VISTA, Calif. (RNS) — In September, hundreds of members of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church gathered at a Vista City Council meeting to speak in support of a resolution to prohibit the city from working with federal immigration enforcement, unless legally required. Between them and opponents of the measure, the public comment period stretched to five hours and past midnight.
The measure narrowly passed, 3-2, but when the church’s pastor, the Rev. Rubén Arceo, later spoke about it in his homily, he wasn’t congratulating the Latino-majority congregation for its efforts. In Spanish, he told those assembled for a 1 p.m. Mass: “I’m glad it passed, but it didn’t make me happy because only 400 people from this church went.
“We are 13,000. Where were the 12,600 who come to Mass and receive Communion and hear the word of God every Sunday? Where were the 12,600 who did not go?” he asked. He preached that, despite receiving the sacraments, too many are “lost, self-absorbed and distant from God.”
“Rights are won, are fought for, are enjoyed, but with the work of everybody,” he said. “The demands of faith require you to go outside of yourself.”
The emphasis on this kind of civic engagement has made St. Francis of Assisi a unique force in Vista, a San Diego County city of about 100,000. The church experienced sig …