WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:30.000 Welcome to Expanding Your Faith, a podcast that tackles modern day issues with a focus on spirituality. With Bishop Greer Godsey, Reverend Mark Trim, and Bishop Ben Williams. Thanks for listening. Take a breath, open your heart, and let's expand your faith together. Hello, everyone, and welcome to this edition of Expanding Your Faith. I'm Bishop Greer, and joining me tonight is Reverend Mark. Greetings, everyone. And our producer, Bishop Ben. Blessings to all. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:01:00.000 And our very special guest tonight, return from a couple of weeks ago, Padre Ricardo Romero. Hello, Padre Ricardo. Hola, Hola, Bishop Greer. Thank you for having me on this week. If I should suddenly disappear, like I did last week, when I just suddenly disappeared, it means that we have had a power failure in our area because of the heat or that I've been raptured. Well, hopefully it's not the 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:30.000 ladder because that means we got left behind. I've heard some books about that, right? Quite a bit of money has been made on the subject I have told. That is right. Just a reminder before we get started, you can always catch our previous episodes of the podcast at podcasts.myocci.social or on Apple Podcast or wherever you get your favorite podcast from. And as always, we record these episodes on Saturday nights at 8 p.m. Eastern time on 00:01:30.000 --> 00:02:00.000 now.com/BishopGreg and on TikTok at symbol expanding your faith. So tonight, we're going to do a continuation of the previous time Padre Ricardo was with us, the Veritas Manifesto and the Nazareth Manifest, which he's going to talk to us some about the five pillars of the entire project. This project, of course, is to help those most in need in our communities and around the world. 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:30.000 who are marginalized and abused and without support and without help under the current political climate. Mostly those that are immigrants, but also anyone who is facing marginalization and need. So Padre Ricardo, you want to go ahead and talk about some of those five pillars? Absolutely. Thank you again, Bishop Greer for inviting me to be on this podcast, expanding your faith. 00:02:30.000 --> 00:03:00.000 pleasure to meet Dr. Mark and to be back again with Bishop Ben. Last time I was on the podcast, I spoke mostly about the Nazareth project that the Office for Faith Justice and Humanitarian Efforts is going to commence next exactly a week from today in August 1. It'll be a 42 day campaign and will culminate on September 11 with a live webinar about the Veritas Manifesto, which is a document that the 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:30.000 of the church, the OCCI Church has adopted into this project and the first project of the Office of Faith Justice and Humanitarian Efforts. I'd like to first mention that when Bishop Greer asked me if I would consider being the director of this of this office, I felt inspired by the Holy Spirit that this was going to be probably the most challenging project that I've done and the 30 plus years that I've been involved in church work. And the more I get into it, there's two things 00:03:30.000 --> 00:04:00.000 that come to mind, the more I realize that how much I don't understand and don't know. And the second part is how big the burden is to be able to put this project across and get it started to get a sparking. Now, Bishop Greer and I met back I think around 2006. At that time I was a seminarian and I was also an activist in Maricopa County in Phoenix, Arizona. And Sheriff Joe Arpaio was starting what he became 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:30.000 very nationally famous for his immigration raids on the undocumented. And he began rounded up these undocumented workers. He created a prison in the back way out there in the sticks of Maricopa County with no air conditioning or any kind of provision for the high heat. He created what he called tent city where he put all of these immigrants until they were able to be sent to the detention centers. And so Bishop Greer heard about my 00:04:30.000 --> 00:05:00.000 activist work I was doing with the Sheriff Joe's and all that. And so he asked me to be a guest on his radio show. And I think I made it these two or three guest appearances on the show. It seemed funny to say radio grace appearance. But that's when we first became acquainted. And I realized that Bishop Greer and I had a mutual passion, especially when it came to representing those that are afflicted, those that are persecuted, the downtrodden of our society. We're very much on the mutual 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:30.000 ground on that. And so when he asked me to become the director of this office, it was following suit with our long history that goes back these many years together. And I shared with him a document that Holly and I had drafted entitled the Vridas Manifesto to tell him a glory. Latin guys. Immigratorium immigrant. I don't know how many people that are watching or listening to this podcast have any 00:05:30.000 --> 00:06:00.000 background and Latin, especially ecclesiastical Latin. And so I'll just stop in second and explain for our audience what this Latin words mean. Vridas is the Latin word for truthfulness. The Romans put a very high, the considered truthfulness is a very high virtue to have. It was important for any honorable Roman to be absolutely truthful. And so where this applies to this issue relating 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:30.000 to immigration is that through media, mostly generated white ring media such as like Fox News and so forth, they always refer to the term illegal immigrant. You hear this term, it's been used. It's going back to George Bush days in the 2000s, the illegal immigrant. And that is an untruthful term because there isn't any human being in this planet that is illegal. That just simply doesn't exist. 