From the USCCB: A Plea for Migrants

Last updated on: June 27, 2017 at 11:28 am by Father Pablo Migone

From the USCCB: A Plea for Migrants 2017-06-27T11:28:57-05:00 Father Pablo Migone

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“We need, rather our people need, the presence of the Catholic Church. We need for the Church to be the Good Samaritan.” This was the impassioned plea of Bishop Yousif Habash of the Syrian Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Deliverance before the almost two hundred bishops gathered in Indianapolis last week for the spring meeting of the Bishop’s Conference. A native of Iraq, Bishop Habash was ordained a priest of the Archeparchy of Mosul, and since 1994 has worked in the United States. He is now the national leader of one of the many eastern Churches in communion with Rome.

This plea occurred as Father Daniel Groody, CSC made a powerful presentation to the assembly about the spirituality of immigration. Father Groody highlighted the current global refugee crisis, the stark global indifference towards it, and emphasized the need for global solidarity. He recounted the devastating events in Lampedusa, Italy which impelled Pope Francis to visit the island in 2013. Fishermen found several migrants tangled in their nets at sea, and instead of aiding them, they cut the nets. Recalling the millions of refugees who have fled Syria and Iraq, Bishop Habash urged his fellow bishops to “think of the Christians neglected, those nobody thinks about.”

When the bishop concluded his intervention I wanted to clap, but he just sat in silence. For the rest of Father Groody’s presentation I considered the image of the Good Samaritan. The Bishop stated his people in Syria and Iraq needed the presence of the Church to heal their wounds. The stripped, robbed, and unwanted man is once again lying on the side of the road on the way to Jericho. Who is the Good Samaritan who will help him? Jesus challenged his listeners with this parable to teach them who is their neighbor, and today millions of our neighbors are suffering terribly. How can I respond to my neighbor’s need in the same way the Samaritan did? As a Christian, indifference is not an option. We often judge those who passed by the man on the road without helping him, will others judge us for not helping our neighbor today?

The number of Christians in Aleppo, Syria has plummeted from 110,000 in 2011 to 30,000 today. In all Iraq, the number of Christians has decreased from 1.5 million in 2003 to an estimated 400,000. Not only are Christians leaving their homelands, but so are many others who find themselves surrounded by war, indifference, and genocide. The Catholic Church in Iraq in union with Catholic Relief Services is running refugee camps for displaced persons, as well as providing housing, building schools and churches, so that Christians from these very ancient Christian communities have a reason to stay or return home.

There must be greater awareness of what millions of migrants are experiencing throughout the world. Today there are 244 million migrants in the world (those living in a country where they were not born), the highest number ever in history. Of these 244 million, sixty-five million are refugees. Father Groody proposed that all Christians should recall that Jesus himself migrated to a distant territory to bring us back as migrants to God the Father. A migrant is not a person to fear or to consider foreign. We are all migrants; simple travelers on the road called Earth.

Immigration and the global migrant crisis are at the heart of the work of the Bishop’s Conference. As an immigrant myself, and remembering my classmate, Father Michel Kayal, who was kidnapped on his way to Damascus from Aleppo about five years ago, I am grateful that our Bishops are not silent on this issue, but rather are challenging us to be the Good Samaritan.

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