A United States cardinal and several bishops will offer Mass on the US/Mexico border for thousands of migrants who have died there.
“The US/Mexico border is our Lampedusa. Migrants in this hemisphere try to reach it, but often die in the attempt,” said Bishop Eusebio Elizondo.
Bishop Elizondo chairs the US bishops’ Committee on Migration.
Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston will attend along with the bishops on the migration committee and several border bishops.
Other bishops and cardinals are invited to join them.
The Mass will take place on April 1 at the border wall in Nogales, Arizona.
About 6000 migrants have died trying to cross the border from Mexico to the United States since 1998.
In his first visit outside Rome last year, Pope Francis visited the island of Lampedusa near the African coast to highlight the plight of desperate migrants.
The US bishops’ visit to the border in Arizona is meant to follow the example of Francis’s trip to Lampedusa.
“The purpose of the trip is to highlight the human suffering caused by a broken immigration system, an aspect of the national immigration debate which is often ignored,” a US bishops’ conference press release stated.
Bishop Elizondo said immigration is primarily about human beings, not economic or social issues.
“We exhibit our own indifference when we minimise or ignore this suffering and death, as if these people are not worth our attention,” he said.
“It degrades us as a nation.”
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