00:06:30.000 --> 00:07:00.000 That is the first lie that comes out of the media that we have this problem with illegal immigration or illegal immigrants. And then it's always when you put the term illegal behind it, it gives a connotation of something involving criminal law, breaking some type of criminal law like in murder, assault, robbery, all these types of things. Those are governed by criminal law. And people think that being an 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:30.000 documented migrant into this country makes you illegal and therefore you committed a criminal act and it should be apprehended handcuffed and detained and eventually deported because we are a nation of law and they have to obey our laws. I think the first thing to make of clarity regarding this idea about immigration having a legal factor to it is that that's not true. The whole Department of Immigration 00:07:30.000 --> 00:08:00.000 is administrated by the Department of Justice and not the federal court state or city court system. Therefore, all the judges and the prosecutors and all that in that are dealing with immigration, all of them are governed by the Attorney General. That is the chief officer of the Department of Immigration and the legislation for immigration is done by the Congress, not by the states, not by the cities, not by the Congress, the ones that make the legislation relating to immigration 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:30.000 and so the concept that being here undocumented makes you illegal and therefore doing a criminal act is another lie. Actually, this is how you say the citation for being in this country without documentation is about the same level about getting a traffic ticket. It's about that part which is in a civil court, all of the immigration litigation is done in the Justice Court. 00:08:30.000 --> 00:09:00.000 is not a part of the federal justice system or the state justice system but under the justice system, administrated by the Department of Justice. Many people say I'm all for immigration, I'm just against illegal immigration and I ask those people just exactly how would you define legal immigration and most of them if not all of them just about don't know the answer to that question. They don't know the first step about what first has to do to become an immigrant to this country but the other thing is 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:30.000 many if I'd say over half I'm not sure exactly what would be the percentage but it would be well over half of those that are presenting themselves to the border without documentation are here seeking refuge. They're refugees. They're seeking some type of asylum and so under that going back to President Jimmy Carter and the international community drafted international laws relating to those seeking asylum refugee status and how does that work? 00:09:30.000 --> 00:10:00.000 I would like to thank President Jimmy Carter and I would like to thank President Jimmy and I would like to thank President Jimmy and I would like to thank President Jimmy and I would like to thank President Jimmy for that. I would like to thank President Jimmy for that. 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:30.000 I would like to thank President Jimmy for that. 00:10:30.000 --> 00:11:00.000 I would like to thank President Jimmy for that. I would like to thank President Jimmy for that. I would like to thank President Jimmy for that. 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:30.000 I would like to thank President Jimmy for that. I would like to thank President Jimmy for that. I would like to thank President Jimmy for that. I would like to thank President Jimmy for that. 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President Jimmy for the 00:13:30.000 --> 00:14:00.000 and the President.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for that.I would like to thank President Jimmy for the 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:30.000 where Jesus commanded the disciples to liberate those that were being oppressed to release the prisoners of oppression and so forth the downtrodden.And so the engine room is the Nazareth Project.That's what's going to actually drive the energy to making contact to get people more in line with the truth.So I would say to sum this all up the thesis if you want to look at of what the 00:14:30.000 --> 00:15:00.000 Justice Manifesto is that it argues that the social justice movement in the United States can successfully counter current threats and promote progressive democracy by implementing innovative strategies that prioritize collective action, intersectional collaboration and an adaptive resistance to this.Now is a very dangerous 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:30.000 dangerous time in our nation's history in relation to its treatment of immigrants.The prosecution of the undocumented is tied to a political agenda aimed at maintaining white dominance and economic profit at the expense of labor rights.Now you may ask how does labor rights figure into this?Well actually immigrants play a big part of our economy especially in the areas of labor 00:15:30.000 --> 00:16:00.000 in certain industries such as agriculture and hospitality.Immigrants fill in where there's a need for labor to do that and so by restricting the amount of immigrants that can come in to do those jobs it's actually hurting the economy as far as agriculture and hospitality.Also you know don't realize just how much the immigrants give to the economy of this country.One thing I believe they're probably they pay the highest rate of 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:30.000 income tax or many of them purchase security cards so they can find employment and of course when you get employed