Mexico City, Mexico, Jan 27, 2017 / 17:05 pm
The bishops of Mexico on Thursday reacted to United States' president Donald Trump's executive order to build a wall on the nations' border by urging a more thoughtful response to legitimate security concerns.
"We express our pain and rejection over the construction of this wall, and we respectfully invite you to reflect more deeply about the ways security, development, growth in employment, and other measures, necessary and just, can be procured without causing further harm to those already suffering, the poorest and most vulnerable," the Mexican bishops' conference said Jan. 26 in a message titled "Value and Respect for Migrants".
Trump had Jan. 25 ordered a wall to be built on the U.S.-Mexico border. An estimated 650 miles of the 1,900 mile-long U.S.-Mexico border have a wall constructed currently.
The Mexican bishops noted that for more than 20 years, the prelates of "the northern border of Mexico and the southern border of the United States have been working" to achieve "the best care for the faithful that live in the sister countries, properly seen as a single city (from a faith perspective); communities of faith served by two dioceses (such as Matamoros and Brownsville, or Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, for example)."