Several articles in the Tucson paper about the Church and illegal immigration:
Immigration reform
Church leaders don’t condone illegal immigration and agree the nation’s borders must be secured, said Bishop Olmsted of the Phoenix Diocese. But the current immigration system is broken, and out of sync with the nation’s labor needs, he said. It forces immigrants to sneak in the country illegally, and results in hundreds of migrant deaths each year, Olmsted said.
"We aren’t promoting illegal immigration," Olmsted said. "What we want to have is an immigration policy in this country that meets the real needs and it’s not working."
Although I’m not an expert in this, it seems to me what the bishop is referring to is what we’ve called here the "demand" side of the equation, which is hardly ever addressed in the MSM, for some reason. Agriculture, meatpacking and other businesses are dependent on illegal immigrants as employees – the big not-so-secret of this debate.
How it works out in one parish
Protestants accounted for 8 percent of Mexico’s believers in the 2000 census, up from 2.3 percent in 1970. Their numbers are growing 3.7 percent each year, twice as fast as the Catholic population, according to the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Information Processing.
The churches are winning converts through a mix of social programs, charismatic preachers and stirring music.
"It’s a true conversion experience," said Feliciano Hernández Valle, a pastor at the 3,000-member Interdenominational Christian Church in Mexico’s San Simon Ticoman neighborhood. "The Catholic churches, unfortunately, offer people nothing. They have become too politicized."
The Arizona bishops’ letter on the issue.
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