In a virtual format with about 150 people listening and participating online, Archbishop Bernard Hebda and Lutheran Bishop Ann Svennungsen Aug. 31 discussed scriptural and faith traditions that undergird both Christian denominations’ call to welcome migrants and refugees.
From the experience of the Israelites in Egypt to the Holy Family fleeing Herod’s rage, the scriptural basis for Church teaching about migrants and refugees is clear, said Archbishop Hebda of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
“Jesus’ human experience is formed from that as well, so it’s not surprising that when we hear the Lord speak about how we are to respond to the stranger, that we are responding to him,” Archbishop Hebda said. “It’s very believable.”
Catholic tradition includes encyclicals such as Pope Leo XII’s “Rerum Novarum” in 1891, with its approach to social and economic justice and meeting the needs of refugees, Archbishop Hebda said. Pope Francis has highlighted the plight of migrants and refugees as well, he said.
Catholic tradition also makes clear that there is a right to migrate to sustain life and the life of families, as well as the right of nations to regulate their borders and control immigration, so long as that is accomplished with justice and mercy, the archbishop said.
Agreeing with the archbishop, Bishop Svennungsen, of the Minneapolis Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, also encouraged treating each person with dignity and each nation doing its fair share in a global responsibility to welcome migrants and refugees. Bishop Svennungsen said children and families need special attention and no one should face discrimination based on race or religion.
The two bishops were guests of St. Frances Cabrini in Minneapolis, which invited them to discuss migrants and refugees as part of its Tegeder Talks series honoring its late pastor Father Mike Tegeder, who died in 2016 and expressed to a Cabrini colleague his hope that if he left any legacy, it would be that of encouraging “adult conversation about vital things.”
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the bishops’ discussion was moved online, and those participating at one point were broken into small, online groups to discuss the topic. The two bishops also addressed ways people can ease fear and hostility toward migrants and refugees and help create a welcoming society for those uprooted from their homelands, particularly in light of the global pandemic and economic crisis. To view the bishops’ presentation, go to cabrinimn.org/tegeder-talks.
It was not the first time the two bishops together addressed the need to assist migrants and refugees. They and their fellow Catholic and ECLA bishops in Minnesota wrote a joint statement last winter against President Donald Trump’s executive order, issued in September, requiring consent from state and local governments for federal resettlement of refugees in their area.
First published in December in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the bishops’ statement said they also were troubled by the federal decision to set a limit of 18,000 refugees in 2020, the lowest number in 40 years. And they encouraged people to pray for and support refugees and immigrants, and voice support for them to elected leaders.
Bishop Svennungsen said their concerns haven’t changed. The low number of accepted refugees, for example, compared with an average of 95,000 refugees accepted each year into the U.S. between 1980 and 2017, is not sufficient for the U.S. to claim it has done its fair share in meeting the needs of migrants and refugees, she said.
