On September 28, Catholics in Washington DC held the 111^th Day of Migrant and Refugees Mass.* This faith celebration followed a 1.9 mile march of over 1,000 people from the Shrine of the Sacred Heart Church, the neighborhood parish which is home to many immigrants, to the St. Matthew the Apostle cathedral in downtown Washington DC.  

 Cardinal Robert McElroy was powerful and outspoken in his rebuttal to the current politics of fear and hatred. Preaching the gospel about the Good Samaritan who stops to help the foreigner beaten and left to suffer, McElroy concludes with the question: “Who is our neighbor?”  

The stories we pay attention to and how we interpret them tell us a lot about who we see as our neighbors.   Here are recent stories from my daily experience in Maryland, a few miles from Washington DC. 

One Latina friend is so scared of ICE (United States Immigration Customs Enforcement), she has not left her home in several months. Friends came by on a recent Sunday and took her out for a walk and a meal, and quickly brought her home so she would feel safe.

An immigrant from Guatemala went to his construction job three weeks ago. ICE officers came to his work site and arrested him for not paying a traffic ticket. He is in jail in Baltimore, and he and his family fear deportation.

The Christian Palestinian who led our tour of the Holy Land ten years ago watches as family and friends are killed and arrested and his homeland is taken from him.  Currently, bombs and drones make staying alive and fed a daily challenge.  

A family from El Salvador survives on income from the mother’s work cleaning houses and the father’s employment as a construction worker. Weekly, they send money home to El Salvador to support their aging parents and other less fortunate relatives. When they leave for work, they monitor their cell phone, awaiting alerts that warn of ICE agents nearby. 

 Immigrants’ and refugees’ fears join government workers’ fears as they confront a federal government shut down.  The administration threatens to permanently reduce the work force, thus exploiting the shutdown. The highest-level military leaders fear that the President wants to reshape the military as a war machine accountable only to himself. 

Cardinal McElroy stated the obvious bluntly: “We are witnessing a comprehensive governmental assault designed to produce fear and terror among millions of men and women who have, through their presence in our nation, been nurturing precisely the religious, cultural, communitarian and familial bonds that are most frayed and most valuable at this moment in our country’s history.” 

The Cardinal did not deny US leaders’ moral right to deport people who have flagrantly broken the law. “But that’s not what is happening,” he said. “Our Catholic community in Washington has witnessed many people of deep faith, integrity and compassion who have been swept up and deported in the crackdown which has been unleashed in our nation. As citizens, we must not be silent as this profound injustice is carried out in our name.”

His remarks concluded with a question to those assembled in considering the story of the Good Samaritan. Others passed by the beaten Samaritan. Class and customs told them he was not their concern. The good Samaritan however saw him as neighbor and stopped and generously ministered to him. 

 The Cardinal asked: “Which of these in your opinion was neighbor to the robber’s victim?”

“In understanding and facing the oppression of undocumented men and women in our midst, we have only one answer: I was, Lord, because I saw in them your face,” he said.

McElroy concluded his sermon with the question: “Who is our neighbor?”

The overflowing crowd greeted his remarks with a long thunderous applause. At last, a leader was speaking truth about this fear-mongering administration and its tactics. He said it is time – way past time – for us all to find ways to speak up against the policies and tactics of terror. 

In my post next week, I will offer examples of actions we can all take to protect and support all our neighbors. 

*This post draws on reports from participants in the march and Mass and from an article on September 29, 2025 in the Metro Section of the Washington Post, DC Archbishop calls U.S. immigration crackdown a ‘governmental assault’ by Jasmine Golden.