Doing Theology from the Existential Peripheries

A collaborative effort initiated by the Migrants and Refugees section of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Doing Theology from the Existential Peripheries “aims at deepening the teaching of Pope Francis and promoting a renewal of theology.” Please find the continental working group reports here and videos and guidebooks that continue to be updated here. Click here to subscribe to the Migrants and Refugees’ YouTube channel. I’ll continue to link below to resources about the project that may be helpful to theologians and colleagues in ministry.

Conferences and Panel Presentations

“Doing Theology from the Existential Peripheries” Pontifical Urban University, October 12, 2022
”Doing Theology from the Peripheries: Listening in North America,” St. John’s/Catholic Relief Services, November 2, 2022
”Doing Theology from the Peripheries: Roundtable Discussion and Analysis from North American Working Group for the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development Project,” Catholic Theological Society of America, June 8, 2023

Media Coverage

“Theology Professor Works with Vatican on Global Project” by Taylor Ha, October 21, 2022
“St. John’s Professor Appointed to Vatican Theology Project on Migrant Experience,” October 31, 2022
“Questions of faith: Vatican project sends theologians to ‘the margins,’” by Cindy Wooden for Catholic News Service, November 3, 2022

For a General Audience

”Doing Theology from the Existential Peripheries: Listening in North America” by Meghan Clark for Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church Forum, November 1, 2022
”What if the peripheries were really the center that defines the church today?” by Stan Chu Ilo for National Catholic Reporter, November 30, 2022
“‘Gaudium et Spes’ offers wisdom for a divided church,” by Meghan J. Clark for US Catholic, January 16, 2023
”Pope Francis asks theologians to remember the marginalized. Here’s how one global project is responding,” by Meghan J. Clark for America, January 19, 2023
Response to “Pope Francis asks theologians to remember the marginalized. Here’s how one global project is responding,” by John Gonzalez for Locus Theologicus, January 23, 2023

Pushing Pause

This summer, I’m pushing pause on posting here, so I can focus my energy on honoring my commitments to other writing adventures like my forthcoming book with Convivium Press and preparing my syllabi for the new courses I’ll get to teach next academic year at Seminary of the Southwest. If you’d like to receive updates about the book as its publication date nears and other updates, click here, scroll down past my photo of the railroad tracks and the paragraphs of introductory text to the Subscribe box, and enter your contact details there. While I could never be as prolific as Sor Juana (depicted above) was, her witness is a source of inspiration. If you’re curious to learn more about her life, take a look at the TedEd video about her my ACHTUS colleague Theresa Yugar co-created. ¡Hasta pronto!

Becoming Mother Hens: A Response to Family Separation at the Border

Los pollitos dicen
Pio, pio, pio
Cuando tienen hambre
Cuando tienen frio
La gallina busca
El maiz y el trigo
Les da la comida
Y les presta abrigo
Bajo sus dos alas
Acurrucaditos
Hasta el otro dia
Duerman los pollitos

I have fond memories of my mom singing this lullabye at bedtime when my brother and I were small.  We said our prayers, asking God’s blessings on each member of our family, near and far.  As she brushed the unruly curls back from my face with her hand, she sang “Los Pollitos” to us, and its sweet melody and that intimacy with our mom accompanied us to sleep.  The imagery of the song surely is familiar to many, and it is comforting: A mother hen feeds her little ones as they call to her, and they find rest beneath the protection of her wings.

Jesus refers to himself with a similar image in the Gospels.  After he denounces the unjust actions of the Pharisees, we hear, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37, NRSVCE).  For generations, the passage preceding his lament over Jerusalem was interpreted in ways that support anti-Semitism, but more recently, New Testament scholars have come to understand Jesus as a faithful Jewish man who aimed to root out religious and political corruption. In Matthew 23:37, he judges not all who lived in the Jerusalem of his day, but any religious or civic entity that rejects its prophets and makes of them martyrs.  Jesus, the mother hen, calls to accountability the community that shaped him.

These two images of the mother hen—the one that provides and protects with gentleness and the one that calls the community to accountability—need one another.  And I think they have something to say to people of faith and to Catholics in particular during these troubled times.  Rooted in Scripture and part of our tradition, the principles of Catholic social teaching call on us to provide and to protect with gentleness, as well as call to accountability our religious and civic leaders.  Drawing on Rerum Novarum, the USCCB outlines three further principles that can guide the consciences of Catholics on the issue of migration:

• “People have the right to migrate to sustain their lives and the lives of their families.

• A country has the right to regulate its borders and to control immigration.

• A country must regulate its borders with justice and mercy.”

If you are a Catholic who is concerned about the growing numbers of children and families whom the US has begun to detain as they cross the southern border with Mexico, I encourage you to reflect on the rights and responsibilities our bishops have outlined, as well as to what you are called. In recent days, I have spent time in prayer and reflection on these issues, and these are the actions to which I feel called. 

1. I feel called to pray for protection of those children who were separated from their parents, in the hopes of reunification; for gentleness to touch the lives of those parents who have been separated from their children, as well as those families who are in detention together; for those who construct and enforce the policies that affect the lives of these migrants and refugees, that they would be converted from practices that oppress the stranger among us to the practices of welcome to which we are called as Catholics and as Christians; and for the rest of us, that we would take a stand for justice and for mercy on this and other issues affecting our nation and our world.

2. I feel called to inform myself and to do the work of consciousness raising, or sharing what I have learned about this issue, those it affects most deeply and most directly, and the resources Catholic teaching brings to bear on it.

