Bishop Evelio Menjivar, a Salvadoran-born priest, is an auxiliary bishop of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, DC. He is the first Central American to serve in such a role in the US Roman Church.
His Holy Week sermon takes up the theme of Trump's rendition of Kilmer Abrego Garcia and other migrants to a Salvadoran torture prison.
The Church remembers Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus in a spiritual and sacramental way during Holy Week and the Easter Triduum, but some people actually experience the Passion in a tangible and personal way in their very lives. Among them are members of the immigrant and refugee communities today.
... while redemptive suffering is a grace, it would be better still if these injustices and infamies did not happen at all. ... It seems that no one is safe now from arbitrary nullification of his or her protected status, visa, or green card. This has left many terrified that they or their loved ones might be seized and disappear without warning.... For example, the protected status of refugees and others granted asylum has been arbitrarily terminated without any wrongdoing on their part. Visa-holders and permanent residents have had their legal authorizations revoked and then been grabbed off the street by masked government agents, held incommunicado without access to their attorneys, and imprisoned pending deportation. University scholars and others have also been refused entry or detained at the border after traveling abroad. Even U.S. citizens are viewed with suspicion or subjected to ethnic profiling based entirely on how they look or speak. Those who are naturalized citizens might be wondering if they will be targeted next, whether some pretext might be contrived for secret revocation of their naturalization.
More than a few natural-born Americans are saying they do not recognize their country anymore, but many of us from other lands recognize all too well the terror of people being snatched by secret police and disappeared. We left our former countries precisely to get away from it. Yet, too many people are still remaining silent, perhaps out of fear, forgetting that the Holy Spirit gives us the grace of fortitude to boldly speak out for good. ...
El Salvador gave the America's Archbishop Óscar Romero, the 20th century bishop murdered for speaking up for the poor and marginalized. Bishop Menjivar continued:
When I was growing up in El Salvador, there was a man who was not afraid to speak out. His name was Óscar Romero, archbishop of San Salvador. It seems to me that we need more Óscar Romeros today. We need everyone of good will to follow his lead and demand that the government respect human dignity.
In his last Sunday homily on the day before he was killed, Saint Óscar Romero made a special appeal to government agents: “It is time now for you to reclaim your conscience and to obey your conscience rather than the command to sin,” he said. “We want the government to understand well that the reforms are worth nothing if they are stained with so much blood. In the name of God, then, and in the name of this suffering people, whose laments rise up each day more tumultuously toward heaven, I beg you, I beseech you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression!”
I urge government officers and support staff in the present situation to heed these words which echo through history. It is time now for you to reclaim your conscience. What you are doing is worth nothing if it is stained with unjust cruelty. That is not what America stands for. You too can and should speak out against this terror and infliction of suffering on people. You can refuse to be involved in oppression and these grievous assaults on human rights and dignity.
True, if you do, there may be adverse personal consequences. Saint Óscar certainly paid a price for speaking against the state of siege in his country. It might even mean leaving your job, but that is better than being complicit with evil, and it will lead to something even greater. As this holy man said in his last words before his martyrdom, “If we have imbued our work with a sense of great faith, love of God, and hope for humanity, then all our endeavors will lead to the splendid crown that is the sure reward for the work of sowing truth, justice, love, and goodness on earth.”
The One Part of the Body report (download at link) on the impact of the Trump regime's migrant deportation policies gives some numbers about how many are now at risk of being thrown out of the country:
We estimate that, as of the end of 2024, there were more than 10 million Christian immigrants present in the United States who are vulnerable to deportation, including those with no legal status, as well as those with a temporary status or protections that could be withdrawn.
Furthermore, because many of these individuals live in households with U.S. citizens, Lawful Permanent Residents, or others who are generally not subject to deportation, the impact on American Christian households goes well beyond those directly at risk of deportation. We find that nearly 7 million U.S.-citizen Christians live within the same households of those at risk of deportation. Most of these U.S. citizens are spouses or minor children of the immigrant at risk of deportation.
... 80 percent of all of those at risk of deportation are Christians. Sixty-one percent of those at risk of deportation are Catholic, 13 percent are evangelical and 7 percent are adherents to other Christian traditions.
And then there are all the others (non-Christians) and their families who might find themselves victimized by the Trump dragnet.
It is good to see religious authorities speaking out. And they are. Religious institutions are somewhat less vulnerable to threats to their mission than secular institutions. They can't sit the Trump regime out.
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