Mi querida Sole, mi hermana en Cristo, Muchas gracias por sus palabras. Me hace tan feliz saber que te gusto este video.

tu servidor en Maria, Reina de La Eucaristia,

Elisha9821

que bonita es esta cancion! me gusta mucho y tambien me gusta lo que escribistes sobre el tema de imigracion. Siempre me gusta leer lo que escribes por que sabes tanto sobre nuestra fe!

un saludo desde Puerto Rico! --sole

Cardinal Roger Mahony electrified the US immigration reform debate by announcing on March 1, 2006 (Ash Wednesday), that he would instruct archdiocesan priests and lay Catholics to ignore provisions in a House-passed “enforcement only” bill (H.R. 4437) — were they to pass — that would make it a crime to assist unauthorized immigrants.

Since then, the Catholic Church has played a central role in the immigrant-led protests that have swept the country. The church has encouraged parishioners to participate in the protests, offered bishops and priests as speakers, and served as an interlocutor for its newcomer members before Congress and in other public forums.

The Catholic Church occupies the center of the US debate on immigration, and not by accident. In February 2003, a time when the attacks of September 11 had pushed immigration off the national agenda, bishops in the United States and Mexico released Strangers No Longer: Together on a Journey of Hope, a pastoral statement that called for a comprehensive approach to immigration reform.

Strangers No Longer built on themes established in other pastoral statements by US bishops (One Family Under God in 1995 and Unity in Diversity in 2000), annual statements by the Holy Father on migration, and a long history of Catholic teaching documents. The US bishops have conducted extensive rollout of these documents through public gatherings, within the relevant church structures, and to lay Catholics, in response to what it sees as increasingly harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric and legislation.

In May 2005, US bishops kicked off a national campaign, “Justice for Immigrants, A Journey of Hope” (JFI). The campaign supports increasing development in immigrant-sending countries; allowing necessary, unauthorized workers to earn the right to remain (permanently) through their labor, good moral character, and payment of a fine (a proportional punishment); and expanding avenues for employment- and family-based immigration.

So far, nearly 80 dioceses have initiated local JFI campaigns to educate Catholics and the public on migration issues and to engage policymakers on the local, state, and national levels. These campaigns attempt to reach directly into parishes — the most basic unit of the Catholic Church where believers gather at least weekly — and, in many cases, have fed directly into local rallies.

In addition, dozens of bishops, national Catholic agencies, and religious communities have mobilized their communities in support of the JFI campaign through pro-immigrant statements. The JFI campaign has been explicitly linked to the Catholic Campaign Against Global Poverty which — through overseas development programs and advocacy on foreign aid, trade, and debt relief — seeks to alleviate the conditions that force many people to migrate.

The Catholic Church and Immigration

Why does the Catholic Church care so much about US immigration reform? The explanation lies in the church's view of itself as a pilgrim people in a pilgrim church. It sees the Holy Family — in their flight to Egypt — as the archetypal refugee family. Migrants evoke its own history, including the biblical exodus and exile, the itinerant ministry of Jesus, and its 2,000-year missionary tradition. The stranger is welcomed as a Gospel imperative.

In Strangers No Longer, the church states that people have the right not to migrate; that is, they should be able to live freely in their countries of birth. However, when this is impossible, whether due to extreme poverty or persecution, the church says they have a right to migrate, and nations have a duty to receive them.

Two fundamental strands of the church's mission — protecting the dignity of all and gathering into one God's scattered children — come together in its ministry to migrants and newcomers. In effect, the church teaches that all people are "brothers and sisters" and that immigration status does not change this fact. Likewise, it offers its Catholic Charities programs, legal offices, community organizing grants, and refugee resettlement services to all vulnerable migrants and newcomers, regardless of their religious beliefs.