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Somos America / We Are America Coalition

July 28, 2008

Most Reverend Gerald F. Kicanas, D.D.

Diocese of Tucson111 South Church Ave

Tucson, Arizona 85702

Dear Bishop Kicanas:

Your Excellency, I am contacting you as the elected leader of Somos Amrica/We Are

America, a broad, Phoenix-based coalition of community organizations that focus onimmigrant, civil, and human rights. Several member organizations are actively providing

humanitarian assistance to our migrant brothers and sisters in our southern desert.

Members of the Somos Amrica coalition have asked me to represent them in contacting

you in reference to the human and civil rights crisis that has been escalating specificallyin Arizona.

Many of the coalitions members claim a Catholic faith life, and are deeply appreciative

of the materials that you have contributed to in the past, such as the Pastoral Letter onMigration that you co-signed with the other Arizona Bishops, and more recently, the

USCCB effort on Faithful Citizenship.

Bishop Kicanas, these words are deeply meaningful to people who live their lives asCatholics, and more broadly to people who live their faith traditions holding human

dignity as core to their beliefs. Yet, most people of faith have felt let down and

abandoned by their high-ranking religious leaders when the words do not specificallyaddress the local lived experiences that church-going families have here in Arizona, and

faithful migrants have in their efforts to trek our deserts to support their families.

PO Box 15363 Scottsdale, AZ 85267 (602) 263-2012

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Members of our coalition ask: What is dignified about children being held at gunpoint by

Border Patrol Agents? What is dignified about families being rent in the name of LawEnforcement? What is dignified about living a life of fear to the level of being unable to

report crimes inflicted with impunity upon hardworking people of faith? What isdignified about a legal permanent resident of the United States being told by hospital

personnel that he will be sent to Mexico unless the family agrees to disconnect him from

life support because he has no health insurance? Your Excellency, these are dailyoccurrences in the lives of people of Hispanic descent in this state, and they only touch

the surface of examples of the current assault on Human Dignity that are excused as basiclaw enforcement and being tough on crime. Your people are suffering, Bishop, and

according to the writings in Welcoming the Stranger in America, the People of Faith

who follow you are called to respond:

Some of them came with proper papers, others did not. Whatever the case, the

Church has always felt obliged to extend a warm welcome and helping hand. Wehave no less an obligation in 2007. We cannot forget Jesus words (Mt 25:35), I

was a stranger and you welcomed me.

John Paul II spells out the kind of attitude we should have towards these recentarrivals (Ibid.), Migrants should be met with a hospitable and welcoming

attitude, which can encourage them to become part of the Churchs life, always

with due regard for their freedom and their specific cultural identity.

What we are dealing with here is more than a matter of justice, even though itcertainly is that. It is also a matter of love. No man-made law, [emphasis added]

no circumstance, no custom can excuse us from the obligation to love our

neighbor, whether the neighbor is a Samaritan or a Hispanic, whether he speaksour language or not. The demands of Christs call to love our neighbor are great

indeed.

Bishop Olmsteds booklet, Catholics in the Public Square talks about how people ofCatholic faith are called to live a different life even public life than the status quo.

Yet, some of the most prominent voices in Arizona public life claim membership in a

Catholic Church and act directly against the teachings of the Catholic Church. Please,Bishop, your voice is needed to call this behavior out and decry it. Your faithful are

hurting in the wake of such hypocrisy: they are afraid to go to Church; they are afraid to

go to work; they are afraid to seek medical care for their family members; they are afraid

to take their children to school. Your voice is needed in our midst, not only to comfort

the afflicted, but to afflict the comfortable.

PO Box 15363 Scottsdale, AZ 85267 (602) 263-2012

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We, as a coalition, live with and respond every day to our neighbors who suffer, making

every effort to ease their pain. We invite you to join us in a meeting with some of themost devastated families in the Valley. Perhaps by gathering with them face to face and

hearing their stories, we could hear in response your pastoral leadership according to thetradition of Father Kinos Good News for the people of this region as stated on the

Tucson Diocese website: from which people could demonstrate their care and love for

one another in the example of Christ providing a safe haven when violence threatened.Violence threatens our brothers and sisters on a daily basis and on many levels. We

would gratefully hear your leadership in decrying all of this violence and calling for

treating all people whose journeys intersect with our own with dignity and respect.

Most Respectfully,

Hctor Yturralde, President

Somos Amrica/We Are America Coalition

602-370-4729

PO Box 15363 Scottsdale, AZ 85267 (602) 263-2012