By Mark Zimmermann
WASHINGTON — Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan shows today’s Christians how to respond to current government policies affecting immigrants and the poor, Cardinal Robert W. McElroy said at a conference on migrants and refugees.
Washington’s new archbishop was among the speakers at the gathering in the nation’s capital hosted on March 24 by Jesuit Refugee Service/USA and the Center for Migration Studies of New York.
Cardinal McElroy noted Pope Francis’ Feb. 11 letter to the nation’s bishops, in which the pontiff addressed the Trump administration’s program of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.
“Pope Francis brought to the fore the Parable of the Good Samaritan. He said that herein lies the heart of Catholic moral teaching … and what the implications of it are for us today,” said the cardinal, who led the Diocese of San Diego for 10 years, ending in March.
The cardinal read the parable (Luke 10:25-37), in which a man was beaten by robbers and left on the roadside. A priest and Levite passed by him, but a Samaritan traveler, moved by compassion, lifted him up and cared for him and took him to an innkeeper.
The cardinal said the pope examined each of the figures in the parable, pointing out how the priest and the Levite had indifference and fear in their hearts that caused them to walk past the suffering man.
“Indifference is the fact that each of us becomes so preoccupied with our own well-being and concerns and needs, that we cease to be compassionate in a deep and profound and Christ-like sense of that word,” the cardinal said.
The cardinal pointed out how the pope also reflected on the suffering victim on the side of the road. “Each of us at times is the victim. Each of us goes through suffering in our lives through which we feel others are merely passing by,” he said.
The cardinal noted how the parable sheds light on the impact of the Trump administration’s moves to shut down the support provided to the world’s poor by the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“If we look at the figure of the robber, at this moment, I think we must say to ourselves quite clearly, that the suspension of (these) monies for humanitarian relief is moral theft from the poorest and most desperate men, women and children in our world. It is unconscionable through any prism of Catholic thought,” the cardinal said.
Officials from Caritas Internationalis and from Catholic Relief Services have warned that shutting down USAID funding will harm millions of people around the world.
The cardinal compared undocumented immigrants facing the government’s policy of mass deportations to the victim in the parable, as they live in fear in a society where many have lived for decades.
“We, as a Church, need to advocate continually … for their dignity as human persons. We must not only advocate, but we must act in support of them in every way possible,” he continued.
The figure of the Good Samaritan, Cardinal McElroy said, provides the centerpiece of the parable.
“The Good Samaritan is a foreigner, a stranger in that society in which he is living, an outcast, and yet he comes by, and he sees the man lying by the side of the road and he overcomes the danger and the indifference, and rescues the man,” the cardinal said.
“This is the example of the figure that each of us is called to be, one who sacrifices and thinks of others in their suffering, and who is not bound by the chains of indifference and fear.”
He said undocumented immigrants sacrifice for their families, work hard, and bring good values.
The cardinal said the United States has had a broken immigration system for a long time. “Both parties have been at fault for failing to reach an accord on immigration reform,” he said.
“And now we face two different pathways. The first, which Catholic Social Teaching would support, to change our laws so that they have secure borders and dignity for the treatment of everyone at those borders, and a generous asylum and refugee policy… I believe most Americans would be in favor of that pathway,” Cardinal McElroy said.
The cardinal warned that “the other pathway is a crusade which comes from the darkest parts of our American psyche and our history. The crusade denigrates the undocumented, it labels them criminals.”
He said, “We as a nation will have to make one choice. The pathway of crusade and mass deportation cannot be followed in conscience by those who call themselves disciples of Jesus Christ. We must work to make sure that does not happen in this nation in which we live and which we love.”