3. I feel called to act in a way that reflects my conscience. I have begun to reach out to my elected officials to encourage them to support just and humane immigration reform, and I have taken part in two public witnesses calling for an end to detention for migrant and refugee children and families. I also intend to donate to PICO California to show my support for the work they are doing on this issue.

Last weekend, over 1,000 people marched alongside Pastor Ben McBride of PICO California and Bishop Robert McElroy of the Catholic Diocese of San Diego to Otay Mesa Road in San Ysidro, CA, where migrant and refugee children and families are being held in detention.  As we marched, we chanted, “No están solos!  No están solos!” (“You are not alone!  You are not alone!”)  Almost as soon as the chant died down, we heard, from the other side of the barbed wire fence, the voices of children shouting back to us, echoing off the high walls of the detention center.  The chorus of little cries brought tears to my eyes as I walked in the heat of the afternoon, weeping for the little ones who would not hear the lullabyes of their mothers that night and in the nights to come, weeping for those in our country who have yet to heed calls to accountability for the policies that cage these children and families.  Today, our faith calls on us to be mother hens—to provide comfort and protection to these little ones and to call to accountability those who threaten that protection.         

See, Judge, Act: The Pastoral Circle and Separation of Families at the Border

I have compiled a list of resources about the separation of migrant children from their parents that have been helpful to me in discerning steps forward on this issue.  In the list below, I follow the model of the pastoral circle, which has its roots in Catholic social teaching and social movements.  Wrote John XXIII in Mater et Magistra,

“There are three stages which should normally be followed in the reduction of social principles into practice. First, one reviews the concrete situation; secondly, one forms a judgment on it in the light of these same principles; thirdly, one decides what in the circumstances can and should be done to implement these principles. These are the three stages that are usually expressed in the three terms: look, judge, act (#236).” 

In seeing, we learn about the reality of the situation.  In judging, we make a discerning assessment of how to respond to that reality.  In acting, we take steps to address it.  For my own part, I am making a commitment to urge my civic and church leaders to bring the weight of their positions to bear on this issue, that we would bring an end to this practice of separating families at the border and atone for this national sin.

See

A Los Angeles Times piece about the conditions in a shelter for migrants on the border

A PBS piece on these conditions

A CNN piece about the circumstances under which children are being separated from their parents

NPR coverage of the impact these separations are having on the health of these children

CNBC coverage of Sarah Sanders discussing how separation of children from their parents along the border is biblical

The Washington Post’s coverage of Jeff Sessions’ biblical justification for the separation of families along the border

UPDATE (Monday, 25 June 2018): New York Times article on preparations being made to detain up to 20,000 migrants on military bases

UPDATE (Monday, 25 June 2018): NYT opinion piece "What My 6-Year-Old Son and I Endured in Family Detention"

Judge

Theologian Anthea Butler's response to Sarah Sanders and Jeff Sessions

Theologian Candida Moss’ response to Jeff Sessions

A Washington Post piece on America’s history of separating children from their parents

The National Catholic Reporter's series on this issue

The Hill’s coverage of the president of the USCCB’s take on this reality

The USCCB’s description of the seven themes of Catholic social teaching

USCCB’s Catholic social teaching on immigration and the movement of peoples

St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Prayer to Know God's Will

UPDATE (Monday, 25 June 2018): NYT Opinion Columnist Charles M. Blow on "White Extinction Anxiety" and the immigration debate

Act

UPDATE (Monday, 25 June 2018): PICO California needs donations to keep its community organizing efforts on these issues thriving; consider making a donation today.  Continue calling your Reps and your Senators to urge them to pass just and humane legislation like the Keep Families Together Act (see below for more information). 

UPDATE (Wednesday, 20 June 2018): Families Belong Together has information about public witnesses happening around the country on Saturday, 30 June 2018.  If you can't march in Washington, DC, but feel called to do something public, click through their website to find a solidarity gathering in your area.  Keep calling your Reps and your Senators (see below for more info about how) to register your concern about what is happening on the border.   

UPDATE (Tuesday, 19 June 2018): Hope Border Institute and NETWORK Lobby are encouraging us to call our Representatives to discourage them from supporting HR 4760 and Speaker Ryan's bill because this legislation does not effectively reunify separated families, nor does it adequately meet the needs of DREAMers. Call your Reps today at (202) 225-3121; this number will connect you to your Rep's office.  If you're not sure what to say, here is a suggested script.

Professor Neomi De Anda’s suggestions of tools for action

Suggestions for action from the Editorial Board of the New York Times

Petition that will be delivered to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen

Jim Martin, SJ's America piece on five things we can do to help immigrants at the border

Text of the Keep Families Together Act in the Senate

List of cosponsors of the Keep Families Together Act in the Senate

The phone number for the Capitol Switchboard is (202) 224-3121.  Calling it will connect you with your two Senators, even if you aren't sure who they are.  If your Senator supports the Keep Families Together Act, you can call to thank her.  If she doesn’t, you can call to encourage her to express her support for it. 

Text of the Child Citizen Protection Act (H.R. 2508) would allow judges to decline any order separating a non-citizen parent from a citizen child.

Text of the HELP Separated Children Act (H.R. 5950) would require states to provide separated children with foster care through welfare agencies or community organizations and require DHS personnel to undergo child welfare training.

Call your Congressional House Representative about these two bills. If you don’t have her name and number handy, call the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 225-3121.

Donation page for the National Immigration Law Center

RAICES (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education Legal Services)