Should Illegal Aliens Be Dispensed From Sunday Mass Obligations?
In the early half of the 20th century, beginning in 1917, Mexico’s government began persecuting Catholics. A new constitution outlawed Catholic teaching, banned religious orders, and claimed all Church property for the government. Violent persecution within less than a decade. The priest Luis Bátiz Sainz was arrested for teaching catechism and celebrating Mass and was executed by firing squad. Miguel de la Mora, another priest, was executed while praying the rosary. Rodrigo Aguilar Alemán was arrested while celebrating Mass in secret and hanged. While distributing ashes on Ash Wednesday, Pedro de Jesús Maldonado was attacked by soldiers and tortured and killed in his own church.
Jesuit priest Miguel Pro was captured by federal police and executed by firing squad. When asked his final words, Pro cried out, “Viva Cristo Rey!” In an attempt to stamp out Catholicism and spread fear, the Mexican government photographed the well-known priest’s execution and had it published on the front page of newspapers. Far from driving Catholics away from the sacraments, however, the stunt actually sparked an increased fervor among Mexican Catholics, who refused to stay away from Mass. One young Catholic, 15-year-old José Luis Sánchez del Río, was captured by government soldiers and told to renounce his faith. When he refused, the soles of his feet were cut off and he was made to march to his own grave. All he had to do to avoid death was reject Christ. Instead, he followed in Miguel Pro’s footsteps and cried out, “Viva Cristo Rey!”
Over three centuries earlier, Catholics in England faced imprisonment or death for attending Mass during the reign of Elizabeth I. Roger Line was arrested for attending Mass and was banished to Flanders. His wife, Anne, was also arrested while attending a clandestine Mass in her home, where she hid priests from soldiers. Unlike her husband, she was not banished but was hanged at Tyburn. When priest-hunters interrupted a Mass in the home of Swithun Wells to arrest the priest Edmund Gennings, the Catholics attending fought back to allow the priest time to finish celebrating the Mass. Gennings was arrested and hanged, drawn, and quartered. Wells was also executed for sheltering the priest. Cuthbert Mayne was arrested while preparing to celebrate Mass and was hanged, drawn, and quartered. Margaret Clitherow was arrested for hosting secret Masses in her home and was killed by having stone slabs placed upon her until she died.
In the United States today, no such persecution exists. American Catholics may and do face many forms of discrimination, but none fear for their lives when attending Mass. American Catholics shuffling into their local churches today do not worry that the soles of their feet may be sliced off, that they may face a firing squad, nor that they may be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Nevertheless, two American Catholic bishops have decided to suspend the obligation to attend Sunday Mass for those in their diocese who fear being arrested.
Bishop Alberto Rojas of the diocese of San Bernardino in California and Bishop J. Mark Spalding of the diocese of Nashville have issued dispensations for illegal aliens in their dioceses who fear being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), claiming that “no Catholic is obligated to attend Mass on Sunday if doing so puts their safety at risk.”
I have written extensively (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) on the Catholic Church’s teachings on immigration and so will not belabor the point beyond saying that these dispensations not only (once again) ignore and subtly undermine half of what the Church declares regarding the immigration issue but appear as a tacit condoning of illegal immigration.
Yet another troubling issue with these broad dispensations is that of “safety.” In many ways, it is a blessing that the Catholic Church in the western world — and especially the U.S. — has gone so long with relatively little persecution. But Catholics must always bear in mind that we are called to spiritual rigor and mortification, to eschew the comforts and safeties of this mortal world in order that we may be more fully attached to Christ in eternity. As the late Pope Benedict XVI reminded us, “The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.”
During the madness surrounding COVID-19, Masses around the country were quickly shut down. Instead, Catholics were forced to livestream Mass and, once lockdown restrictions were lifted, were still encouraged to attend Mass virtually, from the comfort of the sitting room. Many parish priests don’t seem to take much issue with parishioners showing up for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass decked out in football jerseys and cargo shorts — for the gents — or — for the ladies — tee shirts and denim cutoffs. Homilies are often politically correct and largely unchallenging, and substance has seemingly been sacrificed for pop culture references and a flawed notion of relevance.
Nearly two thousand years of saints and martyrs — both sung and unsung — testify to the weight and the glory of the Mass, the necessity of the Mass in the lives of the faithful. The great mystic St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina reminded us, “It would be easier for the world to survive without the sun than to do so without the Holy Mass.” Throughout the centuries, Catholics have risked and given up their lives to attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, have died defending it, have fought for the freedom to celebrate it uninterrupted. Yet the shepherds of the Church today urge even criminals not to repent and make amends for their crimes, but simply not to come to Mass if they fear the legal consequences of their crimes.
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