Bishop Condemns Anti-Immigrant Bills

Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory denounced Wednesday a wave of immigration reform bills pending in statehouses nationwide, calling them punitive proposals that ignore the biblical call for “welcoming the stranger in our midst.”

Gregory, the leader of Atlanta’s Roman Catholic community, declined to comment specifically on an immigration reform bill pending before the Georgia Legislature. He did say, however, that any reform measures should first be handled by the federal government because it is responsible for protecting the nation’s borders.

Gregory’s comments are part of a six-page “pastoral letter” he released along with Bishop J. Kevin Boland of Savannah. Both Georgia bishops said that any immigration reforms should consider Catholic principles of social justice.

“Though we often celebrate the diversity in our communities, we bishops must confess that today, as in the past, the treatment of the immigrant too often reflects failures of understanding and sinful patterns of chauvinism, prejudice and discrimination that deny the unity of the human family,” both said in the statement.

The bill before the Georgia Legislature would prohibit adult illegal immigrants from receiving many taxpayer-funded benefits and worries many in the Hispanic Catholic community in Atlanta, which grew 300 percent from 1990 to 2000.

In his pastoral letter, Gregory said he is concerned that proposed immigration laws are “punitive” because they would restrict health care, education and basic social services for illegal immigrants. Catholic teaching insists that the dignity and rights of undocumented immigrants should be respected, he said.

“Immigrants are the strangers for whom God seeks protection,” Gregory wrote. 

Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mar. 2, 2006

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