The legs inside the cathedral of Angel Catholic Church in downtown Los Angeles became less crowded as the words spread among Catholics about immigration agents visiting places of worship to deport them.
A devout Catholic, Isiah was so frightened that he stopped attending weekly masses, fearing that he would be wiped out by the assault. Refusing to provide the surname to the era due to concerns about his immigrant status, Isia prayed instead to the Rosary two weeks before his faith brought him back to the church.
“The church is not a place of threat,” he said Thursday in Spanish.
A month-long immigration enforcement action has sent people underground for a month, emptying and covering everyday life in Southern California. It also sparked a crisis of faith for many Catholics who spent their lives worshiping at Sunday Mass and now question whether it is safe to connect with God in such a public space.
In this week’s extraordinary move, Bishop Alberto Rojas of the Parish of San Bernardino told his parish of around 1.2 million people that he could stay home on Sunday to avoid the public as concerns about immigrant sweeps. It came after being arrested near or at a local church.
“I want our immigrant community to know that their churches stand with them and walk with them through this ordeal,” he said in a statement.
Rojas’ Order – The first order given by the Catholic leader in Southern California highlights the challenges religious institutions are tackling as the Trump administration implements its deportation agenda. Religious leaders want to look to faith to help people navigate challenging times, but they also don’t want that faith movement to cause harm, experts say.
The parish of Alberto Rojas, Bishop of San Bernardino, during Mass.
(Watchara Phomicinda/Getty Images)
“The decision of Bishop Rojas shows that the Church’s mission encompasses a higher calling. It welcomes strangers from policies that dehumanize them, and increases the distance. The Church considers its mission to care for humanity, call on government and play the more human angels.
In May, after the immigrant raid in Nashville, the city’s parish became the first to say that Catholics “will be obliged to attend Mass on Sunday, and that way will put their safety at risk.”
Brett Hoover, a professor of theology at Loyola Marymount University, said it is a rare step for a bishop to excuse the congregation indefinitely from Sunday Mass.
Dioceses took such action early in the Covid-19 pandemic, when people were instructed to isolate them to slow the spread of the virus. Such laws were also issued during the influenza epidemic of the early 20th century. Legislation allowing certain individuals from Mass is generally issued on a much smaller scale and gives specific congregations a pass for issues such as illness or natural disasters, Hoover said.
“Bihop Rojas has registered this as trauma for people. He sees his family being separated,” Hoover said. “The Catholic teaching makes it very clear that immigration, particularly deportation, should not divide families.”
For Catholics, historically, not attending Sunday Mass was considered a potentially “very serious crime,” Hoover said. Time has softened tradition, but the orders of Rojas are a way to soften people that they feel like they are doing something sinful if they are afraid to attend the masses.
“Part of that is symbolic gesture, and part of that is to reduce concerns for more meticulous Catholics about attending Mass,” Hoover said. “It’s very practical and idyllic.”
Rojas’ orders come when more bishops begin to speak about the regime’s deportation policy in which agents deployed aggressive tactics and sometimes terrorized immigrant groups. People are in custody while carrying out the typical daily activities in shopping centre parking, car washes, bus stops and other public spaces.
Since early June, nearly 2,800 have been involved in pushing immigration enforcement in the LA area alone, including US citizens and hundreds of undocumented immigrants with no criminal history.
Given that most of these worshippers are immigrants or that they have families born outside the United States, the attack was particularly violently hit by the Catholic community. Data from a 2015 survey by the Pew Research Center shows that over a quarter of American Catholic adults were born abroad, compared to 15% of US adults.
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Archbishop Jose Gomez of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, who has long called for immigration reform, criticized the Trump administration in a column published last month in Angelus, saying it “is not providing immigration policies beyond its goal of deporting thousands of people every day.”
“This is not a policy, it is a punishment, it can only bring about cruel and arbitrary consequences. Already we have heard innocent fathers and mothers being mistakenly deported and mistakenly deported without appeal,” he writes.
On Saturday, around 300 Catholics from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles joined Gomez’s Mass at the Cathedral of Guadalupe in Mexico City on the sixth annual Archdiocese pilgrimage to the Basilica, the world’s most visited Catholic pilgrimage site. Gomez tackled the burden of fear and anxiety caused by immigration enforcement throughout Homily.
“Today we have put all our hearts at the feet of Our Lady,” he said. “And when I open my heart today, I grab the Virgin’s eyes and hear her kind words in St. Fundiego. Am I not your mother?
In Orange County, Bishop Kevin Van has not offered to distribute from attending Mass, but the parish has begun to bring communion to celebrate the public at homes of those who are afraid to go to church.
Van and his auxiliary bishop last month posted a letter denounced the attack. They said, “It evokes our worst instincts” and “It undermines fear and anxiety to the hardworking and everyday loyal people among us.”
The Rojas order comes after an individual said he was recently arrested in two Catholic parishes in the area. Some places of worship say they no longer appear directly between a third or half of the congregation as the attack continues.
According to a National Catholic reporter, multiple people were arrested at or near the parish church on June 20th.
“Accusations that ice entered the church to arrest the ice [is] False,” Homeland Security spokesman Tricia McLaughlin wrote in an email to the Times. [and] The officers then made a safe arrest. ”
Rojas wrote on Tuesday that many church members shared “the fear of attending the public for potential immigration enforcement measures” and that “such fear constitutes a serious inconvenience that hinders the spiritual good of faithful people.”
Instead of Sunday’s service, Rojas encouraged “maintaining spiritual communion” by praying the Rosary and reading the Bible, and directed the Bishop’s Minister to provide support and compassion for those affected.
On Thursday, a quiet congregation gathered at Our Lady of Angels, a short distance from where protesters gathered last month to oppose the migrant raid. For some attendees, the spiritual safety of the church has proven to be a physical source of strength amidst uncertainty.
“I hope that group prayers will bring about some change,” said Maria Machuca, whose parents are immigrants.
Santi Camacho, who rarely attended churches before the attack, said he noticed that immigrant communities everywhere were stuck between rocks and difficult places.
Still, many members of the church do not want to stop attending Mass, even if their leaders give them permission.
“If you’re just your family and your family is in church, you put it in danger,” Camacho said.
Isia, who suspended attending Mass during the attack, said the church was the only place he felt safe now. He believes that the spiritual power within the building, the place where God worships him, protects him from harm.
“My belief is that if the police come, the church and God will protect me.”
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