There has been huge pushback after the few times I have addressed the important topic of immigration from the pulpit. I recall giving a sermon on illegal immigration in early 2019 at a parish in the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut. After one of the Masses, a Novus Ordo in Spanish, a woman screamed at me in the vestibule as I was seeing off parishioners. Her insults were flying in Spanish and I was providentially keeping my composure.
This exchange led the pastor at the time to ask me not to give any more sermons for a “few weeks.” To the local bishop’s credit, he told me that pastors did not have that authority. The pastor ended up going out of town over a weekend a few weeks after the incident and told me I could preach if the content was not controversial. I would submit that the whole of the Gospel is controversial!
But as it turned out, the woman in question (in her 50s) was divorced and living outside of the sacrament of holy matrimony with a Mexican national (in his 50s) who was also divorced – and here in the United States illegally. Furthermore, her live-in “boyfriend” was not a practicing Catholic and did not attend Church anywhere. It has been my experience that those who eschew U.S. immigration laws are also willing to ignore ecclesial laws. They neither observe civil nor religious laws; theirs is a subjective morality of their own preferences.
One of the biggest problems in Western society is the lack of our participation in the Sunday precept. When people do not hear the morality and theology of sermons from the pulpit, they begin to make up their own personalized and convenient religion. We also live in a world where people do not have many discussions with well-formed consciences within their circle of acquaintances. The fact is that many isolate themselves more and more away from social interactions and counsel. Those living south of the border (in the words of many of my friends living there) tend to view any government as responsible for all the economic shortfalls they may experience.
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