As Lenten season approaches, US Catholics straddle faith, advocacy, politics

On Ash Wednesday, Feb. 18, Southern California Catholics, and Christians of multitude denominations, will wait in line to get a smudge of ashes on their foreheads, and be reminded that they are sinners, yes, who can redeem themselves if they, as Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez said in a recent homily, become “people who heal, make peace, and bear witness to his love.”

But for the millions of faithful in the archdiocese and at parishes and houses of worship from Orange County to Riverside all the way to Gomez’s downtown L.A. cathedral, the first day of Lent finds many in crisis: those undocumented in fear of or already in detention; those working to support them and their families; and Catholics who continue to support the Trump administration’s policies on immigration, abortion and same-sex marriage.

Still some Christians will enter this liturgical season grappling with deeply-held beliefs they say run counter to the government’s massive effort under the Trump administration to deport millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

While that effort, federal officials say, has resulted in mass arrests of the most violent of criminal undocumented immigrants, it has also resulted in fear and anger over the actions of a federal dragnet that immigrants, their advocates and many religious leaders say has tipped too far into violence and cruelty.

Lent arrives as federal agents continue their actions, and many in local Southern California cities push back.

Gomez exhorted Catholics to “help America recover her soul,” during his homily at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on Feb. 4, during a Holy Hour of Prayer for Peace in response to the shooting death by immigration agents of nurse Alex Pretti in Minnesota.

Isaac Cuevas, director of immigration and public affairs for the archdiocese, heard Goméz call for upholding the rights and dignity of everyone in the United States and not “based on the color of our skin, or the language we speak, or for not having the proper documents.” He also voiced his support for the Dignity Act (HR 4333) in limbo in Congress.

When the Trump administration ramped up its immigration enforcement in Los Angeles last June, Cuevas said there was no question what the church’s response would be.

“We understood clearly that our role was to accompany, to inform, and to support. That has taken shape through ‘Know Your Rights/Risk’ efforts, connecting families with trusted legal support, organizing prayer opportunities, and preparing clergy and parish leaders to respond pastorally if situations arise.”

“The Church’s engagement in public life really begins with our mission, not politics,” Cuevas said. “Our role is to uphold the dignity of every human person and to accompany those who are vulnerable. At times that includes speaking into public policy, especially when laws or enforcement practices impact families, human dignity, or the common good.”

Unlike its Episcopal kin, whose social justice arm, Sacred Resistance, has been in the forefront of anti-ICE vigils and protests, Catholic leaders’ primary work remains pastoral, Cuevas said.

“We walk with people, provide resources, and help form consciences rooted in Catholic social teaching,” he said.

In these days where many in the community feel vulnerable that teaching goes beyond dogma into concrete action, such as standing with neighbors who are afraid, and responding with faith, not fear, Cuevas added.

In his Lenten message this year, Bishop of the Diocese of San Bernardino Alberto Rojas, invited people to pray “with your strength and sincerity” for people who are suffering.

He said the treatment of immigrants happening now is a “violation of human dignity.”

“While we as a Church do not condone unlawful entry into the country, the brutal way authorities are enforcing the law is unacceptable and does not recognize immigrants as human beings, much less as the children of God that they are.”

A season of fear

Fresh off marching with students who walked out of school recently in protest of the raids, Father Francisco Gómez, pastor of Our Lady of Soledad Parish in Coachella, is expecting a busy Ash Wednesday this year. But it’s the immigration raids themselves that have caused so much fear and anxiety among his parishioners that he thinks it’s likely his parish will not see numbers like last year — 10,000 strong who came to be marked with ash on their foreheads.

“It’s precisely because of the fear,” he says, as he reflects on the beginning of Lenten season in which many are anxious about immigration actions that have roiled communities.

Instead, his church has created little packets so people can observe Lent at home. There’s a little guide with prayers and readings, and a tiny bag with ashes inside.

Gómez has faith they’ll get to those people who are too afraid to physically go to church in person to receive the ash. Perhaps someone’s neighbor will deliver a packet. A family, a friend. Those packets will get to people who need them, he said.

