Priest, sister, parishioner discover God’s love in action at Texas-Mexico border
Two Archdiocese of Newark church leaders and a parishioner spent a week this spring at the Texas border where hundreds of migrants cross into the U.S. daily, and a diocese serves the faithful with the highest rates of poverty but with a great deal of faith.
In mid-April, Sister Pat Wormann, O.P., Delegate for Religious for the Archdiocese of Newark; Father Anthony Randazzo, Pastor at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Westfield; and Roland Flores, Holy Trinity parishioner and McAllen, TX native, headed to the border to learn more about how Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley has served hundreds of thousands of migrants. They also spent time with immigrants and with Sister Norma Pimentel, M.J., who has been on the front line helping the Catholic-centric people born in the area and the migrants making their way from Central America to the U.S. for decades.
“She truly embodies the spirit of Mother Cabrini,” Father Randazzo said about Sister Pimentel, who is with the Missionaries of Jesus and serves as Executive Director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley. “She has turned over her heart and mind to help people with circumstances completely out of their control.”
Sister Pimentel told the group that when they see the faces of the migrants, “you will never forget,” Father Randazzo said.
Sister Wormann agreed. “Seeing things firsthand moves us in ways that news reports and pictures do not,” she said. “My heart ached for our sisters and brothers at the border and the poverty in the Diocese of Brownsville.”
Support for our brothers and sisters
After crossing the border from Mexico, the Department of Homeland Security releases 300-500 migrants a day to the respite center run by Sister Pimentel, who was one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people for 2020 and a 2018 Laetare Medal recipient. Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal is considered the oldest and most prestigious award for American Catholics.
At the respite center, the migrants are provided with clothing, hygiene products, medicines, baby formula and food. There, they can rest and relax while volunteers take care of their children and give parents a much-needed respite.
Sister Pimentel says that the core of the Catholic faith is at work at the center — to care for the dignity of all human life.
The respite center began in a parish hall in McAllen in 2014, created in response to a surge of Central Americans arriving at our southern border seeking asylum. Catholic Extension Society was among the first supporters of this ministry and later supported its expansion. Over the past decade, the Church has served tens of thousands of migrants.
These ministries not only serve the asylum-seeking migrants passing through this area, but also the families who are settling in the poor “colonias.” These colonias are defined as new settlements of immigrants, often with substandard housing and few public resources.
Faith is at the forefront
Flores left the area when he was 23 after working in agriculture and then seeking a career in engineering and moving to New Jersey. He credits the Church and the sisters who taught him for furthering his dreams.
“The area hasn’t changed much. It’s still heavily reliant on agriculture. Poverty is still there, but faith is still the center of their lives,” he said.
When he grew up in Bronxville, there was no border crisis or cartel exploitation of the migrant situation. There was also no SpaceX, Elon Musk’s spacecraft company. Most people still depend on agriculture to put food on the table, Flores said.
“I was really mad that not much has changed with respect to poverty,” Flores said. “But there is extreme devotion among the people who live there. Over 14,000 people go to Mass at the Basilica each week.”
The Catholic faith is indeed flourishing there, with more than 85% of the population identifying as Catholic. The Diocese of Brownsville includes more than a million Catholics who worship in 72 parishes and 44 missions.
Support beyond the center
The Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters have also created centers for learning [crafts, sewing, gardens], empowerment, and faith, said Sister Wormann.
“I was inspired by the Missionary Sisters and the women who collaborated with them, along with the help of the Catholic Extension Society, to build a learning center, medical and dental clinics, a sewing room, an organic garden, and a thrift shop,” she said. She also noted the devotion of the Sisters of the Light of Christ, who immigrated recently from El Salvador and Nicaragua and tend to the families at the Plaza Amistad.
“I was deeply touched by their witness to the gospel. From worn down houses, all of these women have built communities of faith and hope in diverse ways for a future filled with promise,” Sister Wormann said.
The group also met Bishop Daniel E. Flores, who has pushed for humane immigration reform and fights the corrosive impact of drug cartel activity.
Sister Wormann said Bishop Flores is truly a “shepherd who knows the smell of his sheep and knows what synodality is about.”
The Rio Grande River
Father Randazzo described the contrasts the Rio Grande River presents in both beauty and danger. At 2,000 miles long, it is the third longest river in the United States, winding its way through desert expanses and stunning canyons of stratified rock in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and the Republic of Mexico. It is also where over 3,000 migrants have died crossing it to get to the U.S.
Mission Immersion
The group joined 13 other volunteers from around the country.
The Mission Immersion trip to the Diocese of Brownsville, TX, was hosted by the Catholic Extension Society.
This program, funded through the Lilly Endowment Inc., aims to broaden church leaders’ horizons through enriching learning experiences of the Church’s missionary activities.
“The dioceses along the border in Texas are some of the most densely Catholic dioceses in the country, and they are also the dioceses with the highest rates of poverty. This includes the Diocese of Brownsville — which is currently home to more than one million Catholics,” according to The Catholic Extension Society.
“The idea of an immersion trip is to go to the periphery. Participants extend themselves to stand with the homeless, the abandoned, the sorrowful, and the powerless,” Molly Carr of Catholic Extension said. “These are precisely the places where the Catholic Church plants itself – often with the support of the Catholic Extension Society – to offer spiritual and social care to those most in need.”
The center is dependent on the hundreds of faithful throughout the U.S. and the world who volunteer each year at the center.
Information on volunteering at the Humanitarian Respite Center is on the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley website, or call (956) 800-4427 or email volunteercoordinator@cdob.org.
