New Jersey Cardinal Urges Catholics To Call Capitol Hill To Voice Opposition To Funding ICE

A high-ranking Catholic leader in America is urging people of faith to contact their representatives at Washington and tell them to vote against funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which he called a “lawless” agency. During an online, interfaith prayer service this week, Joseph Cardinal Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, urged Catholics to “say ‘no’” to the Trump Administration’s immigration crackdown. “One way that we say ‘no’ is that we mourn, we do not celebrate death, and, what is probably worse, we do not pretend it doesn’t happen,” he said. “We say names. We pray for the dead. We mourn for a world, a country, that allows 5-year-olds to be legally kidnapped and protesters to be slaughtered.”The comment about kidnapping a 5-year-old likely refers to reports that immigration officials detained an Ecuadorian boy in Minnesota. Neighbors accused immigration officials of using the child as “bait,” but the Department of Homeland Security insists that the boy’s father fled on foot and left the child unattended in a running vehicle.Cardinal Tobin also urged Catholics to contact their representatives in Congress and ask them to vote against funding for ICE. “How will you say ‘no?’ How will you say ‘no’ to violence?” Cardinal Tobin asked. “How will you say ‘no’ this week when an appropriations bill is going to be considered in Congress? Will you contact your congressional representatives, the senators and representatives from your district? Will you ask them, for the love of God and the love of human beings, which can’t be separated, to vote against renewing funding for such a lawless organization?”Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are debating a funding bill to keep the government open. In the wake of the fatal shootings of two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, some Democrats are threatening to withhold funding for the Department of Homeland Security unless it implements reforms for the immigration agencies.Since Mr. Trump’s second term began, many Catholic leaders have been outspoken about the president’s immigration crackdown and have released statements criticizing the treatment of migrants. Some bishops have said that parishioners do not have to go to services if they are scared because of the deportation operations.However, Cardinal Tobin’s message appeared to be the first time a high-ranking Catholic official in America issued such an overtly political call-to-action in response to Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown in his second term. Clergy members from other denominations have also spoken out against ICE operations and taken to the streets to protest. Last weekend, police arrested around 100 clergy members for trespassing at Minneapolis as they protested immigration enforcement. And in New Hampshire, an Episcopal bishop, Rob Hirschfeld, is urging clergy members to prepare their wills as they protest the administration’s immigration policy. “I’ve asked them to get their affairs in order to make sure they have their wills written,” he said during a vigil for Good, according to NPR. He added that he told his clergy to prepare for a “new era of martyrdom,” and that he “asked them to get their affairs in order to make sure they have their wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.”

New Jersey Cardinal Urges Catholics To Call Capitol Hill To Voice Opposition To Funding ICE

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