Bishop Anthony B. Taylor of the Catholic Diocese of Little Rock has issued a statement about the influx of immigrants, many of them children, arriving at the U.S. border. He calls for a brotherly response, including welcoming them in Catholic parishes, rather than a political outcry.
The meat of his remarks:
“We can assist these women and children in their time of need. Many of these refugees already have relatives in the United States with whom they can be placed, but if necessary we could accommodate quite a few of them in our Catholic parishes if federal guidelines would just let us. And while it is true that some of these 60,000 are not refugees in the strictest sense of the term, all of them come from desperate circumstances. Pope Francis has called for the care and protection of these children. In a recent letter he wrote: “Such a humanitarian emergency demands as its first measure the urgent protection and properly taking in of the children.”
“Why can’t the governments in Central America solve their own problems? We have to recognize that El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala are failed states and it is simply unrealistic to expect them to solve this problem on their own. Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world, with El Salvador and Guatemala numbers four and five. Drug cartels are strengthening their hold on these countries as shipping routes for drugs to Mexico and the United States. Children are specifically targeted to join gangs or are threatened with death or rape or both. The governments of this region are increasingly unable to protect their citizens.
“The current humanitarian crisis is a test of the moral character of our nation. This crisis should not be exploited as an opportunity for political posturing, but rather serve as a chance for bipartisan cooperation to humanely address this issue.