Pope Francis meets with Texas, U.S. regional leaders on immigration

Pope Francis speaks to Houston-based The Metropolitan Organization (TMO) organizer Elizabeth Valdez and Rabbi David Lyon of Congregation Beth Israel along with TMO organizer Facundo Berretta Lauria at an Aug. 28 meeting. They were among a delegation of 18 leaders from the West/Southwest IAF, a regional network of community-based organizations.  (Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Organization)VATICAN CITY — A few hours after Pope Francis spoke against unjust immigration policies during his general audience on Aug. 28, he met privately with U.S. community organizers on their program welcoming and integrating migrants.

Three Houston-area leaders of The Metropolitan Organization (TMO) were among the delegation of 18 leaders from the West/Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation (WSWIAF) meeting with Pope Francis at his residence, Santa Marta, adjacent to St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.

WSWIAF is a regional network of community-based organizations that TMO has been a part of for 40 years.

Houston-based TMO director Elizabeth Valdez, discussing her third meeting with Pope Francis as part of the delegation, said, “I’ve never been in the presence of someone who listened so carefully and intently. Pope Francis sees the person in front of him. We shared stories of leadership formation and the pivotal role of the parish as a place to become a public person who engages in public life, a political life properly understood.”

“He recognized the value of such. He quoted Pope Paul VI, saying, ‘Politics is the highest form of charity.’ It was a good reminder,” she said.

In 20 U.S. dioceses, the foundation and its partners run “Recognizing the Stranger,” a leadership development program that helps immigrants and members of their new parishes develop stronger relationships and work together for the good of their community.

Pope Francis invited them to share their work with him, particularly efforts with immigrant communities through the WSWIAF bilingual leadership formation. The program has been working over the last seven years to prepare 5,000 immigrant and Spanish-speaking leaders in 20 dioceses and 375 parishes for effective participation in public life.
“Our visits have led to conversations with other Vatican offices, particularly the Pontifical Commission for Latin American, led by Dr. Emilce Cuda,” Valdez said. “We have since hosted the commission to visit our organizing efforts in Texas, and we then had the opportunity to journey to Argentina to learn about the Church’s work in the villas, the poorest shanty towns, and see the extraordinary role that parishes play to improve the lives of communities at the peripheries.”

In recent years, this effort has also begun to encompass a more interfaith dimension.

Rabbi David Lyon of Houston’s Congregation Beth Israel, among the delegates meeting with the pope, said, “I shared my vignette on how IAF has made me a more effective rabbi in interfaith and organizational work.”

“I highlighted interfaith work in Houston with my good friend [Daniel] Cardinal DiNardo and Bishop [John D.] Ogletree (of First Metropolitan Baptist Church) and how TMO has given us ways to hear stories to make a difference and to express our gratitude with greater generosity,” Rabbi Lyon said.

Near the end of their 90-minute discussion, the pope asked an aide to get each of the organizers a copy in English or Spanish of his three encyclicals and three of his apostolic letters.

They told the pope they were studying his “Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship,” about love without borders or barriers. They and the people they train were also reading “Power and Responsibility” by Father Romano Guardini, one of the pope’s preferred theologians.

Pope Francis praised the community organizers for being concrete, for looking around them, listening to people’s needs and then collaborating to find solutions. He spoke of the need to organize relational power and foster a healthy political culture, reminding the group that “the wealth of a people lies in its ability to organize.”
Both Valdez, who said she came from a farmworker background, and Rabbi Lyon, who described his synagogue as middle-class Jews, said their families overcame issues of immigration, discrimination and barriers.

“The bipartisan Immigration Reform Initiative that was rejected recently needs to be revisited, tweaked and signed into law,” Rabbi Lyon said. “IAF and TMO can engage in advocating for this to happen just as we have in the past. We have the know-how, the tools, and the ambition, and now we have the pope’s blessing.”

– Compiled by Jo Ann Zuñiga