From Texas-
A coalition of top religious leaders, including Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, on Monday urged the heads of local congregations and synagogues to help persuade their faithful to support a push for comprehensive immigration reform.
The more than 400 Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist and Jewish leaders who attended the interfaith service and conference at Houston's St. Paul United Methodist Church seemed receptive to the call to overhaul the nation's immigration system and legalize the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.
Though DiNardo warned that congregations will not be so united, he said they are not “nasty because they misunderstand, or are fearful, or are opposed” to immigration reform. DiNardo encouraged leaders to respect the views of their congregants, while still expressing an urgent need for reform.
Some religious leaders questioned how to best share a pro-reform message with their congregations, particularly in the midst of a recession. One Methodist pastor with a suburban, Republican congregation called the immigration issue a potential “powder keg.”
The local push for reform, organized by Houston's non-partisan The Metropolitan Organization, comes just a week after the leadership of the Catholic Church renewed pressure on the Obama administration to help pass an immigration bill. Ali Noorani, the president of the pro-immigrant organization the National Immigration Forum, said more than 100 events in support of reform were scheduled across the country this week.
DiNardo called the immigration issue “massively important for our time, critical for our communities and for our nation, and also critical and crucial for us as churches, as synagogues, as believing communities.”
But anti-illegal immigration advocates are pushing back against the religious lobby, charging there is a large disconnect between the pulpit and parishioners on the immigration issue — a contention that local religious leaders denied.
More here-
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6810414.html
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