As Catholics, helping the poor, disadvantaged and immigrant is not just something we do. Rather it is who we are. It’s our identity.
During its May 18, 2026, audience, Pope Leo XIV told Catholic Extension Society’s Board of Governors: “I likewise encourage the pastoral care you are offering to the disadvantaged, as well as to the many immigrant families in the United States. It is imperative that our brothers and sisters experience the warmth of a community marked by the presence of Christ.”
Sister Fatima Santiago, ICM, has served immigrant families in South Texas for 30 years and has been on Catholic Extension Society’s Board of Governors for seven years.
As Catholic Extension Society’s board met with Pope Leo to commit itself to his pastoral priorities, it was clear that Sister Fatima was ahead of the curve on the pope’s priority to care for the poor and immigrant. She presented to the pope many letters from immigrant families she serves who have been separated due to detention or deportation.
One letter was from a family with two severely autistic sons, where the mother who cares for them has been detained. There is no one who can care for their medical and economic needs.
Another was from a grandmother whose daughter-in-law was deported in November, and she explains that she can’t make enough money at her job to care for her grandchildren.
Another was from a woman detained and released by ICE. She has seven children, one with cancer and two with disabilities. Although grateful she is free, now she has to come up with the money to keep legally defending her freedom.
These are the cases and the cries that so few of us hear, but that Church leaders like Sister Fatima encounter every day. Often in these desperate situations, the Church is the only place these families can turn to for help. And thankfully, as Pope Leo says, they experience the warmth of a community marked by the presence of Christ.
Families suffering across the nation
While immigration enforcement activities in major cities have dominated headlines, there has been much less attention paid to these types of activities in small towns.
In rural Alabama, we spoke with a pastor who has a parish of 175 people, primarily Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants. In the last six months, this faith community has already lost 12 people. Many others have lost jobs for fear of being detained.
A group of religious sisters working in social services throughout the state of Alabama report that more than 70% of the thousands of families who come to their center each month for food, utility and housing assistance are immigrant families who have lost a breadwinner due to deportation or are unable to find work.
Meanwhile in Georgia, parishioners at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Port Wentworth are being hit by job losses or reduced work hours.
The church rapidly converted their adjacent building into a makeshift outreach center to meet their parishioners’ economic and physical needs.
Trauma counseling
Spouses and children left behind are utterly traumatized. Pastors and religious sisters working with them tell us that families are begging for counseling services to help them through this grief and shock. Most often, they need these services in Spanish, and there are few if any Spanish-speaking professionals to provide these services in the rural areas where these families are located. Catholic Extension Society has convened and partnered with Catholic Spanish language counselors around the country, whom we are deploying to areas where the need for services is most intense.
In one parish in Ohio, there are 60 children who are now fatherless due to ICE arrests. At least several of these families have experienced both parents being arrested, leaving children and teens as orphans.
Cristina Hernandez, coordinator of Hispanic ministry for the Diocese of Youngstown, has been heroically walking with mothers whose husbands have vanished and is comforting children who are grappling with life without one or both of their parents.
Ministry to the detained
The pain and suffering is even greater among immigrants who are still in detention.
Some Catholic leaders have access to these centers. Catholic Extension Society is speaking to them and aiding detention center chaplains with needed religious materials to provide spiritual care.
Those in detention are yearning for Bibles and rosaries to help them remain close to God during this dark period.
In Laredo, Deacon Enrique Peñuñuri has served in prison ministry for many years, regularly visiting 15 facilities across the diocese, including various immigration detention facilities. He asserts that supporting their spiritual life impacts them immensely.
“We encourage them to draw near to God,” he said. “To have concrete things to do, such as reading the Gospel.”
Those he serves are so appreciative of his presence and company.
Hearing the cry of the poor
Sadly, it is so easy to ignore the cry of the poor. Pope Leo knows this, which is why he said in his first encyclical last October, “love for the Lord, then, is one with love for the poor” (Dilexi te 5). Those who are uncomfortable with the Church’s commitments to the poor, to the detained, should know that these are Gospel mandates the Church is fulfilling. As the pope says, “God has a special place in his heart for those who are discriminated against and oppressed, and he asks us, his Church, to make a decisive and radical choice in favor of the weakest” (Dilexi te 16).
During his audience with Catholic Extension Society, the pope was particularly complimentary of our work to build up Catholic faith communities in America because they serve a dual purpose to transform society and hearts:
[Catholic communities] provide support, as we have seen, for the poor, but also the strength that we all need in order to face the challenges of life with faith.”
Catholic Extension Society is a papal society founded in 1905. Our mission is to work in solidarity with people to build up vibrant and transformative Catholic faith communities among the poor in the poorest regions of America. Please support our mission today!
Pope Leo with Sister Fatima image credit: © Vatican Media
