I’ve never been more sickened by anything in my life than by what our government is doing to migrant families at our southern border: screaming toddlers put in cages like animals, a nursing baby taken right from her mother’s breast, siblings forbidden to hug each other for comfort. Our government is terrorizing children in concentration camps.

Are these migrants “illegal?” Have they broken the law? No, and no. You apply for asylum by turning yourself in at the border. Those are the rules we made, and they’re following them.

As a Catholic Christian, I’m pleased that my church’s leaders have unequivocally condemned what our government is doing to families at the border. The U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference declared it “immoral.” One bishop has recommended denying Communion to anyone who participates in enforcing this government policy. New York’s Cardinal Dolan publicly told U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions that there’s “no Bible passage” to justify family separation—in stern repudiation of Sessions’ claim that there was. Prominent Jesuit Father James Martin has called this psychological torture of children “evil.” (Sessions’ own church, United Methodist Church, has formally charged him with “child abuse.”)

Father Martin said this past Father’s Day, “please remember all the fathers in Central America who are fleeing poverty and persecution in search of a safe life for their families. This is why parents come to the border with their children. … Because they love them.” Like Joseph loved his son, Jesus, and fled with him and Mary to a foreign land for their safety. To all my fellow Christians, remember that your Savior was a brown-skinned child refugee running for his life. Jesus said: “I was a stranger and you did not welcome me. … Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.” (Matthew 25: 35-46)

Before you trot out any justifications for what the government is doing, listen again to Father Martin: “The next time you are tempted to blame migrants for anything, ask yourself what you would do if your family were facing gang violence, persecution, famine, poverty or warfare. Would you have the guts to become a migrant or a refugee?”

I don’t believe cowards and bullies who hurt children or support hurting children or rationalize hurting children would have the guts to do anything remotely noble or sacrificial for their families. They’re the lowest of the low.

And that’s where America is falling: to new lows every day, down a moral slope to the point of no return.

Jennifer Tomshack

St. Joseph