(RNS) — Christian leaders — from Catholic cardinals and Episcopal and Lutheran bishops to moderate evangelical Christians — took their faith’s day of penitence and prayer as an opportunity to speak out on behalf of immigrants and against President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Ash Wednesday began and ended with Masses led by two of the three current cardinal archbishops, with vigils at the White House and in New York’s Federal Plaza, the center of federal government in the city, in between.
In his homily at a large outdoor Mass in solidarity with immigrant families in Melrose Park, Illinois, Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, addressed immigrants directly, saying the anti-immigrant environment has brought home to them the day’s Gospel passage about practicing one’s devotions in secret. Deploring the way they have been “treated like dust that can be swept away,” the cardinal told immigrants, “This day is made for you.”
“When you cry in secret, he sees you. When you work hard for your children while no one is watching, he sees you,” said Cupich of God. “When you sacrifice your own comfort to send money back home, you sacrifice to give alms in secret, and he sees you.”
Several Catholic prelates celebrated Mass in immigrant detention centers. Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, was joined by Newark Auxiliary Bishops Pedro Bismarck Chau, Manuel Cruz and Gregory Studerus at Delaney Hall, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. Las Cruces, New Mexico, Bishop Peter Baldacchino celebrated Mass at Otero County Prison Facility and Processing Center in his diocese.
Tobin told RNS after celebrating two Masses for women detained inside Delaney Hall, “It was sad and yet there was a serenity among them, because they’re women of great courage.”
When informed that Tobin had visited Delaney Hall, Kristina Larios, a Rutgers University-Newark student who attended the Mass that Tobin later celebrated at St. Patrick’s Pro-Cathedral in Newark, said: “It’s an issue here, so it’s a good sign that he cares about people in this area. It’s an important issue to me, too.”
Sister Susan Francois, a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace, joined members of the Catholic peace organization Pax Christi USA outside the cathedral to thank Tobin for his advocacy. “I am here today at the pro-cathedral to support Cardinal Tobin, who has spoken out in the name of what Christianity and people of goodwill are about,” said Francois, who prays outside Delaney Hall several times a week and offers support to visitors to the detention center.
In some places, faith leaders’ access to detention centers was not guaranteed or simple. The Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership, a Christian organization, won a preliminary injunction last week allowing the group access to a nearby detention center in Broadview, Illinois, to provide ashes and Communion on Ash Wednesday. But it was noon on Wednesday before CSPL announced that the Department of Homeland Security had told the group a delegation of two priests and a sister would be able to enter Broadview at 3 p.m.
The Rev. Alex Gaitan, the Archdiocese of Newark’s immigration ministry coordinator, told RNS the process to gain clearance to celebrate Mass at Delaney Hall included a signed agreement from Tobin and the auxiliary bishops to only provide religious services in the center.
In Chicago, Cupich told RNS on Wednesday morning that the purpose of the Mass was to “express our solidarity with people who feel as though fear right now is gripping their hearts.”
Cupich said his primary motivation in crafting the homily was to preach the gospel. “The word of God gives us those images, so my job is to try to make them meaningful to the people who are coming to Mass.”
In Manhattan, the Episcopal bishop of New York and a Lutheran bishop participated in a prayer service outside the building where immigrants have been detained and held for days before being moved to other facilities. A lawsuit last year about the facility raised serious concerns about overcrowding and unsanitary conditions.
Bishop Matthew Heyd said in a statement: “Ash Wednesday calls us to remember that we are all created in the image of God. Today’s vigil serves as a call to reclaim our shared humanity from the chaos and cruelty that ICE raids have brought to our neighborhoods.”
According to Heyd’s diocesan office, the procession to Foley Square, also known as Federal Plaza, included more than 300 people, among them Long Island Episcopal Bishop Lawrence Provenzano, New York Bishop for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Katrina Foster and Episcopal Bishop Suffragan Allen Shin.
The Rev. Winnie Varghese, dean of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine; J. Antonio Fernández, CEO of Catholic Charities of New York; Ravi Ragbir, executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition; the Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president of the Interfaith Alliance; and the Rev. Liz Theoharis, executive director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights & Social Justice, were also at the Manhattan event.
In Washington, D.C., activist groups held Ash Wednesday services near the U.S. Capitol and the White House. A coalition of Catholic groups held a service across the street from the Capitol emphasizing nonviolence, where they prayed about “the horrific ICE raids and killings,” military action in Venezuela, Palestine, Iran and threats against Greenland and Cuba, as well as cuts to social services and climate change protections.
Leaders from Sojourners, Faith in Action, the Georgetown Center on Faith and Justice, the National Council of Churches and the Latino Christian National Network held a separate vigil outside the White House “to issue a moral call to repentance, love, and courageous action in a time of deep crisis for both faith and democracy.”
Several among the group outside the White House also signed onto an Ash Wednesday letter of over 2,000 faith leaders that called the current government and Trump administration “cruel and oppressive.”
“We are facing a cruel and oppressive government; citizens and immigrants being demonized, disappeared, and even killed; the erosion of hard-won rights and freedoms; and a calculated effort to reverse America’s growing racial and ethnic diversity — all of which are pushing us toward authoritarian and imperial rule,” the letter said.
Saying that silence in this moment is not neutrality, but an active choice to permit harm, the letter said, “We call on all Christians to join us in greater acts of courage to resist the injustices and anti-democratic danger sweeping across the nation.”
Fiona Murphy and Jack Jenkins contributed to this report.
