(RNS) — A Southern California Catholic bishop announced Tuesday (July 8) that he is lifting the obligation for local Catholics to attend Mass if they have reason to fear immigration enforcement after people were detained on church property in two parishes in his diocese.
In his decree, San Bernardino Bishop Alberto Rojas cited “concerns expressed by many of our brothers and sisters regarding fears of attending Mass due to potential immigration enforcement actions by civil authorities.”
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According to canon law, Catholics are required to attend Mass on Sundays and feast days known as “holy days of obligation,” unless they have a serious reason, such as illness, or permission from their pastor not to attend. While many Catholics don’t follow the letter of this law, Catholic bishops only lift the obligation in the most serious circumstances.
According to its website, the San Bernardino Diocese, located in California’s Inland Empire and including San Bernardino and Riverside counties, is the sixth largest diocese in the U.S. and serves a Catholic population of 1 million faithful in 92 parishes and 12 missions.
Bishop Alberto Rojas. (Photo courtesy Diocese of San Bernardino)
In the decree, the bishop encouraged parishioners to maintain their communion with Christ and the church through alternative spiritual practices, such as prayer, Scripture reading and participation in devotions, as well as attending televised or online Masses.
A spokesperson for the Diocese of San Bernardino told National Catholic Reporter that ICE carried out detentions at St. Adelaide Parish in Highland and Our Lady of Lourdes in Montclair on June 20. At St. Adelaide, men were chased into the church parking lot and detained there. At Our Lady of Lourdes, a parishioner was apprehended on church property while doing landscaping.
While churches of other Christian traditions had publicly noted immigration raids that had taken place on their property, the June 20 raids in San Bernardino were the first time a diocese confirmed that federal agents had carried out detentions at Catholic churches.
After President Donald Trump took office, his administration rescinded what had long been standard federal policy restricting immigration enforcement at houses of worship. Since then, religious groups have filed several lawsuits claiming that the change infringes on their religious liberty.
One lawsuit resulted in a court limiting the Trump administration’s ability to carry out raids, but the ruling only applied to the places of worship used by the plaintiffs, including the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, some Quaker groups and the Sikh Temple in Sacramento.
Catholic leaders have largely avoided joining those lawsuits, although one Jesuit parish in San Diego signed on to a lawsuit brought by representatives of several faiths and community organizations.
Even in dioceses where detentions have not occurred on church property, Catholic leaders are saying they are seeing steep decreases in Mass attendance at some parishes because of fear of raids.
In his letter to the faithful in his diocese, Rojas wrote that the dispensation will remain in effect until “the circumstances necessitating this decree are sufficiently resolved.”
In a previous statement, Rojas said he supported law enforcement efforts aimed at violent criminals but described the detentions on parish grounds as random and unprovoked.
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The last time that many dioceses issued special dispensations for missing Mass was for the COVID-19 pandemic. In San Bernardino, a similar special dispensation was in effect from March 2020 through June 2021 because of the virus.
In May, the Diocese of Nashville, Tennessee, released a statement responding to fears about immigration enforcement at parishes, in which it reminded the faithful, “no Catholic is obligated to attend Mass on Sunday if doing so puts their safety at risk,” but the San Bernardino Diocese is the first U.S. Catholic diocese to issue a formal special dispensation.
