D.C. Religious Leaders Decry Assault on Migrants | National Catholic Reporter

Cardinal Robert McElroy wasted no time pointing out that this year’s World Day for Migrants and Refugees is not like the others — at least not in the U.S.

“For this year we are confronting — both as a nation and as a church — an unprecedented assault upon millions of immigrant men and women and families in our midst,” McElroy said during a Sept. 28 homily at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, as the archdiocese in the nation’s capital observed the church event that celebrates, on Oct. 4-5 this year, the resilience of displaced people around the world.

Though McElroy has been steadily defending migrants, the archbishop of Washington on Sunday focused on the government’s actions that kept many in his flock from attending the event, following reports of catechists and ministers detained on their way to Sunday Mass and other church activities.

No one argues that removing those convicted of serious crimes is a legitimate national goal, McElroy said, but the way he sees it, what the administration is doing in Washington and the rest of the country has a different goal.

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