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Perspective

Bishop Jorge Rodríguez Addresses Faith, Immigration and Advocacy at Regis University Gathering

  • Writer: Sheryl Tirol
    Sheryl Tirol
  • 4 minutes ago
  • 4 min read
A smiling clergyman with a large cross necklace converses with three casually dressed men in caps inside a bright room.
Denver Auxiliary Bishop Jorge Rodríguez and Father Luke Barder, pastor of St. Dominic Parish in Denver, were among the featured guests at a Regis University half-day gathering focusing on faith, immigration policy and civic engagement. (Photo courtesy of Regis University)

Regis University brought together students, faculty, clergy and community members on March 27 for a half-day gathering examining the intersection of Catholic faith, immigration policy and civic engagement and calling those in attendance to respond not with indifference, but with action.


"Good Trouble in Action: Tools for Faith, Immigration and Advocacy" drew a diverse audience to the Jesuit university's northwest Denver campus for a program that included opening remarks from Auxiliary Bishop Jorge Rodriguez of the Archdiocese of Denver, a theological and historical presentation by a Dominican priest and breakout sessions exploring concrete next steps for advocacy and accompaniment.


The event was co-sponsored by Regis' Community for Belonging and the university's Undocumented Student Resource Alliance, two organizations the bishop praised at the outset for their commitment to accompanying the migrant community during what he called "these challenging times."


For Regis vice provost Nicki Gonzales, the gathering reflected something central to the university's Jesuit mission.


"It's our responsibility, as a Catholic, Jesuit university, to have these conversations, Gonzales said. "Our students are living these realities — some personally, all communally — and partnering with the Archdiocese allows us to ground that dialogue in both rigorous inquiry and genuine Catholic faith. That combination is distinctly Regis."


A Bishop's Witness

Bishop Rodriguez opened the afternoon with remarks that were equal parts pastoral reflection and moral exhortation, drawing on his own decades-long experience as a migrant — from Mexico to Spain for seminary studies, then 23 years in Italy, and finally to the United States — to frame the urgency of the current moment.


That personal experience, he said, deepened his pastoral understanding of the undocumented immigrants he would come to serve in Colorado parishes — families fleeing not opportunity, but desperation. He recalled three parishioners whose stories reshaped his early assumptions: a young woman who crossed the border so she could afford medicine for her ailing mother; a deacon who fled cartel extortion in Mexico; and a young man who came alone as a boy, sleeping under bridges, driven by hunger.


"Nobody wants to leave home, family, country, culture, language, history for banal reasons, believe me," the bishop said.


Citing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Bishop Rodriguez acknowledged the complexity of the issue while calling on Catholics to be guided by five core principles articulated in the joint pastoral letter "Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope," co-authored by the U.S. and Mexican bishops conferences. Those principles affirm both the right of individuals to migrate in support of their families and the right of sovereign nations to regulate their borders — but insist that the human dignity and rights of undocumented migrants must be respected throughout.


He called for comprehensive immigration reform over mass deportation and quoted Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, who recently characterized the current campaign of mass detention and deportation as "a grave moral evil" that must be opposed through "prayer, peaceful action and acts of solidarity with those affected."


A Theological and Historical Lens

Father Luke Barder, a Dominican friar from St. Dominic Parish in Denver, offered attendees a wide-angle view of the church's engagement with immigration, one that stretched from Scripture to contemporary ICE data.


Father Barder, who serves on the Archdiocese of Denver's Pastoral Care of Migrants Committee, opened his presentation by transporting the audience to 1835 Paris, where Dominican friar Henri Lacordaire addressed a nation fractured by revolution and mutual distrust — a moment, Father Barder argued, that closely mirrors the present.


"The Catholic Church was uniquely situated to provide a new language for a divided country," he said. "In many ways, I feel that is the role of the Church today."


At the theological core of his remarks was Catholic Social Teaching's foundational claim: that every human being, regardless of legal status, nationality or economic contribution, possesses inviolable dignity by virtue of being made in the image of God.


"Your legal status doesn't determine your dignity," Father Barder said. "Every single person is a human person — and that dignity cannot be determined by any other criteria."


Drawing on papal documents from Pope Francis, Pope Leo XIV and Pope Benedict XVI, as well as the 2004 Vatican document "Erga Migrantes Caritas Christi," Father Barder outlined the church's four-word response to contemporary migration: welcome, protect, promote, integrate.


He grounded that teaching historically, presenting Rocky Mountain News coverage from 1901, warning that immigration from Southern Europe would drag down American society, alongside 1920s fears of Russian Bolsheviks and 1850s Detroit conspiracy theories about Catholic immigrants seeking to overthrow the U.S. government at the pope's direction.


"We are not original," Father Barder said flatly. "The same tendencies, the same anxieties, the same arguments — they rhyme."


He also presented current data pulled directly from the ICE website, noting that approximately 70% of individuals currently detained have no criminal record, and that since March 2025, zero asylum cases have been granted — compared with 771 in December 2024.


A Call to Concrete Action

Father Barder closed with four areas of action the U.S. bishops have identified for Catholic communities: providing emergency basic needs, including food, shelter and mental health care; offering pastoral accompaniment and ministry of presence; communicating Catholic teaching clearly and consistently; and engaging in public witness — including visiting migrants in detention centers and participating in "know your rights" programs within parishes.


"It is no longer sufficient for Christians to just pray," he said. "Our neighbors, our strangers, are knocking at the door, and they have immediate basic human needs that we are called and are obliged to attend to."


Breakout sessions followed lunch, offering participants tools for direct advocacy, legal navigation and community organizing rooted in the Catholic tradition of solidarity.


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