You may have heard the news on All Saints Day:
Auxiliary Bishop Jose María García-Maldonado celebrated a Mass on Nov. 1 outside the Broadview facility near Chicago where immigration advocates allege federal authorities inhumanely treat detainees.
Maldonado, an auxiliary bishop in Chicago, and a group of eight spiritual leaders sought to bring holy Communion to detainees and were not admitted. Mass organizers said they followed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s guidelines to obtain access and submitted the request weeks in advance.
An estimated 2,000 Catholics attended the outdoor Mass including Sister JoAnn Persch, 91, a Sister of Mercy and longtime advocate for immigrant rights in the Chicago area.
Persch said in previous years she was granted access to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and brought Communion to detainees, but access has ceased. Obtaining access initially took time when she first began visiting the facility decades ago, she said.
Today, Pope Leo was asked about it. Watch his response below:
Also today, two bishops with close ties to Trump spoke out. From RNS:
Two Catholic bishops who sit on or advise President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission are voicing criticism of the administration, arguing immigrants detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should have access to religious services such as Communion.
“It is important that our Catholic detainees are able to receive pastoral care and have access to the sacraments,” Bishop Kevin Rhoades, who oversees the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese in Indiana, told Religion News Service in an email on Monday (Nov. 3). “Their religious liberty, part of their human dignity, needs to be respected.”
… Rhoades’ comments came only a few minutes after Bishop Robert Barron, who oversees the Diocese of Winona-Rochester and sits on the president’s Religious Liberty Commission, published a post on X regarding the issue. Barron said he has been “in touch with senior officials in both the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security and have brought forward the concerns of the Church regarding detainees’ access to Sacraments.”
Barron added: “I feel that maintaining open lines of communication and engaging in dialogue with the Administration constitute the most constructive way forward.”