Gómez enters the season highly attuned to the symbols of Lent, precisely because of the immigration raids that have stirred his community and the nation. He’s also thinking about the impact on a democracy, one where he never thought he’d see such violence amid mass immigration operations.

“The primary symbol of Lent is the desert,” Gómez said, noting the nexus between the ancient tradition of 40 years in the wilderness to get to the promised land and the 40 days Jesus is said to have spent in the desert. “The journey of those 40 years is a journey of being in a place of slavery to being in a place of freedom.”

His message is that those being persecuted can also see themselves in a Christ who suffered, from a public who condemned him to his journey to crucifixion.

“Yet, there is a resurrection. There will be a resurrection,” he said.

Over the past year, Gómez said has seen the struggle play out in his community. And as a season of fasting, abstinence, prayer and almsgiving descends, he’s sensitive to the impacts.

“The cracks that I see are people hovering on the edge of despair,” he said, reflecting on the stress of potential arrest or deportation. “People who are considering suicide. Domestic violence. Students not going to school. Those are the cracks that I see.

“On the other side, I see solidarity. Neighbors who get groceries, helping others, creating spaces where people can talk out their fears.”

Prayer is ‘not passive’

Pasadena’s Clergy Community Coalition, made up of 200 church and community leaders, have regularly shown up at rallies and protests organized by No Kings, Indivisible and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON).

Sacred Resistance, the social justice arm of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, is supporting 60 families impacted by the ICE raids, and members accompany people to immigration proceedings, show up in court and detention centers, and organize public, peaceful actions to confront dehumanizing immigration policies, said Rev. Canon Jaime Edwards-Acton.

It’s a fight for the long haul, he added.

“We are a people of faith and conscience, standing together against injustice. Rooted in our call to resist evil and protect the vulnerable, we support immigrants, refugees, and marginalized communities through advocacy, accompaniment, and action.”

For Catholics, Cuevas said there are both simple and meaningful ways to respond, especially during Lent, with its three pillars of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

“Prayer is central, but it is not passive,” he said. “We are encouraging people to stay informed, support reputable organizations providing legal and humanitarian assistance, accompany families when appropriate, and advocate in ways that are grounded in charity and truth. Even small acts of solidarity, like helping a family access resources or simply showing up with compassion, can make a real difference.”

Cuevas said his work brings him face to face with Catholics impacted by immigration enforcement who are looking to the church as a place of refuge and trust.

“There is deep gratitude for the church’s presence, but also an honest desire for continued accompaniment and clarity,” he said. “People want to know they are not alone, and that their church will continue to walk with them in both word and action.”

Catholic groups that have long championed migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers include CLINIC, or Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., and Catholic Charities of Los Angeles. LA Voice, a multi-faith group that organizes people “to reflect the dignity of all people,” and it often works with the archdiocese, as well as more than 500 congregations in 18 counties and 28 cities.

A church’s role in American life

Gómez, of Coachella, said he’s been pleased to see the Catholic Church’s stance on the immigration actions sweeping the region and the nation. But he noted that there is much work to do.

That includes continuing to reach out across divides in a polarized nation.

“The church is not against immigration enforcement but it will always be against violence,” he said.

The shooting deaths by federal agents of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis may have prompted a “real sense of questioning” that it’s gone too far, he said.

But even as church leaders urge compassion, this year’s Lenten season coincides with a political and cultural battle over immigration policy playing out from the Capitol to Southern California.

White House Press Secretary Katherine Leavitt, herself a practicing Roman Catholic, said during an October press briefing, that “I would reject there is inhumane treatment of illegal immigrants in the United States under this administration,” adding that the Biden administration’s more lax border security policy was a form of inhumane treatment of immigrants.

President Donald Trump himself has often spoken fondly of Catholics. A majority of American Catholics — nearly 60% — supported him for the office.

But on Friday, more than 40 Catholic Democrats in Congress released a statement listing ideals from Catholic social teaching they say informs their considerations of immigration policy.

