In the January 10, 2007 edition of the Denver Catholic Register, Archbishop Charles Chaput wrote a fantastic editorial on (illegal) immigration. In this editorial, Bishop Chaput shared the following email he received from a parishioner following a local arrest of illegal immigrants:

Sorry Bishop: No sympathy (from me) for the illegal alien criminals arrested by ICE. In fact, I hope their offspring starve to death. I do not pray for illegal aliens. I pray for their victims. I have no problem with God, and He has no problem with me. I hope their families starve to death, and it's crap like this that drives Catholics away from the Church.

The Bishop went on to make the following challenge to his readers:

How we treat the weak, the infirm, the elderly, the unborn child and the foreigner reflects on our own humanity. We become what we do, for good or for evil. The Catholic Church respects the law, including immigration law. We respect those men and women who have the difficult job of enforcing it. We do not encourage or help anyone to break the law. We believe Americans have a right to solvent public institutions, secure borders and orderly regulation of immigration.

But we won't ignore people in need, and we won't be quiet about laws that don't work -- or that, in their ''working,'' create impossible contradictions and suffering. Despite all of the heated public argument over the past year, Americans still find themselves stuck with an immigration system that adequately serves no one. We urgently need the kind of immigration reform that will address our economic and security needs, but also regularize the status of the many decent undocumented immigrants who help our society to grow. A new Congress sits in Washington. Its members have an extraordinary opportunity to act quickly and justly to solve this problem. If they don't, the responsibility for failure will be on them and on all of us who elected them.

The year is young; 2007 is just beginning. The slate is clean. We become what we do, for good or for evil. If we act and speak like bigots, that's what we become. If we act with justice, intelligence, common sense and mercy, then we become something quite different. We become the people and the nation God intended us to be. Our country's immigration crisis is a test of our humanity. Whether we pass it is entirely up to us.

I'm sad to say that as 2007 draws to a close, the attitude I sense among many fellow Christians is the one expressed in the email and not in the editorial. Over the past several months I have heard several Christians, even some who had earned my admiration, make racist comments about Mexicans (or Hispanics in general) and then excuse them by referring to illegal immigration. Somehow, the legality of one's immigration status changes their value as a human being. It also apparently changes the value of their entire race.

In reality, however, the racist and xenophobic attitudes I have encountered in the Church have little to do with the new issue of immigration (and thus illegal immigration) and more to do with the same fears, prejudices, and ignorance that have always fed bigotry. My wife is an immigrant, having come to America from Russia nearly 5 years ago, so I am always surprised when someone has the gall to degrade immigrants in my presence (or even worse, my wife's). When we confront this bigotry, however, we are always told, ''Well, you're different.'' This is then followed by a reason why, such as my wife's willingness to learn English and become a citizen, a euphemism for her looking and sounding like an American (i.e., white) instead of an immigrant.

As both an American and a Christian, I can understand love for one's country and respect for her laws. I can even understand the desire for the secure feeling that comes with having strict immigration laws. But as Christians, we are bound to Scripture as well as the Constitution, and Scripture stands firm against both racism and xenophobia. There are a number of verses where God commanded Israel to not oppress foreigners, but the one I find most powerful is Leviticus 19:34, where God actually attaches his name to the command:

''The foreigner who resides with you must be to you like a native citizen among you; so you must love him as yourself, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.''

Paul, in his epistle to the Galatian church, reminded believers that they were no longer to identify each other by nationality or social status:

''For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female -- for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to the promise.''

When we look upon a fellow human being, we should not be making judgments based on their age, sex, race, ethnicity, or socio-economic status. When we see a young Hispanic man standing on a street corner, we should not immediately assume he is an illegal day-laborer waiting to steal jobs from Americans. Nor should we be making snide comments, jokes, or unwarranted stereotypes. If we look at people and immediately determine their earthly social and legal status instead of their eternal status, something is seriously wrong for we are seeing people and the world as man sees it, not as God sees it.

The Church should be the one place in America where the immigrant always feels safe and welcomed, but this is too often not the case. As 2007 comes to an end, and we embark on a new year, may the Church do a better job accepting the foreigner as a native-born citizen. As Pope John Paul II said on World Migration Day in 1995:

The Church acts in continuity with Christ's mission. In particular, she asks herself how to meet the needs, while respecting the law of those persons who are not allowed to remain in a national territory. She also asks what the right to emigrate is worth without the corresponding right to immigrate. She tackles the problem of how to involve in this work of solidarity those Christian communities frequently infected by a public opinion that is often hostile to immigrants.... ''I was a stranger and you welcomed me'' (Mt 25:35). It is the Church's task not only to present constantly the Lord's teaching of faith but also to indicate its appropriate application to the various situations which the changing times continue to create. Today the illegal migrant comes before us like that ''stranger'' in whom Jesus asks to be recognized. To welcome him and to show him solidarity is a duty of hospitality and fidelity to Christian identity itself.