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Jesuit Father Greg Bonfiglio, pastor of St. Ignatius Parish in San Francisco, presided at an Oct. 12 Mass during a parish day of solidarity for migrant families. The day included a “sleep-in” on church pews to bring home the hardships migrants to the U.S. face on their northbound journey. (Photo courtesy of Teresa Carino)
October 21, 2019
Lorena Rojas
San Francisco Católico
Amy Stewart knows very well what solidarity means. She and a group of St. Ignatius parishioners in San Francisco are working to shield a group of families from El Salvador from the ravages of migration, family separation and cultural uprooting.
Stewart is a volunteer with Las Vecinas de El Salvador (Neighbors of El Salvador), a parish social ministries group committed to helping San Antonio parish in Soyapango, San Salvador, its sister parish.
The group raises funds to support parish ministries and social work training and also helps with education grants, job training and computers.
“Unemployment is very high over there,” Stewart said. “Strengthening the economies of impoverished communities in Latin America can reduce the need for residents to migrate to the United States.”
Above all, and from a Jesuit viewpoint, the group wants to be able to “help people improve their lives there in their country, where they want to be,” Stewart said.
Stewart participated in a Mass and Solidarity Sleep-In for migrant families on Oct. 12, at St. Ignatius Church. The all-night event was organized by Jesuit Father Travis Russell, associate pastor, to draw attention to the families that have been forced to leave their countries because of insecurity and poverty.
The event also featured the screening and discussion of a documentary about the suffering caused by the detention and separation of migrant children at the border.
One of the goals of the event was to motivate parishioners to get involved with these suffering families as depicted in the short documentary, titled “How Family Separation Traumatized Children,” produced by The Atlantic.
The documentary features the struggle of a Honduran asylum-seeker, Anita, separated from her son after they arrived at the Mexico-U.S. border and the efforts of Jodi Goodwin, a Texas-based pro-bono immigration lawyer, to reunite them.
In the documentary, Anita laments the circumstances that forced her to come: “I had no choice but to leave my country, but I did not imagine that my son was going to suffer so much ... they took him to ‘la hielera,’” a temporary Border Patrol detention center.
The documentary ends with the reunification of Anita and Jenri and their departure to North Carolina to meet with the boy’s father.
Despite that happy ending, migrant children continue to carry the trauma of separation and many die along the way.
Photos of children who died in recent months were laid at the foot of the altar during the Mass. Their deaths were due to either illness while in custody or as a result of their dangerous northbound journey.
The U.S. government’s “zero tolerance” policy briefly adopted in 2018 was intended to discourage illegal immigration and required the prosecution of all cases involving illegal entry into the United States. The policy contributed to some 2,654 migrant children being separated from their parents or guardians, according to the data shown during the presentation at St. Ignatius.
The panel’s discussion after the viewing not only outlined different ways of helping separated migrant families but also provided information about other programs – such as the one led by Amy Stewart – designed to slow down the migration of people from El Salvador by helping them with opportunities at home.
Evelyn Rodríguez, a professor of sociology at USF, shared her experience as a volunteer at the Mexico-U.S. border. She said support can range from a simple commitment to complex efforts, depending on the individual.
Rodríguez highlighted the work of the lawyer who appears in the documentary, noting that her effort required not only specialized knowledge in legal matters but also a strong commitment to the fight for the family’s reunification.
In an email to Catholic San Francisco, St. Ignatius parishioner Annette Lomont shared highlights from Jesuit Father Greg Bonfiglio’s homily during the solidarity day Mass.
“As followers of Jesus, we do not have the luxury to stake out some middle ground,” said Father Bonfiglio, pastor of St. Ignatius. “We must always be opposed to hate and injustice. We must always stand in opposition to values that are at odds with those of Jesus, which means, when we do so, we will be acting politically, but not in a partisan way.”
Lomont also shared that Father Russell received an email from a parishioner the day after the event to comment on her discomfort and sleep deprivation from sleeping on hard pews.
“I cannot shake the feeling of grief for the people who must continue on their journey day after day even when they are sleeping on the ground at night or in detention,” she told him.
“It was indeed a most deliberate and effective way to encounter with the experience and the struggle of the poor, the desperate and the sometimes forgotten,” he said.
Christina Gray contributed.