For almost a week, amid an historic winter storm that’s left much of Texas paralyzed and shut down, Father Pat O’Brien and others at St. Pius X Catholic Church in San Antonio have operated under a simple mantra: “Whatever the need is, we will be open.”
Two Catholic organizations in southern Texas are prepared to provide humanitarian relief to a combined 400 migrants a day, with the expectation that U.S. Customs and Border Protection will release more migrants as soon as next week.
The signals were clear at the start of the pandemic. No Masses, no offertory income. No offertory income, nothing to assess by the diocese. Nothing in the diocese to assess, reduced revenue to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Sister Norma Pimentel, who recently made it on this years’ “Time” 100 Most Influential People list for her work on the U.S.-Mexico border, has lamented the politicization of the immigration issue, insisting that politics should serve people, not partisan interests.
This year’s “Time 100 Most Influential People” includes Catholic nun Sister Norma Pimentel, known for her work assisting migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border near Brownsville, Texas.
Hurricane Laura destroyed six churches in the Diocese of Lake Charles, left a dozen others “highly compromised” and did heavy damage to chancery offices.
Scott Milliken has seen a lot of people come through the doors at the Father English Center’s food pantry during his years as CEO of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey, but not like the numbers since the coronavirus pandemic hit in March.
The director of food pantries for Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Paterson said the number of people coming for food “is just staggering.” “Throughout the last three months, we have helped more people that any time before in our 80-year history,” Carlos Roldan said in a statement July 13.
Across the country, Catholic dioceses, parishes and other church-run entities say the federal emergency “bridge loans” they applied for and received have helped keep much-needed ministries functioning during this coronavirus pandemic and the economic downturn that has resulted.
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington provided 800 prepared meals and 800 boxes of groceries to needy families May 19 during a massive distribution at the parking lot of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
