SAN DIEGO — Desperate immigrants fearing for their lives in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea and inside a U.S. courthouse.
People of faith who risk their lives and livelihoods to help them in both settings came together one extraordinary day in San Diego to share their work, to bring their organizations together and to pray.
The exchange confirmed the power of faith and hope to lift the lives of immigrants in their darkest moments, and planted seeds of future collaboration among the participants, which included Bishop Michael Pham, clergy, and lay volunteers.
The visiting delegation was comprised of Father Mattia Ferrari and Luca Casarini, who traveled from their native Italy, and César Piscoya, who arrived from Chile.
Father Ferrari is the coordinator of the World Meeting of Popular Movements, a network started by Pope Francis to support grassroots organizations around the globe that help the poorest communities and tackle the root causes of their marginalization.
The priest is also the chaplain for the organization Mediterranea Saving Humans, whose ship navigates the Mediterranean Sea to rescue men, women and children fleeing the African continent in precarious vessels, desperately trying to reach European soil to seek asylum.
Casarini is a co-founder of that organization, itself a “popular” movement.
Piscoya works for the Conference of Catholic Bishops in Latin America and the Caribbean, known by its acronym CELAM, as advisor to the Center for Pastoral Programs and Action Networks.
The three visited San Diego on June 22, the second day of a trip to visit member grassroots organizations in cities and towns across the country — including Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C. — ending in New York on July 30.
They wanted to see firsthand the organizations’ work, encourage collaboration among them, and strengthen their connection with the Catholic Church.
“We are here to listen to them, learn from them, and to build bridges,” Father Ferrari said in an interview.
The local affiliate of one of these “popular” groups is the San Diego Organizing Project, which, together with the San Diego Catholic Diocese and Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish (San Diego), runs the FAITH ministry that accompanies immigrants to their court hearings and ICE check-ins.
The delegation’s day began with a morning visit to the federal courthouse in downtown San Diego, coordinated by Jesuit Father Scott Santarosa, of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish. They sat in on court hearings for two migrants on the fourth floor.
“We were very, very moved,” Father Ferrari said later in an interview. “It was terrible to see the suffering of the people who were there. It was something that hurt our humanity.
“But at the same time, it was a very, very powerful experience of the Gospel to see the Church this way, because this is the work of Jesus.”
Father Ferrari and Piscayo accompanied a mother named Francisca to a scheduled check-in with ICE on the building’s second floor.
She “was suffering, almost crying,” the priest recalled, fearing she would be detained on the spot.
“We prayed the rosary with Francisca, and this gift saved her,” he said. “And she was sent home.”
After the visit to the courthouse, the delegation headed south to the border. They visited Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Chula Vista and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish in San Ysidro. They prayed at the border wall, and stopped outside the Otay Mesa Detention Center, where migrants are held.
Their day ended back in San Diego, at the Pope Francis Center, launched by Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish to provide legal assistance and other help to migrants. There, Auxiliary Bishop Felipe Pulido celebrated a thanksgiving Mass, attended by around 30 people, including Bishop Pham, FAITH volunteers and community leaders.
Afterward, they walked to a Quonset hut on the parish property, where they ate dinner and reflected on their work to support migrants.
“The situation in the Mediterranean is the same as on your border,” Casarini shared. “The system has transformed the area into a cemetery. And this cemetery is full of our brothers and sisters, our sons, our uncles, our grandfathers, our grandmothers.”
The Mediterranean is considered the deadliest migration route in the world. The official death toll is around 32,000 in the last 12 years, Father Ferrari said, but the Italian Red Cross estimates that between 100,000 to 200,000 people have died there, with most lost at sea.
An immigrant couple, Lucas and Yesenia, described how they were detained by ICE agents one morning outside of their apartment building as he was going to work. They took away their cell phones, so they could not tell their family what was happening.
“This was something very hard for us,” he said.
They were taken to the Otay Mesa Detention Center, where they spent five months before being able to post bail and be released.
The dad explained that many people had emerged from the Church and community to help his family — people he did not know, but was thankful for.
The couple have five children, with the youngest 8 years old. The detentions thrust the couple’s oldest daughter, Deisy, into the role of the family provider.
“I only had a part-time job,” she said, as she wept softly, burying her head on her dad’s shoulder. “I did not know what to do. I had never thought this would happen to us. I felt so alone.”
Bishop Pham said he could identify with her. He shared that he had fled Vietnam with two of his siblings and had ended up in a refugee camp in Malaysia.
“What am I going to do?” he recalled thinking at the time. “How are we going to live? I felt alone.”
He said that is why it’s so important to help the most vulnerable.
“We are one human family,” he told the gathering. “We have to come together to care for one another, to be in solidarity with one another in the midst of difficulties.”
Father Ferrari said he was inspired by what he had seen.
“Christ is here in San Diego. Christ is working inside the federal building. Why? Because there are Christian people who choose to open their hearts. This is the power of the Gospel.”
