On Saturday April 15th, over 200 people from 41 institutions and 6 deaneries participated in 'Recognizing the Stranger' parish leadership training in collaboration with the Archdiocese of San Antonio.  The session was conducted in English and in Spanish, and included 15 clergy and two bishops.  Spanish=speaking leaders expressed a strong desire to organize their parishes.

A major theme developed over the course of the sessions was that the Church is not a parking lot and that Mission is key element of the one's faith.  Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller told participants that the Church needs their leadership because clergy cannot do what lay leaders can.

Over 300 leaders, clergy, religious, and bishops from 20 organizations gathered last week in San Antonio to celebrate five years of Recognizing the Stranger, a West/Southwest IAF training, leadership formation, and parish organizing strategy. 

The Convocation was highlighted by a video message from Pope Francis, who offered his “closeness and support” to the IAF network and its work to organize with immigrants and with those at the margins to encourage “participation of the Christian in public life.”  

At a national gathering of Catholic Social Ministers organized by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), COPS/Metro's work with San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller was featured prominently in plenary sessions and a workshop around local organizing for gun safety reform. 

During a panel discussion with the Archbishop, Josephine Lopez-Paul shared how COPS/Metro worked with the San Antonio Archdiocese in the aftermath of the massacre at Uvalde in 2022.  The Archbishop made an impassioned plea to infuse love into a "culture of death" through faithful participation in the political process around issues impacting life, including gun safety reforms. 

During the discussion, Archbishop García-Siller asserted that synodality could be renewed path for the Church to address the new realities people are living.  

"The Eucharist that brings solidarity, through synodality, might be the new way of being Church."

According to the Catholic Review, members in the audience were visibly moved.  COPS/Metro organizers and leaders also shared stories of local organizing efforts around gun safety including conversation campaigns leading to an initiative to restrict access to firearms for perpetrators of domestic violence in San Antonio.     

2023 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering A ‘Sign Of Faith, Hope And Love Coming Alive’, Our Sunday Visitor [pdf]
Groups Must Infuse Love Into a Culture of Gun Violence, Say Panelists, Today's Catholic

[Excerpts below]

Immigration was the urgent topic when Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller, MSpS took the stage at COPS/Metro's "A Cry for Justice and a Call to Action" assembly at Our Lady of the Lake University on June 18, 2018.  "We live in very challenging times.  Basic institutions of justice are being attacked.  People are suffering needlessly," the archbishop declared to a packed auditorium.  "This is a time of crisis.  We have to make a decision.  Do we go along with or challenge these trends?"

The assembly, which had been months in the planning, took on an air of urgency and drew a standing-room-only crowd as it  coincided with a particularly tense week in the nation's debate on immigration policy.  News had just broken of the Trump administration's policy of separating detained children from their parents -  a policy  Archbishop Gustavo strongly condemned in  his speech as "immoral," "evil," and sinful," echoing similar sentiments expressed by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops....

After [hearing a challenge by the Bishop and a DACA participant], faith communities caucused in small groups, then they answered... by pledging to collect 11,500 postcards to be mailed to Texas' congressional representatives in Washington.  Archbishop Gustavo took the symbolic  first step of signing his name on the first postcards, which will be mailed to Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn."

[Image Credit: NOWCastSA footage]

Archbishop Gustavo Urges Action on Immigration at COPS / Metro Assembly, Today's Catholic

San Antonio Archbishop Calls Separation of Families Immoral, Evil and Sinful, NOWCastSA [pdf]

How Catholics are Helping Immigrant Children Separated from their Parents, America

Catholic Bishops Across US Condemn Separation of Migrant Children, America

Archbishop Calls for Immigration Reform, Launches Campaign, News4SA