Being always mindful of the mercy God has given us all, we, too, should at all times extend the same mercy to immigrants — those most in need of hope and a home, according to the Most Reverend Gustavo García-Siller, Archbishop of San Antonio.

Speaking at the bi-annual meeting of the Tex-Mex Border Bishops, GarcíaSiller delivered his homily at a Noonhour Mass at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in San Angelo.

Eleven bishops from Texas and Mexico attended the three-day meeting, addressing immigration and other issues shared by bishops on both sides of the border.

García-Siller cautioned those at the Mass not to reduce what little the immigrants have — hope, faith, family — to a political issue.

“We struggle to accept others different from us,” he said. “We struggle to open our homes, our churches and our society to those different from us.”

Christians should be persons always ready to forgive, always ready to give hope, always ready to trust because we have faith in God and because we ourselves are full of hope and are forgiven.

The Tex-Mex Border Bishops began as loosely formed conversations among a handful of bishops. The participants have increased and now include 24 bishops and archbishops representing 16 dioceses and archdioceses in Texas, New Mexico and Mexico.

The bishops who formed the original gathering were inspired early on by Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation, Ecclesia in America, promulgated in 1999 and meant to teach about living with a spirit of solidarity among dioceses in the Americas.

One of the original bishops to have participated in the early conversations was the Most Reverend Michael D. Pfeifer, Bishop Emeritus of San Angelo.

“A few years after we began meeting, Pope St. John II’s beautiful statement gave great inspiration for these meetings,” Bishop Emeritus Pfeifer said. “Hence, the original objective was to bring us together as brother bishops shepherding God’s flock which flows back and forth along the Rio Grande River.

“Our objective was to give witness that we are one as shepherds leading Christ’s Church and to deal with common pastoral issues. A constant issue for discussion at these meetings has been the critical question of immigration.

The bishops issued a statement on immigration to the presidents of the United States and Mexico a few years ago, and a document on the Texas Catholic Conference web site also includes a statement about President Obama’s 2014 executive order on immigration. ( www.txcatholic.org/#!bishops-statements/cqwf)

Bishop Michael Sis, in his first occasion to host the event, said the bishops also addressed matters of deportation and serving immigrants during the meeting.

“We shared information about the current U.S. deportation practices and the effects on people,” Bishop Sis said. “For example, many of those being deported don't have any more contact with their place of origin in Mexico. Their home, family, work, and resources are in the United States. Some of them are English-speakers who have great difficulty speaking Spanish. When they are sent back to Mexico, many of them are without roots or support there, which leads to further social and personal problems.”

The bishops also heard reports from some priests who run Catholic Immigrant Centers in Mexico, generously serving large numbers of immigrants. In their ministry, they find that there are often people who are making money off of the immigrants, including human traffickers, organized crime, and civil officials.

“This system is abusing human beings for the sake of profit,” Bishop Sis said.

Bishop Sis added that in order to serve immigrants more effectively, “We will establish a network of those in all of our dioceses who are currently providing pastoral care to immigrants. There is a real concern for the protection of the basic human rights of immigrants.”

Bishop Mark Seitz, of the Diocese of El Paso, said the humanitarian issue of immigrants is one we all must actively face and work to help find a solution.

“To be a disciple of Jesus is to have a light that influences everything we do, and every issue we face,” Bishop Seitz said. “If it is something we keep within the walls of the church or we only pray about at night, our faith is stunted. That faith that we have should give us a perspective. Change is the way we deal with big questions of the day, which is not to say these aren’t complex issues, or to suggest that the Church is going to propose an answer to every political issue, but it is to say that we should begin from the point of view of how Jesus called us to see those who are most in need, least powerful and suffering the most. And that is we should approach them with a great sense of compassion and from there we begin to wrestle with the questions that we struggle with.”