America Magazine Highlights Vincentian Comments on Immigration

America Magazine: At a Mass concelebrated by eight U.S. cardinals, the head of The Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C., asked Catholics to welcome illegal immigrants. Christ was not excluding anyone when he said, �I was a stranger and you welcomed me,� said David M. O�Connell, the Vincentian priest who is president of the university. Christ �was speaking for everyone, not only for those within our borders but for those who cross them, no matter how they got here,� he said during a homily at an afternoon Mass on April 28 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. �He is asking us to be that kind of salt and light for the world, the kind that welcomes people home,� said Father O�Connell. Earlier in the day several cardinals visited key Bush administration and congressional officials to push for an immigration reform bill that deals compassionately with the country�s illegal immigrants.