Cardinal McElroy requires compassion in immigration coverage as he prepares to steer in Washington

Talking at a information convention on the Diocese of San Diego, the place he has served as bishop for over a decade, McElroy acknowledged that he’ll head the Catholic Church within the nation’s capital because the nation grapples with what it means to be a compassionate society.

The elimination of immunity for homes of worship from immigration enforcement is especially problematic, and a “deep ethical query,” he mentioned, evoking the function of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement within the Trump administration’s crackdown.

“When these locations turn out to be targets of ICE raids, it strikes concern in everybody’s hearts, and it acts as a deterrent to folks going to church and freely worshipping or going to colleges,” he mentioned. “That is why it is so lethal.”

The Trump administration order giving immigration brokers extra leeway to make arrests at church buildings is a “wider cultural assault on all those that are undocumented,” a lot of whom are fleeing persecution, violence or horrible financial situations, McElroy mentioned.

“A nation must safe its borders and a robust immigration coverage, however what we’re seeing is an effort to categorise all of those folks as criminals,” he mentioned. “That casts them as the opposite or not having the identical dignity.”

McElroy has beforehand acknowledged that Trump’s threats of mass deportations of immigrants are “incompatible with Catholic doctrine.”

But he mentioned his function as archbishop of Washington won’t be political, however pastoral. McElroy, 70, replaces the retiring Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who steps down after having navigated the archdiocese via the fallout of the 2018 escalation of the clergy sexual abuse disaster.

The various Catholic neighborhood in Washington is one-third Hispanic, largely folks from Central America, McElroy mentioned, including that he’s wanting ahead to visiting parishes and attending to know the clergymen and the folks.

“An extra pastoral problem is that many federal employees are dropping their jobs, and they’re members of our neighborhood, too,” he mentioned.

The church’s function is to not remedy political or coverage points, nevertheless it does have “an ethical function to touch upon insurance policies and instructions in society in gentle of the Gospel and Catholic instructing,” he mentioned.

McElroy’s appointment as archbishop got here in January. He’s thought of one in all Pope Francis’ most progressively like-minded allies. McElroy mentioned Thursday that Francis has broached the subject of the border in almost each dialog that they had.

“He has a data of the vibrancy of the church right here ,” he mentioned. “The border and the scenario of the migrants is and has all the time been an incredible concern for him.”

McElroy mentioned he’s praying that Francis, hospitalized in Rome with double pneumonia, has a number of extra years to press on along with his imaginative and prescient for the church. He described Francis as “a person of pleasure and a person of deep prayer” who works tirelessly and does so with a humorousness.

“He’s a person who listens and really engages with different folks and believes that others have one thing to show him,” McElroy mentioned.

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