The Catholic bishop of San Bernardino County, California, instructed congregants Tuesday they’re launched from the duty to attend Sunday companies if they’ve a “real worry of immigration enforcement actions” whereas attending Mass, marking the most recent occasion of the Catholic Church repudiating the Trump administration.
The decree from Bishop Alberto Rojas, who spoke out in opposition to President Donald Trump’s brutal immigration raids final month, stated the county’s parishioners might skip Mass with out worry of that impeding on their “religious good.”
“In issuing this decree, I’m guided by the Church’s mission to take care of the religious welfare of all entrusted to my care, significantly those that face worry or hardship,” Rojas wrote in his announcement.
His determination comes weeks after Catholic officers in San Bernardino County stated Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers entered two parish properties within the county and detained a number of folks.
Following the incident, Rojas issued a letter, saying, “Authorities are actually seizing brothers and sisters indiscriminately, with out respect for his or her proper to due course of and their dignity as youngsters of God.” He pleaded with the Trump administration to “rethink and stop these techniques instantly” and as an alternative discover “an strategy that respects human rights and human dignity.”
San Bernardino County is the sixth-largest Catholic diocese in the US, according to Vatican News.
Rojas’ announcement comes after the primary bishop appointed by the newly chosen Pope Leo XIV urged members of the clergy to help migrants by exhibiting as much as immigration court docket proceedings.
The Rev. Michael Pham ― a refugee from Vietnam whom Leo appointed as bishop of San Diego, California ― made the suggestion in a letter to religion leaders final month, writing: “We all know that migrants and refugees discover themselves within the tough predicament of being referred to as to look, which is what the federal government asks of them, after which being given orders for expedited elimination from our nation.”
In considered one of his first addresses, Leo ― the primary U.S.-born pope ― signaled some opposition to Trump’s immigration insurance policies.
“My very own story is that of a citizen, the descendant of immigrants, who in flip selected to to migrate,” he instructed ambassadors on the Vatican in Might.
“All of us, in the middle of our lives, can discover ourselves wholesome or sick, employed or unemployed, residing in our place of origin or in another country, but our dignity all the time stays unchanged. It’s the dignity of a creature willed and beloved by God,” he continued.
And final week, Cardinal Robert McElroy, whose archdiocese consists of Washington, D.C., slammed Trump’s immigration raids as “inhumane” and “morally repugnant.”
“That is merely an effort to attempt to deliver a way of terror to those that are undocumented,” he told CNN.