“First, we affirm that people have the right to migrate to sustain their lives and the lives of their families,” the statement reads. “Sacred Scripture consistently reminds us of our obligation toward the vulnerable and displaced. Jesus himself identifies with the migrant when he says, ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me.’”

The statement came after House Speaker Mike Johnson defended Trump’s mass deportation agenda early this month. Citing Bible verses about a nation’s borders, critics called out Johnson, a Baptist, for espousing a dangerous Christian nationalism.

Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, signed the statement with other California Democrats, including Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Robert Garcia of Long Beach, Sam Liccardo of San Jose, Gil Cisneros of Covina and Nanette Barragan of San Pedro.

“As a Catholic, I follow Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 25:35,” Lieu said, referring to the Bible verse that begins, “For I was hungry, and you gave me food.”

“I believe in Christ’s teachings of advancing the common good by protecting the most vulnerable and individuals in need,” Lieu continued. “The Trump Administration has failed in these endeavors for those seeking refuge by exhibiting indifference and cruelty. We must continue to embrace ideals of justice, mercy, and human dignity while tackling the challenges of immigration.”

That congressional rebuke of Johnson comes after similar calls from U.S. religious leaders.

On Jan. 28, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and considered a conservative leader, called for the Trump administration to be “generous in welcoming immigrants,” and encouraged other leaders to pray “for reconciliation where there is division, for justice where there are violations of fundamental rights, and for consolation for all who feel overwhelmed by fear or loss.”

Three Catholic cardinals protested Trump’sforeign policy on Jan. 19.

More than 150 Episcopal bishops on Jan. 31 called for the suspension of ICE and Border Patrol operations in Minnesota and anywhere in the country militarized enforcement is in place. Addressing the American people, the leaders encouraged people to use their community power, financial power, political power and knowledge to show up for each other and their neighbors.

Irreconcilable differences?

Sociologist Richard Wood, president of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC, said both the Biden and current Trump administrations have included substantial numbers of Catholics in cabinet-level leadership positions, with the Biden administration encompassing slightly more.

“Nonetheless, both administrations experienced tensions with the Catholic Church — Biden especially around issues of gender and sexuality, abortion, and American support for the brutal Israeli assault on Gaza in response to the brutal Hamas assault of Oct. 7, 2023; Trump especially around immigrant rights, threats to Greenland, and attacks on democratic institutions,” Wood said.

Among the Catholics in the second Trump administration: Vice President J.D. Vance, Leavitt and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

But having the first American Pope lead the world’s Catholics takes away an oft-used excuse that a Pope “just doesn’t understand America,” supporters said, and lends his criticism of the Trump presidency more weight. Pope Leo XIV was born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago in 1955.

White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers brushed away the Pope’s criticism of Trump and pointed to the president’s support among Catholics, saying in a Politico, that “in just 10 short months, the president has delivered unprecedented victories for Catholic Americans.”

Pope Leo has not backed down, saying two months ago, at an address at the Vatican, that “ever more inhuman measures are being adopted —even celebrated politically — that treat these ‘undesirables’ as if they were garbage and not human beings.”

What the effect this divide between the White House and the Vatican can be seen in recent polling data that show large declines in support of Trump administration policies on immigration among both Catholics and Evangelical Christians, Wood said.

But both political parties have elements in them with real issues with religion and secularism, he added.

“The Democratic Party, because significant sectors of the party see religion as a problem and embrace a narrowly secular worldview that sees no value in religion, almost a kind of ‘secular fundamentalism,” he said. “And the Republican Party, because significant sectors affirm a worldview that falls well outside of traditional religious respect for the common good, the human dignity of all, and a reasonable level of civility in public life and diplomacy.”

Meanwhile, Gómez, the Coachella priest, who belongs to a congregation of missionaries in the Catholic Church who work with the poor in the U.S. and Latin America, readies for Ash Wednesday.

As he prepares, he is reflecting on a mission that relentlessly serves the poor and the persecuted – which in this moment means meeting a moment to serve immigrants.

“We have pledged our lives to those who stand on those margins. And those on the edge of death,” he said.