AMERICA/UNITED STATES - Living mercy at the border between Mexico and the USA

Friday, 9 September 2016 evangelization   reconciliation   refugees  

Texas (Agenzia Fides) - The border between Mexico and the United States has become a constant scene of the passage of thousands of immigrants from the south of the continent who try to reach North America, in a desperate attempt to a better life.
Sister Norma Pimentel, who recently participated in the extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in the Americas, held in Bogotá (see Fides 12/08/2016), is the director of Catholic Charities based in the Rio Grande Valley, South Texas, which helps thousands of people along the border. The religious Sister offered a living witness of their work, sent to Fides.
This is a "clandestine passageway", where stories read in the newspapers come true when migrants try to cross the border and are captured by the border police. This is the beginning of a real "Via Crucis" of suffering, after traveling thousands of kilometers risking their lives and those of their children. But what is even sadder is to see that the majority of immigrants are children themselves.
"We have so far helped more than 40 thousand people who have passed through this area, and ours was a response which was attended by the entire population, not just the Catholic Church, but all the different Churches. All united as one people, in a humanitarian response", said Sister Norma. There is no doubt that many continue to die at that point and there is still much to do", she added.
Sister Norma works in a center where refugees have food, showers, counseling and medical care. Her testimony was one of many that the 15 working groups shared in which they discussed "how mercy is lived in the Church's mission, in the local Church, in its own people".
(CE) (Agenzia Fides, 09/09/2016)


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