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Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Thursday, January 30, 2025
Bishop Budde did what a Christian is Obliged to do
The words that Episcopal Bishop of Washington Mariann Budde spoke were few. They weren't shouted. They weren't demanding. They consisted of insights and a request that might be heard anywhere at any time in a house of worship.
In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country. ... The
people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and
meat-packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the
night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but
the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good
neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues,
gurdwara and temples. I ask you to have mercy, on those in our communities whose
children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are
fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome
here…
What Bishop Budde did was something she was obliged to do as a disciple of Christ
preaching the Christian message. She gave a human face to those who are a faceless
group, shamefully maligned and made into a national scapegoat. They have become
the new enemy, the inhuman "other" upon which our social ills and anxieties have been heaped.
Some will disparage her words as a bit of performative preaching. Others will dismiss
them because there will never be proof her words provided solace or safety for
immigrants. Others will apply political calculus to her message and wonder which voters
she might have affected or whether she merely solidified entrenched divisions in the
Christian world as well as the wider culture.
All of that is irrelevant noise.
Was Jesus chastised for failing to accurately calculate the displeasure of Roman and
religious leaders before pronouncing his next discomfiting truth?
If a Christian leader in her pulpit, addressing a president who voluntarily placed himself
in that sacred space, cannot speak out of the heart of the Gospel, then we might as well
turn our cathedrals, basilicas and other houses of worship into museums.
If Budde had not begged for mercy, the service would have been, at best, a disingenuous engagement and, at worst, an act of fraud and cowardice.
Pope Francis, in an unusually blunt assessment, called this administration’s mass
deportation plans "a disgrace." Cardinal Robert McElroy, the newly appointed archbishop of Washington, warned earlier this month that an indiscriminate mass deportation program would be "incompatible with Catholic doctrine."
In comments made during a Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico
City, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich said, "The Catholic community stands with the
people of Chicago in speaking out in defense of the rights of immigrants and asylum
seekers." Understandably, the cardinal also opposes attempts by "government agencies
to enter places of worship for any enforcement activities."
Other denominations, including Quakers, Presbyterians, Unitarians and the United
Church of Christ have all publicly declared opposition to mass deportations and support
for immigrants. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has declared itself a
"sanctuary denomination."
In the meantime, one of God's servants has intervened in a modest and respectful way,
begging for mercy for the most vulnerable among us. It is an unremarkable ask for a
Christian leader, but it may take remarkable action from the rest of us to see mercy
served.
Amen
Mother Rosean
(adapted from National Catholic Reporter article by Editorial Staff, January 24, 2025)
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