ST. PAUL, Minn. (OSV News) – The spiritual leader of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis preached on the importance of turning from anger to reconciliation and forgiveness during a Votive Mass of Solidarity with Migrants at the University of St. Thomas’s Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas in St. Paul on Feb. 27.
Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis celebrated the Mass with Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States; Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of Washington; and Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, on the morning of the final day of The Way Forward conference that gathered about 30 bishops for conversations on communication and evangelization in the digital age.
Many bishops attending the three-day conference concelebrated the Mass. Also in attendance were archdiocesan seminarians, as well as principals of local inner-city Catholic schools.
The Mass was celebrated, organizers said, in response to the chaotic immigration-related events that have taken place in the archdiocese in recent weeks amid Operation Metro Surge, the federal government's largest-ever immigration enforcement effort.
Launched in December, the Twin Cities-focused operation included 4,000 combined agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection and related personnel at its peak. The St. Paul ICE field director reported that during the operation, more than 4,000 people in the U.S. illegally were arrested.
The surge also involved the deaths of two U.S. citizens protesting the federal agents' actions and reports of poor treatment of immigrant detainees, leading to multiple anti-ICE protests and demonstrations.
“I've been angry a lot in these recent weeks,” Archbishop Hebda said in his homily. “I’ve been angry when our brothers and sisters have been intimidated to the point that they’re afraid to come to Mass, or to go to work, or to the doctor, or to take their children to school. … And I’ve been angry when I’ve felt helpless or unable to find the right words or the way forward to stop the madness unfolding before my eyes.”
He continued: “This is just such a situation that Jesus reminds me, as he reminds all of us, that whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to have to die.”
Archbishop Hebda said that Jesus Christ “gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”
“Jesus wants us to work actively and intentionally for unity, which has the Spirit as its origin and peace as its binding,” he said.
Moving beyond anger, Archbishop Hebda said, requires going to the heart of Christ. The source of hope, he said, is found in “advancing God's kingdom of love and justice,” citing Pope Francis’s homily from the Chrism Mass in March 2024.
“By going to the heart of Christ, moreover, we become more aware of our own sins and develop what Pope Francis calls the ‘compunction of the heart,’” Archbishop Hebda said.
He quoted Pope Francis: “Those who feel the compunction of the heart increasingly feel themselves brothers and sisters to all the sinners of the world.”
“The sense of solidarity born of compunction ... also enables reconciliation to take place,” Archbishop Hebda said, paraphrasing the late pope. “The person who is capable of compunction, rather than feel anger and scandal at the failings of our brothers and sisters, ‘weeps for their sins.’”
Archbishop Hebda said people can “look at the mess before our eyes and get discouraged. There’s so much we can’t control, but we can ask for the grace of getting our own hearts, our own actions, in greater order.”
Archbishop Hebda encouraged those present to listen to the words of Pope Leo’s Lenten message, which included his desire for the faithful to “strive to measure our words and cultivate kindness and respect in our families, among our friends, at work, on social media, in political debates, in the media and in Christian communities.”
“In this way,” Archbishop Hebda said, “words of hatred will give way to words of hope and heavenly peace.”
In a press event following the Mass, Cardinal Pierre said he was “very proud, personally, to see our Church being on the side of those who suffer,” referring to the “strong statement” the bishops made in support of migrants during their assembly in November and the support they have received from Pope Leo XIV.
Cardinal McElroy referred to Pope Francis’s frequent use of the image of the Church as a field hospital. “Everyone is wounded and everyone needs healing,” he said of the nation and “particularly here in Minneapolis.”
“We all stand in solidarity,” he said, noting the need for healing includes the families of those who died or were injured and the immigrant communities and those assisting them, to the police and to the members of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"Everyone in this community went through a tough time,” he said. “We all need to engage in healing and reconciliation."
When asked to respond to charges that the Church gets too involved in politics, Cardinal Tobin said, “To whom do we owe our ultimate loyalty, our ultimate obedience? The First Commandment tells us who: It says no false gods in front of you. You listen to the Lord your God.”
“I myself think the message is that many, many people in our country, and I think coming to be a majority in our country, are deeply concerned about the indiscriminate mass deportation that’s going on,” Cardinal McElroy said in response to a question about what the bishops would like to say to the Trump administration.
“Catholic teaching supports a nation’s right to control its border, and in these cases, to deport those who have been convicted of serious crimes, especially violent crimes,” he said. “But to go into the heartland – and literally the heartland of our country – and to begin to deport in a way with almost a siege on the city of Minneapolis, to seek to deport millions of men, women and children, families who have often lived here for decades – many children who know no other country – is contrary to Catholic faith, and more fundamentally contrary to basic human dignity.”
Cardinal Piere said asking for a separation between politics and religion is a “false alternative.”
“The society is the society,” he said. “And I think we should be able to recognize each other. We have a specificity of action, but we cannot separate it. When the Church speaks, we speak about the same people. … We should educate ourselves, and the recipe is to listen to each other and not accuse.”
Link to related article:
As undocumented immigrants face policy unleashing 'fear and terror,' Catholics should stand in solidarity with them, Cardinal McElroy says
