. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014.

Kerwin, Donald, and Jill Marie Gerschutz. And You Welcomed Me: Migration and Catholic Social Teaching. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books.

On "Strangers No Longer": Perspectives On the Historic U.S.-Mexican Catholic Bishops' Pastoral Letter On Migration. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2013.

Pasura, Dominic. Migration, Transnationalism and Catholicism: Global Perspectives. London: Palgrave Macmillan Limited, 2017.

Zwick, Mark., and Louise Zwick. Mercy Without Borders: The Catholic Worker and Immigration. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 2010.

 

Journals

Castillo Guerra, J.E. "Contributions of the Social Teaching of the Roman Catholic Church On Migration: From a ‘Culture of Rejection’ to a ‘Culture of Encounter’." Exchange. Journal of Contemporary Christianities in Context 44, no. 4 (2015): 403-427.

Haggerty, James J. "Stepping Out of the Brain Drain: Applying Catholic Social Teaching in a New Era of Immigration. By Michelle R. Pistone and John J. Hoeffner. Lanham, MD: Lexington/Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.

Heyer, Kristin E. "A Catholic Ethic For Immigration: Attending to Social Sin and Solidarity.” Health Progress 98, no. 4 (2017): 31.

Marzen, Chad G. "Catholic Social Teaching, the Right to Immigrate, and the Right to Regulate Borders, a Proposed Solution for Comprehensive Immigration Reform Based Upon Catholic Social Principles." San Diego Law Review 53, no. 4 (2016): 781.

O’Neill, William R. "A Little Common Sense: The Ethics of Immigration in Catholic Social Teaching: A Little Common Sense." American Journal of Economics and Sociology 71, no. 4 (2012): 988-1003.

Rajendra, Tisha M. "Justice Not Benevolence: Catholic Social Thought, Migration Theory, and the Rights of Migrants." Political Theology 15, no. 4 (2014): 290-306.

Scribner, Todd. "“Not Because They Are Catholic, But Because We Are Catholic”: The Bishops’ Engagement With the Migration Issue in Twentieth-Century America." The Catholic Historical Review 101, no. 1 (2015): 74-99.

 

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
SECOND EDITION

PART THREE, SECTION ONE, CHAPTER TWO, ARTICLE 3 - SOCIAL JUSTICE

1928: Society ensures social justice when it provides the conditions that allow associations or individuals to obtain what is their due, according to their nature and their vocation. Social justice is linked to the common good and the exercise of authority.

1929: Social justice can be obtained only in respecting the transcendent dignity of man. The person represents the ultimate end of society, which is ordered to him:

What is at stake is the dignity of the human person, whose defense and promotion have been entrusted to us by the Creator, and to whom the men and women at every moment of history are strictly and responsibly in debt.

1930: Respect for the human person entails respect for the rights that flow from his dignity as a creature. These rights are prior to society and must be recognized by it. They are the basis of the moral legitimacy of every authority: by flouting them, or refusing to recognize them in its positive legislation, a society undermines its own moral legitimacy. If it does not respect them, authority can rely only on force or violence to obtain obedience from its subjects. It is the Church's role to remind men of good will of these rights and to distinguish them from unwarranted or false claims.

1931: Respect for the human person proceeds by way of respect for the principle that "everyone should look upon his neighbor (without any exception) as 'another self,' above all bearing in mind his life and the means necessary for living it with dignity." No legislation could by itself do away with the fears, prejudices, and attitudes of pride and selfishness which obstruct the establishment of truly fraternal societies. Such behavior will cease only through the charity that finds in every man a "neighbor," a brother.

1935: The equality of men rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it:

Every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God's design.