Contemplating crosses to bear

The first Station of the Cross was observed in front of a small church on the corner of Gless and 3rd streets in Boyle Heights. Under a hot noon sun, hundreds of worshipers listened as a lector told the biblical story of Pontius Pilate ordering the crucifixion.

“Jesus is condemned to death,” she read.

The worshipers had gathered to mark the 14 Stations of the Cross, which portray Jesus Christ’s final journey from condemnation to burial. Two drummers softly kept a slow beat as six men in violet shirts carried a large white cross over their shoulders.

All around them, men and women marched in white shirts that read “Keep Families Together.” Other marchers held signs saying “Stop the Raids.” Three young people held a large canvas banner with the words “Justice for Immigrants.”

The Stations of the Cross, an annual ritual enacted on Good Friday, is a solemn contemplation about the death of Jesus. At times it metamorphoses into a meditation on modern-day suffering, from poverty to violence.

In Los Angeles, where immigrants have become a dominant presence in the Catholic Church, Friday’s reenactment was a show of solidarity with illegal immigrants and their families. It was just one part of a larger movement to address immigration issues within the Catholic Church -- from the practical to the theological, organizers said.

Just before worshipers started on a two-mile trek to the downtown Federal Building, which houses U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, one marcher took a microphone and said, “Today there are a thousand forms of condemnation.” She listed disease, loneliness, injustice and poverty. Especially, she said, “we are condemned by injustices in this country, which cause families to be separated.”

In 2004, a migration committee of the made advocating for comprehensive immigration reform a major priority for the church in Los Angeles, where Cardinal Roger M. Mahony has been especially vocal in his support of legalization for undocumented immigrants.

The second Station of the Cross came just up the street: “Jesus receives his cross.” By then the procession was passing down a blocked-off street of factories and apartment complexes. A handful of workers from a nearby clothing manufacturer stood outside watching and asking one another what was happening.

And so it went. Worshipers made their way across the 1st Street bridge over the Los Angeles River, past factories and low-income housing developments. Along the way, they talked about the rights of the poor and prayed for families separated by raids. After every station they recited the Lord’s Prayer and 10 Hail Marys.

“We as Christians believe that Jesus is present especially in the most poor, the most defenseless, the most persecuted,” said the Rev. Steve Niskanen of Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in downtown Los Angeles. “Certainly I would include our immigrant population within those categories.”

Experts say immigrants are responsible for counterbalancing the otherwise declining membership in the U.S. Roman Catholic Church. They are twice as likely as native-born Americans to identify with the church, with one in three adult Catholics being Latino, according to a recent study.

In response, church leaders are working on myriad issues affecting immigrants, such as language barriers. At other times it means addressing the larger issue: How does the church respond to the question of legality? Dolores Mission, whose members organized Friday’s procession, also organizes “Know Your Rights” workshops for people caught in immigration enforcement raids. In April, church staff will host a workshop to teach undocumented parents how to write letters indicating where to send their children if the parents are deported, said Rita Cheirez, who helps organize events at the church.

At St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Santa Monica, workers organize citizenship and English classes that attract hundreds, said the Rev. Michael Gutierrez. The church is also working with others to shelter a man from deportation as part of the New Sanctuary Movement.

St. Anne’s serves about 1,500 families, 70% of whom are Latino, Gutierrez said. Many parishioners are undocumented, he added.

“The worry about raids is very much a part of their mind-sets,” Gutierrez said. “Sometimes it comes up after Mass or talking in the church yard or from parents in our school.”

At Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Sun Valley, the Rev. Richard Zanotti gets calls from parishioners asking for help when they learn an immigration raid is taking place or if some has been arrested.

“I’m not a lawyer and I don’t give them legal advice,” Zanotti said. He simply tries to console them.

Not everyone agrees that immigrant rights issues are within the purview of the Catholic Church, organizers said.

“The congregations that have heavy Hispanic populations will do this,” Gutierrez said. “You’ll find sympathy in the larger congregations. However, it’s still not at the level many people in the immigrants’ rights movement would like to see.”

Zanotti agreed.

“Not everyone is warm and fuzzy with immigrants, especially the undocumented,” Zanotti said. “In the Catholic Church there are those who are very much against” illegal immigration.

As the procession Friday made its way up Temple Street to the Federal Building, a few employees and passersby stopped to watch. Among the marchers were workers arrested in the Van Nuys raid. Along with the rest of the worshipers, they lifted their hands as if praying over the Federal Building. Then they said the Lord’s Prayer.

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paloma.esquivel@latimes.com