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During the past two weeks we have been discussing the three basic principles of Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration. These are taken from a presentation on the USCCB website entitled “Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration and the Movement of Peoples.” This resource was written by Father Thomas Betz, O.F.M. Cap. when he was serving as the Director of Immigration and Refugee Services for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Last week I began a three-part series covering three basic principles of Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration. These are published on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The resource was written by Father Thomas Betz, O.F.M. Cap., who at one point served as the Director of Immigration and Refugee Services for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. This week I want to talk about the second basic principle of Catholic Social Teaching on immigration.

Capuchin Father Thomas Betz wrote a paper “Catholic Social Teaching on Immigrants and the Movement of Peoples” several years ago when he served as the Director of Immigration and Refugee Services for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. That paper has been posted on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Father Betz discusses three basic principles of Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration. I want to review them in my column this week and in the following weeks.

On our parish website I recommend people take a few moments to watch a brief video message explaining the Holy Father’s Prayer Intention for the month. In the month of August Pope Francis has called on political leaders to be at the service of the poor, the unemployed and the common good. The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network released its most recent message on July 30, 2024. In that message Pope Francis stated that today politics does not have a good reputation: corruption, scandals, distant from people’s day-to-day lives. He asks if we can move ahead toward universal fraternity without good politics. His answer is that we cannot do so.

I was at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas for a conference in July 2021. One of the things to which I look forward on such an occasion is meeting other people attending the conference as they are often from all over the country. I was not disappointed in this regard. While I was there I met a priest from the Diocese of Tulsa and the Bishop of Little Rock, Arkansas. With both of them I had a conversation about the recently beatified Blessed Stanley Rother who had been a priest from Oklahoma and volunteered to be a missionary in Guatemala. Blessed Stanley was murdered because he did not want to abandon the indigenous people in his parish. His parishioners were being tortured and murdered by soldiers and paramilitary squads. When Stanley spoke out against this, he learned that he had been put on a list of people to be tortured and murdered. He was killed on July 28, 1981.