Bishop Mark Seitz gives keynote address at international conference on “Fratelli Tutti” by Michael Centore

Bishop Mark Seitz of the Diocese of El Paso (Texas) gave an impassioned keynote on the issue of migration in the United States on Thursday afternoon. The bishop’s remarks were part of an international conference on Pope Francis’s 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti.

“Belonging Together: Migrants, Refugees, Displaced People and Global Solidarity” is the third online conference promoting the ideals of Fratelli Tutti. It will run through Saturday, February 8, and feature presentations from religious and lay leaders from a variety of faith traditions.  

Bishop Seitz was introduced by Dr. Gerald Grudzen, president of Global Ministries University (GMU), one of several sponsoring organizations of the conference. Grudzen noted that Seitz serves as chairman of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Migration.

Seitz opened his keynote, “People on the Move: Hope for a United Humanity,” with an admission that “these are challenging times.”

“We’ve seen a number of disturbing actions” in recent weeks, he said, including a “near total closure of the border to the vulnerable” backed by the US military, actions to revoke Temporary Protected Status for thousands of individuals, and the creation of a mass immigration detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba—a location, Seitz noted, that has a history of associations with human rights violations.

This has “seeded fear in communities throughout our country,” Seitz said, augmented by a “troubling use of language of criminality to describe migrants.”

The bishop linked a “dysfunctional approach to immigration” to “a deeper crisis of democracy.” He cited statistics that 11 million people are currently affected by the reality of living without documents, while 4.4 million children live with undocumented parents—many of whom have resided in the US for a decade or more, he said.

These factors add up to what the bishop characterized as an “economic catastrophe, [a] social and family catastrophe, and a moral catastrophe” that is “incompatible with the moral law and the gospel.”

“Americans know that immigration is part of our national story,” he said, adding that “immigrants are not criminals” and that when people live in fear of deportation, “[it] makes everyone less safe.”

Seitz pivoted to describing the role of the church, calling it “a concrete opportunity to put into practice the vision of the church as a field hospital.”

Undocumented people are in our parishes, neighborhoods, and communities, he said. “Documents or no documents, they are an important part of us, and so there must be a response.”

The bishop invoked the Pauline theology of the body of Christ to remind listeners that “If one suffers, all suffer. This is what it means to be a eucharistic community.”

He also used the parable of the Good Samaritan to make the point that “everyone is potentially my neighbor.” This parable is not simply a “universal ethic to be nice to everyone” or a “bourgeois ethics,” but serves to illustrate that even the most “inconvenient person” is “concretely” our neighbor, he said.

“This is the meaning of Christian agape,” he added.

Stating that “there is a role for everyone in addressing this pastoral crisis” around migration, Seitz spoke of “rebuilding from the bottom up a more welcoming culture.”

In the Diocese of El Paso, “we are working very hard to provide ‘know your rights’ sessions” for vulnerable migrants, he said. The diocese has also instituted the Border Refugee Assistance Fund to help meet the needs of migrant families and those currently stranded in Mexico.

Fratelli Tutti’s focus on rebuilding human fraternity and inspiring Christians to be “artisans and bridge-builders of a new and reconciled humanity” speaks directly to the current moment, Seitz said.  

“What is really under threat right now is our ability to be neighbors to one another,” he said. The kingdom of God is built up one encounter and one relationship at a time, he explained, “always with one more person at the banquet table.”

“Building community on a local level, we can plant the seeds of renewal for our civic and public culture,” he said. “This moment of crisis is also a real moment of opportunity.” ♦

Michael Centore is the editor of Today’s American Catholic.