People's anti-immigrant bias comes from not knowing them, says priest

Published: 2008-01-23

LAREDO, Texas (CNS) -- People are biased against immigrants because they don't know them, said the director of a migrant shelter in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. "If you know them, it changes you. It touches your heart," said Father Francisco Pellizari, a Scalabrinian priest, who directs Casa del Migrante Nazareth in the border city. He made his comments in an interview with the South Texas Catholic, newspaper of the Diocese of Corpus Christi, after the Jan. 13 Day of the Migrant ("Dia del Migrante") Mass celebrated by Mexican and Texan bishops who lead border dioceses. Casa del Migrante workers and volunteers helped coordinate the liturgy, held on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande and attended by about 400 Catholics from both sides of the border. "The church is a family without borders," Bishop Ricardo Watty Urquidi of Nuevo Laredo said in his homily during the Mass. He said that by virtue of baptism "we have a gift to serve the needy, the poorest. Unfortunately there are more today than at any other time." Bishop Watty and the other border bishops met the previous day to discuss common concerns, and immigration issues topped their list.

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