Somos America / We Are America Coalition

July 28, 2008Most Reverend

Gerald F. Kicanas, D.D.

Diocese of Tucson111 South Church AveTucson, Arizona 85702Dear Bishop Kicanas:Your Excellency, I am contacting you as the elected leader of Somos América/We AreAmerica, a broad, Phoenix-based coalition of community organizations that focus onimmigrant, civil, and human rights. Several member organizations are actively providinghumanitarian assistance to our migrant brothers and sisters in our southern desert.Members of the Somos América coalition have asked me to represent them in contactingyou in reference to the human and civil rights crisis that has been escalating specificallyin Arizona.Many of the coalition’s members claim a Catholic faith life, and are deeply appreciativeof the materials that you have contributed to in the past, such as the Pastoral Letter onMigration that you co-signed with the other Arizona Bishops, and more recently, theUSCCB effort on Faithful Citizenship.Bishop Kicanas, these words are deeply meaningful to people who live their lives asCatholics, and more broadly to people who live their faith traditions holding humandignity as core to their beliefs. Yet, most people of faith have felt let down andabandoned by their high-ranking religious leaders when the words do not specificallyaddress the local lived experiences that church-going families have here in Arizona, andfaithful migrants have in their efforts to trek our deserts to support their families.

PO Box 15363 • Scottsdale, AZ 85267 • (602) 263-2012

Members of our coalition ask: What is dignified about children being held at gunpoint byBorder Patrol Agents? What is dignified about families being rent in the name of LawEnforcement? What is dignified about living a life of fear to the level of being unable toreport crimes inflicted with impunity upon hardworking people of faith? What isdignified about a legal permanent resident of the United States being told by hospitalpersonnel that he will be sent to Mexico unless the family agrees to disconnect him fromlife support because he has no health insurance? Your Excellency, these are dailyoccurrences in the lives of people of Hispanic descent in this state, and they only touchthe surface of examples of the current assault on Human Dignity that are excused as basiclaw enforcement and being “tough on crime.” Your people are suffering, Bishop, andaccording to the writings in “Welcoming the Stranger in America”, the People of Faithwho follow you are called to respond:“Some of them came with proper papers, others did not. Whatever the case, theChurch has always felt obliged to extend a warm welcome and helping hand. Wehave no less an obligation in 2007. We cannot forget Jesus’ words (Mt 25:35), “

Iwas a stranger and you welcomed me.

”“John Paul II spells out the kind of attitude we should have towards these recentarrivals (Ibid.), “

Migrants should be met with a hospitable and welcomingattitude, which can encourage them to become part of the Church’s life, alwayswith due regard for their freedom and their specific cultural identity.

”“What we are dealing with here is more than a matter of justice, even though itcertainly is that. It is also a matter of love.

No man-made law

, [emphasis added]no circumstance, no custom can excuse us from the obligation to love ourneighbor, whether the neighbor is a Samaritan or a Hispanic, whether he speaksour language or not. The demands of Christ’s call to love our neighbor are greatindeed.”Bishop Olmsted’s booklet, “Catholics in the Public Square” talks about how people of Catholic faith are called to live a different life – even public life – than the status quo.Yet, some of the most prominent voices in Arizona public life claim membership in aCatholic Church and act directly against the teachings of the Catholic Church. Please,Bishop, your voice is needed to call this behavior out and decry it. Your faithful arehurting in the wake of such hypocrisy: they are afraid to go to Church; they are afraid togo to work; they are afraid to seek medical care for their family members; they are afraidto take their children to school. Your voice is needed in our midst, not only to comfortthe afflicted, but to afflict the comfortable.

PO Box 15363 • Scottsdale, AZ 85267 • (602) 263-2012