1. How today’s immigration crisis challenges people of faith
Parish and Diocesan Staff: Part One
Scriptural Foundations
August 3, 2017
Fred Kammer, SJ

2. Purposes of this presentation:
Provide a preliminary environmental scan on migration in the world;
Situate the plight of immigrants today in the context of major events and figures in Salvation History; and
Reflect on key scriptural themes which challenge us to respond to the suffering of people on the move.
Then, in second presentation: how the principles of modern Catholic Social Thought can shape our judgments and actions as Catholics and leaders in ministry.

3. Migration Environmental Scan:
WORLDWIDE: 7,520,000,000 people in the world.
196 sovereign states/nations in the world.
244 million “International Migrants” in the world.
65.6 million considered “Forcibly Displaced” in the world.
40.3 million are “internally displaced persons” (IDP’s).
22.5 million are refugees, more than half of whom are children.
More than half of forcibly displaced are from Syria, Afghanistan, and South Sudan.
UNITED STATES: 325,509,000 live in the United States.
43.3 million are immigrants—13.5%.
11.4 million are “Unauthorized Immigrants.

4. Catholic Social Thought: Two Vantage Points
We are people of “the Book.” We are people of the Church.

5. Scriptural Foundations
The Anawim
The Jubilee
Pilgrim people of God

6. Strangers/Sojourners
The Anawim
Widows
Orphans
Strangers/Sojourners
They were “God’s poor.”

7. The Jubilee Tradition The Sabbatical Year The Jubilee Year
The Year of the Lord
“Jesus as Jubilee”
The US Bishops [1999]

8. Jubilee Concepts Native Americans and the Land
Bankruptcy and Homestead Exemptions
Amnesty/Pardons
Immigration Reform and Control Act 1986
Millennium Year 2000 Debt Relief
Comprehensive Immigration Reform

9. Pilgrim People of God: People on the Move
Evangelicals and the Scriptures
Fr. Daniel G. Groody, CSC: Theology of Migration
Vatican II: Pilgrim Church
Hispanic/Latino US Bishops

10. Reflection/Discussion Questions:
1.How do contemporary immigration realities challenge our parishes and diocesan offices? 2. How can our parishes and diocesan offices embody the Scriptural traditions of care and protection of the anawim, the Jubilee, and a People on the Move?

11. How today’s immigration crisis challenges people of faith
Parish and Diocesan Staff: Part Two
Modern Catholic Social Thought
August 3, 2017
Fred Kammer, SJ

12. Two most fundamental principles of Catholic Social Teaching
Human dignity: sanctity and dignity of the human person.
The Common Good: the good of all of us who constitute society.

13. Human Dignity and Migration
Pope John XXIII: “Every human being has the right to freedom of movement and of residence within the confines of his own country; and, when there are just reasons for it, the right to emigrate to other countries and take up residence there.” [1963]
The right to emigrate…the right to immigrate.
Rooted in right to life and the conditions worthy of life.

14. Three essential elements of The Common Good
Respect for the individual and human rights.
The social well-being and development of the group.
Peace, which results from the stability of a just society.
Source: The Catholic Catechism, Sections

15. Responsibility for The Common Good
Every individual member of the society.
The state or government since “the common good is the reason that the political authority exists.” [Pope Benedict, 2009]
The common good also is universal due to the increasing human interdependence of globalization. [Catechism, Section 1911]

16. CST: Five Principles on Migration
Right to find opportunities in one’s homeland.
Right to migrate to support oneself/one’s family.
Nation’s right to control borders—rooted in the responsibility for the Common Good, but limited.
What might those limits be?

17. Pope Pius XII [1952]: The sovereignty of the state “cannot be exaggerated to the point that access to this land is, for inadequate or unjustified reasons, denied to needy and decent people from other nations.”
US/Mexican Bishops [2003]: “ In the current condition of the world, in which global poverty and persecution are rampant, the presumption is that persons must migrate in order to support and protect themselves and that nations who are able to receive them should do so whenever possible.” (Emphasis added.)

18. US Bishops [2000]: Reflecting on the tension between border control and individual rights, declared that individual rights “give rise to a more compelling claim to the conditions worthy of human life.”
US Bishops [1959]: Regarding use of the earth’s resources provided by God, “…it is necessary for nations to make laws to insure the use of these resources in a reasonable and orderly fashion, but the tenor of the law should be such as to facilitate, not impede, access to them.” (Emphasis added.)

19. CST: Five Principles on Migration
Right to find opportunities in one’s homeland.
Right to migrate to support oneself/one’s family.
Nation’s right to control borders—rooted in the responsibility for the Common Good, but limited.
Protect refugees and asylum seekers.
Dignity and rights of “undocumented” remain.

20. US Bishops: Principles for Reform:
a broad and fair legalization program with a path to citizenship;
a work program with worker protections and just wages;
family reunification policies;
access to legal protections, which include due process procedures;
refuge for those fleeing persecution and violence;

21. policies to address the root causes of migration;
emphasis on alternatives to detention, including community-based programs; and
care and protection of trafficking victims, most especially children, including special consideration for permanent legal status.

22. Saint John Paul II on Solidarity
A correlative moral response to interdependence
“A Christian Virtue”
“Not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress…”
“A firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good…”
“We are all really responsible for all.”

23. Our Christian Response
See “them” as “us”
Understand the push-pull factors
Learn what the Church is teaching
Welcome the immigrant
Be a voice for justice; advocate for Justice for Immigrants at

24. Pope Benedict: Three “Great Parables”
The Good Samaritan in Luke 10
The Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16
The Last Judgment in Matthew 25

25. Pope Benedict: Three Essentials of Church
Proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-martyria)
Celebrating the sacraments (leitourgia)
Exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia)

26. The Call to Prophetic Action [Anointed in Baptism]
Charity and Justice
Service and Advocacy
The Call to Prophetic Action [Anointed in Baptism]
The Challenge from Bishop Seitz

28. Vaclav Haval on Hope [1986]
Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul, and it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart … Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out … It is this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.