LOS ANGELES — San Bernardino Bishop Alberto Rojas, who leads greater than 1.5 million Catholics in Southern California, has formally excused parishioners from their weekly obligation to attend Mass following immigration detentions on two parish properties within the diocese.
The dispensation is a transfer normally reserved for extenuating circumstances, like the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. However Rojas says it is necessary as a result of the concern of being apprehended and probably deported has swept communities, together with Catholic church buildings.
“There’s a actual concern gripping many in our parish communities that in the event that they enterprise out into any sort of public setting they are going to be arrested by immigration officers,” Rojas mentioned in a press release Wednesday.
“Sadly, that features attending Mass. The current apprehension of people at two of our Catholic parishes has solely intensified that concern. I need our immigrant communities to know that their Church stands with them and walks with them by means of this attempting time.”
Save for a critical purpose, Catholics are obligated by their religion to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation. In Might, the Diocese of Nashville in Tennessee issued an analogous assertion following immigra
tion enforcement actions within the space, excusing these terrified of attending Mass from their holy obligation, although it was not named as a proper dispensation.
Rojas is an immigrant himself. He was born and raised in Aguascalientes, Mexico. He has been constant in his assist of immigrants and mentioned when he assumed this function that it will be certainly one of his high priorities.
In early June, the Trump administration considerably ramped up immigration arrests and raids in Southern California, notably in Los Angeles, with federal brokers conducting sweeps in workplaces and public areas and apprehending tons of.
Final month, as federal brokers made arrests and the federal authorities deployed the Nationwide Guard to keep up order amid protests in Los Angeles, Rojas issued a press release calling out federal brokers coming into parish properties and “seizing a number of individuals,” creating an atmosphere of concern and confusion.
“It isn’t of the Gospel of Jesus Christ — which guides us in all that we do,” he mentioned. “I ask all political leaders and decision-makers to please rethink these techniques instantly in favor of an strategy that respects human rights and human dignity and builds towards a extra lasting, complete reform of our immigration system.”
Created in 1978, the diocese serves over 1.5 million Catholics in Riverside County, which is 52.5% Latino, and San Bernardino County, which is 56.4% Latino, in response to the 2020 U.S. Census.
Members of native parishes who’re within the U.S. with out paperwork have made constructive contributions to their communities “with no different points than their authorized standing,” the bishop mentioned.
“Most of them are right here as a result of they wished to save lots of their households; they’d no different choice. I consider that they’d like to be legalized, however who will help them?”
Rojas mentioned he is aware of these individuals can be in church however for the menace to their security and their household unity.
“With all the concern and nervousness that they’re feeling I wished to remove, for a time, the burden they could be feeling from not having the ability to fulfill this dedication to which our Catholic trustworthy are referred to as,” Rojas mentioned.
Pastor Omar Coronado with Inland Congregations United for Change, a faith-based nonprofit serving Riverside and San Bernardino counties, referred to as the bishop’s decree “a rare act of ethical braveness and pastoral care.”
At a time when so many households live in concern and uncertainty, the Bishop’s voice provides not simply safety however hope,” he mentioned in a press release. “We’re deeply grateful for his management in reminding us that religion is just not meant to cover behind partitions, however to face with the susceptible.”
The Diocese of San Bernardino is the nation’s fifth-largest Catholic diocese and second-largest in California subsequent to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which is the most important within the nation with about 5 million members. Neither the Los Angeles Archdiocese nor the neighboring Diocese of Orange, which serves about 1.3 million Catholics, has issued related dispensations.
A spokesperson for the Diocese of Orange mentioned they’ve in current weeks taken steps to assist the immigrant neighborhood, together with asking monks to carry Communion and have a good time Mass within the properties of those that are terrified of leaving their properties. The diocese has additionally shared protocols with parishes and Catholic faculties to assist them put together and reply correctly to the presence of immigration officers on church or college grounds, he mentioned. As well as, the diocese can be coordinating efforts to have monks and deacons accompany and spiritually assist individuals at immigration court docket hearings.
Parishes beneath the Archdiocese of Los Angeles are additionally persevering with to “present outreach to households and people which have been impacted,” an archdiocese spokesperson mentioned.
