The Pope is traveling to Juarez this week putting an international spotlight on the border and migration issues. During Pope Francis’ visit to the U.S. Mexico border, he will perform mass in Juarez with thousands more watching and participating in celebrations at the Sun Bowl in El Paso.
Ahead of the visit, the Hope Border Institute and the Center for Migration Studies held a conference on the discussing the Catholic Church’s influence on migration issues.
El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz says the fact that two nations are participating in a papal celebration together presents a powerful message about immigration.
“It’s a wonderful symbol isn’t it,” Seitz said. “That even though there is a fence there, we’re still one community, one family in a certain way. There is a family feel for all human beings, if I can get to know you, whom I never met before, I can find something of myself in you. I can find a certain unity in you, and that is not even speaking on a basis of faith, it’s just a human experience.”
Seitz says the Catholic Church teaches that people have a right to migrate.
“We recognize that states have a right to have borders and to oversee the entrance and leaving of people across those borders, but we also recognize that people have aright to move within a country, and from country to country they have a human right, and particularly when their existence is being threatened in one place the church has taught for her whole existence that people have a right to seek that existence.”
Gabriella Sanchez an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at El Paso says the Pope’s visit provides an opportunity to change the dialogue surrounding immigration and migration.
“We need to find ways to explain migration,” Sanchez said. “That go beyond reducing people to ‘oh, the poor victims that are fleeing, or the laborers, because people are so much more than work or suffering.”
Executive Director of the Center for Migration Studies Donald Kerwin says the visit highlights the need for international cooperation on immigration reform.
“What it does is,” Kerwin says, “Is it focuses this as an international issue, an issue that needs to be resolved in collaboration between states. That can only be fixed when states get together and collectively address it because it involves root causes, it involves people passing through countries, and coming to new communities, and being accepted or not in those communities, It’s really an international issue, and that’s partially what the Holy Father is going to drive home.”
Kerwin says Pope Francis makes immigration more then just a political issue.
“I think he takes the whole issue out of the political realm,” Kerwin said. “Which is really important at this point. Because it’s an issue of great division, and what he does is he focuses on the people. And to the extent that the United States for example, that we can focus on undocumented people, as brothers and sisters, as parents, as people who were brought here as children, as long term residents who are contributing to their communities, that very, very powerful. But ultimately he’s a pastor and not a political figure, although what he says has political implications of course.”
El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz says he looks forward to the visit showing the positive side of living on the border.
“When the world looks at our community,” Seitz said. “And sees how it’s possible to live at a border, and to experience it, not as a place of conflict, but a place where people have warm feelings for one another, who are in reality members of the same families living on both sides, where the economy is stimulated by the fact that we live on the border.”
Seitz says the visit is important for everyone in the border region, not only Catholics.
