Vatican-Backed Priest from Marxist Movement Tours U.S. Promoting Pope’s ‘Open Borders’ Ideology

When the news broke that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo had been shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent as he drove his construction crew to work in Houston last week, a Vatican representative was meeting with immigrant families at a Houston Catholic parish. The families were sharing about the intense levels of fear their community has been experiencing.

“This is completely terrible, and we cannot be silent in front of this,” the Rev. Mattia Ferrari, coordinator of World Meeting of Popular Movements, told RNS about the killing of Salgado Araujo.

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On his multi-city tour of the U.S., Ferrari has heard from many immigrants experiencing fear, family separation and even detention. “They are suffering something that is completely unfair, completely unjust,” Ferrari said, calling Salgado Araujo’s death “the top of the sufferings.”

The World Meeting of Popular Movements was first convened at the Vatican with Pope Francis in 2014, and since then the Vatican’s Dicastery for Integral Human Development has “accompanied” the initiative, which emphasizes poor and marginalized people as “protagonists” in the fight for justice.

“ We are here to serve, not to lead,” said Ferrari of the church’s role, highlighting grassroots leadership.

Last fall, Pope Leo XIV told the convening, which has historically called for land, housing and work for poor people, “The Church must be with you: a poor Church for the poor, a Church that reaches out, a Church that takes risks, a Church that is courageous, prophetic and joyful!”

Continue reading at RNS