The Bishop of El Paso took over the USCCB Migration Office | Tech Reddy

BALTIMORE – As El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz celebrated a Mass earlier this month at an altar built above the Rio Grande River, where parishioners from both sides of the river that mark the U.S.-Mexico border, he wept.

“It brought me to tears, and it’s one of those things that doesn’t take long to explain,” Bishop Seitz said Tablet. “Gather yourselves together and place the altar on the line that we have drawn in the sand in the middle of the river…and you are praying as one believing people.”

About a week before the Mass, Bishop Seitz lived in tents on the banks of the Rio Grande, meeting with recently expelled Venezuelan migrants, handing out rosaries and listening to their stories. The visitation and border mass are two of the many experiences Bishop Seitz has had living and serving in the US-Mexico border diocese, giving him a unique insight into the migrant situation.

Now, Bishop Seitz will be the first bishop with a unique perspective to lead a Texas border diocese, leading the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on Migration. He will begin his three-year term today at the conclusion of the conference’s fall general assembly.

The USCCB Committee was established in 1949 as the USCCB Bureau of Immigration. He received his current title in 1965.

Auxiliary Bishop Mario Dorsonville of Washington, D.C., who just finished his term as the USCCB’s migration chair, told The Tablet that having a border bishop lead the committee is important given the migration crisis because “he knows the needs of the people because he is the shepherd there.”

This sentiment was shared by other border bishops. San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller explained that the bishop’s frequent rotations with immigration realities and policies provide “more lived experience” when speaking on the topic.

Bishop James Tamayo of Laredo added that the border bishop of the USCCB is very important and very helpful to lead the migration committee because they know the reality of the situation.

“It’s very important and very helpful because Bishop Seitz knows the truth, and I and all of us at the border know,” Tamayo Tablet said. “We have a good dialogue as bishops of Texas, as well as with our colleagues in Mexico, and this helps us to know the truth; it helps us to know what is coming from other countries and the situations they are going through, so we are ready to receive them.”

Bishop Seitz has been pastor of the Diocese of El Paso since 2013.

Speaking to The Tablet earlier this week at the USCCB Fall General Assembly in Baltimore, Bishop Seitz highlighted immigration reform, the root causes of migration, and the need for people in the United States to meet migrants in their own communities. , the exact initiatives will be determined.

He said the crisis on the southern border — with border agents facing more than 2,000,000 undocumented immigrants in fiscal year 2022 — is the result of the country’s failure to address those areas.

“We’ve been characterizing immigration as a border issue, but it’s not really a border issue,” Bishop Seitz explained. “Are we seeing signs of a failed border policy?” Sure, but it’s really not much more than that, because we wouldn’t be able to see what we’re doing at the border if it weren’t for the policies that make it almost impossible for people who are fleeing to escape.

“If our country does not pay attention to the needs of the countries to the south, and does not take actions that create many problems that lead to instability in the countries of the south, if not all of them. The kinds of choices that we make, then we wouldn’t see the situation at the border,” he continued.

The third point Bishop Seitz mentioned is the main reason that prevents comprehensive immigration reform in the US, which he says is that there are opportunities for the church to meet migrants in their own communities and hear their stories. breadwinner

“I think that priests and bishops are to provide opportunities for people to meet each other, and if this is happening, I don’t think that the leaders of the church should say anything, because they know what happened and they know. what’s going on … then people got answers to a lot of these difficult questions,” Bishop Seitz said.

Nationally, President Joe Biden, who spent two years in the White House, has backed away from his promise to improve the country’s immigration system. Even if Biden wanted it, the task became more difficult with Republicans taking control of the House in the midterm elections.

In any case, Bishop Seitz said he would never give up hope for reform and emphasized the importance of promoting positive change.

“What I need to do is help people learn a different narrative than what they often see in the media, and from the politicians who use this issue to scare people and get people around to their particular point of view.” said Bishop Seitz. “If we tell them the truth, they will be found in the lives of our brothers and sisters coming to our southern border.”