(RNS) — Christian leaders — from Catholic cardinals and Episcopal and Lutheran bishops to moderate evangelical Christians — took their faith’s day of penitence and prayer as an opportunity to speak out on behalf of immigrants and against President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Ash Wednesday began and ended with Masses led by two of the three current cardinal archbishops, with vigils at the White House and in New York’s Federal Plaza, the center of federal government in the city, in between.
In his homily at a large outdoor Mass in solidarity with immigrant families in Melrose Park, Illinois, Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, addressed immigrants directly, saying the anti-immigrant environment has brought home to them the day’s Gospel passage about practicing one’s devotions in secret. Deploring the way they have been “treated like dust that can be swept away,” the cardinal told immigrants, “This day is made for you.”
“When you cry in secret, he sees you. When you work hard for your children while no one is watching, he sees you,” said Cupich of God. “When you sacrifice your own comfort to send money back home, you sacrifice to give alms in secret, and he sees you.”
Several Catholic prelates celebrated Mass in immigrant detention centers. Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, was joined by Newark Auxiliary Bishops Pedro Bismarck Chau, Manuel Cruz and Gregory Studerus at Delaney Hall, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. Las Cruces, New Mexico, Bishop …
