Social Forum

Please note this event has passed. It took place on Tuesday, April 9, 2019, at Pax Christi Catholic Community, Eden Prairie.

Discussion Question:

What is the Catholic response to the influx of immigrants and refugees and rapidly shifting U.S. immigration policy?

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Catholic Spirit Article

Religious sister publicly thanked by Pope Francis to be part of immigration panel

Photo provided by University of Notre Dame

By: Joe Ruff

A sister from Texas who was publicly thanked by Pope Francis in 2015 for her immigration work will appear on a panel discussing immigration April 9 at Pax Christi in Eden Prairie.

Missionaries of Jesus Sister Norma Pimentel, director of Catholic Charities for the Rio Grande Valley since 2008 and founder in 2014 of its Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas, will give a keynote address at the 6 p.m. forum sponsored by the Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota.

The Giving Insights panel also will include Archbishop Bernard Hebda; Lesly Gonzalez-Barragan, a Latino outreach coordinator in Youth in Theology and Ministry at St. John’s University School of Theology and Seminary in Collegeville, Minnesota; and Robyn Meyer-Thompson, an attorney at the St. Paul-based Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. Jesuit Father Warren Sazama, pastor of St. Thomas More in St. Paul, will moderate the discussion.

The evening will focus on a Catholic response to immigrants and refugees and the impact shifts in U.S. immigration policy have on those involved, said Angela Dimler, the foundation’s communications director.

Four years ago during a virtual papal audience Pope Francis thanked Sister Pimentel and all religious sisters for their hard work in helping immigrants and refugees. Last year, Sister Pimentel was awarded the University of Notre Dame prestigious Laetare Medal for her faith-filled, humanitarian work with immigrants.

Sister Norma will share her experience of immigrants crossing the border, families being separated and efforts at reunification, Dimler said.

The Catholic Community Foundation, which manages investments of Catholic parishes, institutions, families, and individuals and makes grants to Catholic and nonprofit causes, started its Giving Insights series in late 2017…The forums help the foundation share some of what it has learned about needs in the community and resources to meet those needs, Dimler said.

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