To the Editor:
Fifteen-thousand children are locked up and being “detained” on American soil, in the name of what? Security? Legality? Not in the name of Christ, not during Advent and the Christmas octave, surely? But that is when the Holy Innocents 2 years old and younger, died.
Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador may have been the earliest homes for today’s youngsters, but they are now on our soil, under the iconic Mother of Exiles who continues to entice: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. …”
They are covered in the garbage of our politics. Does that kill their claim on our Catholicism? This disgrace has a solution. That solution is not silence.
Part of the solution is voice, raised in prayer, steeped in contemplation, spoken in homilies and whispered in pews; words spoken to the powerful, yes, but also to each other. The least among us is on a cross of our making.
Clara Oleson
Iowa City
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