(SAN DIEGO, March 21, 2024) — Annunciation House is a Church-based nonprofit in El Paso, Texas, that has provided emergency assistance to immigrants for 46 years. They currently support refugees and asylum seekers who have been released by US immigration authorities and are awaiting a hearing on their claims. The Texas attorney general has attempted to shut down the organization, but state courts have halted their efforts.
In a show of solidarity, Catholic bishops from across the country have expressed their support for the work of Annunciation House. The following statement was issued by San Diego Cardinal Robert W. McElroy on March 21.
“As Catholic bishops from across the country gather in Texas today in defense of religious liberty, the bishops of San Diego stand in solidarity and pray with them as we celebrate our Diocesan Chrism Mass tonight. The state of Texas is using government pressure to restrict the work of the Church in one of its most fundamental obligations: feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and giving drink to the thirsty. Our Lord tells us in the Gospel of Matthew that these are the criteria by which we will be judged at the end of our lives. No government can morally tell us to abandon or limit this mission. And no believer should be forced to choose between following the dictate of the government and the duty of feeding the hungry that God has entrusted to them.
“We find ourselves at a moment in our nation when the two goals of Catholic teaching on immigration – the right to secure our borders and the obligation to provide generously and humanely for immigrants who arrive on our shores – seem impossible to reconcile.
“Our nation’s legacy demands that we find that reconciliation, precisely by banishing the fears and polarization that distort our current national debate.”