About 2,000 people who gathered for All Saints’ Day Mass Nov. 1 near the Broadview Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility were there to show their solidarity with and love for the people detained inside, according to Auxiliary Bishop José María Garcia-Maldonado, the main celebrant of the Mass.
“They are part of us,” Bishop Garcia-Maldonado said of people detained inside the facility. “They are part of our family.”
The Mass was organized by the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership, a non-profit based on Catholic and Christian principles. The coalition also organized an Oct. 11 Eucharistic procession from St. Eulalia Church in nearby Maywood to the center, during which clergy and religious attempted to bring Communion to detainees, and were refused.
During the Nov. 1 Mass, Bishop Garcia-Maldonado led a small delegation to again attempt to bring the Body of Christ to those in detention. The group was stopped by Illinois State Police who were in communication with the Department of Homeland Security officials inside and they were turned away.
Mercy Sister JoAnn Persch, who, with her longtime friend and colleague, the late Mercy Sister Pat Murphy, was instrumental in starting weekly Friday morning prayer services at the center nearly two decades ago, brought the news back to the congregation.
“It breaks my heart to say it,” said Sister JoAnn, 91. “Sisters and brothers detained in this horrendous situation, we asked to come and bring you comfort. The officer very sincerely tried, and the answer was no.”
The congregation was then silent for a brief period, the only sound a helicopter circling overhead.
Sister JoAnn and Sister Pat were allowed inside to minister to detainees at Broadview for about 10 years. Those visits have not been allowed since before the middle of June.
Since then, the Department of Homeland Security has said it has arrested or detained more than 3,000 people as part of “Operation Midway Blitz,” which started in early September.
Many of those detained were taken from the street by masked agents and bundled into unmarked vehicles. Sometimes those trying to protest or document the agents’ actions have been arrested or detained as well.
A class action lawsuit filed in federal court in Chicago Oct. 30 claims that many detainees have said they were held at the Broadview center — designated as a processing center where people are meant to spend hours, not days — for several days, sleeping on the floor in the filth from overflowing toilets, and denied access to water, food, medical care, hygiene and opportunities to consult with legal representatives.
Now, religious leaders say, DHS has ignored their requests to provide pastoral care.
Before both the October procession and the Nov. 1 Mass, leaders of the coalition asked more than a week in advance for permission to bring Communion to detainees. Before the Nov. 1 Mass, the mayor of Broadview, Katrina Thompson, also wrote a letter requesting access, and CSPL representatives went to the ICE offices in downtown Chicago to attempt to meet with someone in person and were ignored, said Jesuit Father David Inczauskis, a member of the coalition’s clergy council.
“The Eucharist is the real presence of Christ,” Inczauskis said. “Our faith compels us to share this sacred gift with our brothers and sisters. It is both our calling and their right.”
“As shepherds, we are called to be where our brothers and sisters are,” said Bishop Garcia-Maldonado, who concelebrated the Mass with about two dozen priests, including the leaders of several communities of men religious. “In hospitals, at funeral homes and cemeteries, and today, here. … We are charged by Jesus to work with the sheep he has entrusted to the care of the church.”
Before the Nov. 1 Mass started, Inczauskis informed the congregation that a group that had participated in the Oct. 11 procession caring a banner with the image of the pilgrim Virgen de Guadalupe would not be present, because one its members was detained by federal agents as they were preparing to come.
Bishop Garcia-Maldonado said he, like many Catholics in the archdiocese, relate to the stories of those who have been detained.
“I am here today because I am also an immigrant,” Bishop Garcia-Maldonado said in his homily. “My story is a story many of you here relate to. … Being here today is a part of the holiness we are called to live. This is our faith.”
During the Mass, the congregation prayed for the detainees in the center, for those who wanted to come to the Mass but could not because they are afraid and for whoever was in two buses that left the detention center during the liturgy.
While the buses did not directly pass through the congregation during the Mass, several vehicles driven by agents did, choosing a route between most of the congregation in the parking lot and along the sidewalk on the west side of Beach Street and those who could not fit there, and were in an area designated for protesters on the east side of the street.
The liturgy remained peaceful, with the bishop and other leaders reminding the congregation to be respectful to everyone, including law enforcement officers. Members of the delegation that tried to bring Communion into the center blessed those who turned them away.
Before the Mass, Kaitin Powell, a member of Old St. Mary’s Parish, 1500 S. Michigan Ave., distributed homemade clips of monarch butterflies to the people who gathered in the parking lot between two buildings near the center, where the Mass was celebrated.
“I made 200,” she said. “I should have made more.”
Monarchs, she said, represent migrants because they migrate each year between Mexico and the Midwest. They also can symbolize Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, which is celebrated in Mexico Nov. 1 and 2.
Some people distributed “cempasúchiles,” a type of marigold associated with the Día de los Muertos, and during the Mass, worshippers were invited to place flowers or photos of loved ones who have died or been deported on the ofrenda during the bringing up of gifts.
Powell said she studied liberation theology at Central American University in San Salvador, El Salvador, and she wishes more people understood how much they benefit from the presence of undocumented immigrants in the United States, especially in the Chicago area.
“We are affected by undocumented immigrants more than we realize,” she said.
Father Sergio Romo, pastor of St. Gertrude Parish, 6200 N. Glenwood Ave., said he came to the Mass with several parishioners who wanted to come to show their support and solidarity with those being detained.
“Our parish is very concerned about what is going on,” Romo said. “We have a very clear sense of what the church is supposed to be doing, which is welcoming the stranger.”
For Romo, the son of Mexican immigrants, the situation now is distressing, he said.
Tim Martin and his daughter Grace Martin, 16, said they are both involved in a Pax Christi group at Loyola Academy in Wilmette. Tim Martin, director of Ignatian service learning and engagement at the Jesuit high school, said, “This is a big issue, and we’re trying to figure out what we can do.”
Grace, a junior, said her classmates who live in Chicago or are Latino seem more aware of and concerned about what is happening.
“They know people who have been deported or are threatened with being deported,” she said.
The Martins were chatting before Mass with Tony Palos, who said he has both U.S. and Mexican citizenship and is a member of NABET Local 41, a union for people working in broadcast and cable television.
Palos said he was proud of the support organized labor provided for the Mass and for other efforts to support immigrants.
“You can’t just be snatching people off the streets and be putting them in unmarked vehicles by masked men,” he said. “Those are Gestapo tactics. It’s un-American.”
At the end of the Mass, Inczauskis said that the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership will continue its efforts to bring the Eucharist and pastoral care to the detainees at the Broadview center.
“Today is another step in our continual pursuit to bring Communion to our detained brothers and sisters,” he said. “And we will persevere.”