 As the storm brewed
The long-anticipated national JPIC gathering in March 2020 was moved from Las Cruces, NM, to an online gathering as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The gathering featured dynamic panels of speakers addressing critical aspects of immigrant justice and asylum. Following this virtual gathering, the group which included the Passionist Solidarity Network and other religious communities issued a powerful and compelling statement, Envisioning Gospel-Based Solidarity and Flourishing with Migrants. The statement reads in part: "...we looked at how racism, economic injustice, climate change, militarization and migration are all interconnected, just as we as a human family are connected to our migrant sisters and brothers. An intersectional lens helps us to see how these issues not only exacerbate each other, especially forced migration, but how getting to the root causes of forced migration requires us to address each of these issues together." --From the gathering's final statement The final statement is here. Please share it broadly within your communities and consider some of the action steps and to share them with each other for encouragement, collaboration, and momentum. The collected links for the conference are here. The individual sessions included
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 WikiCommons ProtoplasmaKid Scott Wright is the Director of the Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach
The Journey of Hope: A Meditation on War and Peace "...Fast forward to today, and we find the children and grandchildren of these same refugees, and others like them, literally camped out in the cold and rain under plastic tarps, at the foot of a bridge in Mexico, waiting to make their claim to asylum in the U.S. This is the reality I saw on Thanksgiving Day, 2019, as I visited the Columban Mission in Juarez and El Paso. We have forgotten Pope Francis’ invitation, when he visited this border in 2016, to “build bridges, not walls.” We have become a nation of immigrants who has forgotten the dream of our ancestors... Pope Francis’ recent World Day of Peace message is a reminder of how “the desire for peace lies deep within the human heart.” Like the Salvadoran refugee mother and those families camped out today on our southern border, we too bear deep within us both the wounds of war and the desire for peace." Read Scott's beautiful reflection here  Two action plans from Chapter and Assembly meetings In his opening reflection at the June 6-11 35th Provincial Chapter meeting of the Holy Cross Province in Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, Fr. Joachim Rego reflected on the call of Jesus to Peter “to get out of the boat” and he continued by asking us to accept the risks and dangers of that call and to do the same. Passionists have a unique calling to be in solidarity with the crucified of today by recreating our relationships with fellow human beings who are poor and on the unjust margins of society. He spoke of the solidarity, empathy and compassion that comes with accepting that invitation in our work. This human solidarity also requires of us an active engagement with environmental concerns, because it is the poor who suffer first from environmental harm, even though they have contributed the least to its causes. Fighting poverty and facing our ecological crisis are not either/or propositions. As we’ve heard, “You can’t have healthy people on a sick planet.” At that meeting, as a culmination of the long-term visioning process for the province, calls to action were highlighted relating to five key areas of Passionist life and ministry: Charism, Community, Collaboration, Outreach and Preaching. Two of the calls to action that emerged from the Chapter are particularly compelling for the Passionist Solidarity Network and will form the basis of much of our work going forward. They are:
See also the statement from Inter council Passionist Meeting, For-difficult-time-courageous-choices
 Pope Francis greets refugees at a Mass for migrants on 7 June 2018 (Vatican Media) In a recent issue of the Peace Newsletter from the JPIC in India, Vice Provincial Paul Cherukoduth, CP recognizes the staggering numbers of refugees and migrants world wide. It is truly a global crisis. Paul discusses a May seminar in Rome organized by the JPIC desk of USG and UISG (the Unions of Superiors General of men and women Congregations respectively) on the theme: “Prophetic Religious Life and the Four Verbs on Migrants and Refugees”. The four verbs are Welcoming, Protecting, Promoting and Integrating and are taken from Pope Francis’ 2018 Message for World Day of Migrants and Refugees.
Paul says, "Undoubtedly, to protect, promote and integrate migrants and refugees one must begin with an act of welcoming which then becomes an encounter with the Christ, the unknown guest in our midst. On a global level the number of international migrants and refugees are estimated around 270 million and we know that that number keeps growing every day. In India, the inter-state migrants are numbered around 139 million, of whom 40 million work on constructions sites, 20 million are domestic workers, 2 million are sex-workers and the others fall into various other categories... To rephrase Paul of the Cross: May we be able to see the name of Jesus written on the foreheads of the Migrants and Refugees. May we learn to love the stranger as ourselves!" From the U.S. Vision Statement of the Passionist Sisters' Communities of Dodge City, Kansas, and Lincoln, Nebraska: May the Passionist charism continue to be embodied in our migrant people, and in the future, we will be able to work together with Passionist sisters and brothers in the same mission of building the Kingdom. Read the vision statement here
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