by a company if it's a car wash or working on a farm or doing janitorial services or anything like that you have to have a social security number and taxes are taken out.However the migrants rarely have ever been for refund of taxes because in a situation working with an illegal social security number they want to keep a very low profile 00:16:30.000 --> 00:17:00.000 you may remember when this thing started with President Trump he said that they were rapists and assaulted criminals and that they're emptying their prisons of the worst of the worst and sending them over here and all that.Actually the statistics bear that to be absolutely false.In fact crime in the immigrant community is very very low which is logical in this country without documentation and being very careful not to be detected.It's hardly your 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:30.000 hearted going to put that all at risk by shoplifting or assaulting or robbery or even murder.You wouldn't do any of those things because you'd realize the end result would not only be imprisonment but also deportation and so the immigrant community is always pretty low in the crime crime rate but we ask how do they exactly contribute to the economy.Well everybody that goes to gasation buys gas tax gas lean you go to the supermarket and you pay tax on 00:17:30.000 --> 00:18:00.000 coffee and everything else that you buy virtually everything that you do whether it's sales whether it's buying or services and all this type of thing it puts back into the economy taxes and all that which in the case of the immigrant community is not ever claimed back.The economy President Trump's immigration laws is drastically hurting the you know because of the keeping the the immigrants away from the 00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:30.000 this now where does this all part bring me to when we drafted this document this idea and that's because believe churches are deeply rooted in the immigrant community churches often serve as lifelines for Latino immigrants coming from Phoenix I can attest to that firsthand as I was a part of that we offer spiritual comfort often physical support and a sense of community and belonging 00:18:30.000 --> 00:19:00.000 and of course it's very scriptural about accepting those that are strangers in your land and treat them to remember when you once the Lord it says the scripture you once yourselves were strangers and everything however you know saying under the Trump administration very difficult for churches activists to volunteer to do work with the immigrants because especially now and it's and it's hard to say 00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:30.000 the way it operates without any kind of oversight and anything like that they're completely on their own make their wall on their own hands and all that the parishes or how would you say deadlocked and maybe how how can we do this when I'm putting ourselves at significant risk and how can we find those that need to have that support that we could bring to them and what this all comes down to is why did we put this together you know we believe my colleague that we when we wrote this we believe that the congregate 00:19:30.000 --> 00:20:00.000 organizations offer tremendous potential this problem dealing with immigration and especially now with ice and the way they're running a congregation for a very dynamic network of individuals who are very much connected you know web of relationships to various groups workplaces within a church you can create a network that can be leveraged for impact it just comes down to exactly 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:30.000 how can you leverage that and exactly what are the components that would make a difference in you know with the support of immigrants and protection of immigrants so I'm just gonna take a pause here and just ask I've given you a lot of information here so far about the backup about you know Rita's manifesto is before I get into the actual five pillars of it I thought I'll just pause a minute and see if anybody has any comments that they'd like to make 00:20:30.000 --> 00:21:00.000 or questions that they might ask about it at this point I've had done some research and the contributions for the range anywhere from 60 to 100 billion a year in tax revenue some report sappers of 100 billion some conservatives of about 60 billion and that all goes in across the local and national economies 00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:30.000 and so yes it's not a insignificant number and those are migrants that aren't necessarily documented that are coming and contributing and I think that that is important especially now when we have shortfalls and so security and we have shortfalls and a lot of local governments plus a lack of individuals working in certain areas is causing prices to accelerate 00:21:30.000 --> 00:22:00.000 it's funny to me not funny in a humorous way but in a sad way that peculiar yeah that issues rates particularly in farms and say places and then all of a sudden the word got back to them say well you can't take away the workers from the farms because then that's really gonna cause prices to escalate or food shortages and then all of a sudden they backed off and then they started back and then they backed off I don't know what they're doing right now 00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:30.000 but I would like to ask questions maybe too loaded of a question you know a lot of that I mean there are people in our nation that aren't legitimately safe characters they're not good people there are going to be some of those that will sneak through the criminal element yeah there's always going to be a small group very small don't believe I'll say this I don't believe that the immigrants 00:22:30.000 --> 00:23:00.000 that are coming here are all terrible you know but you're very very small what does reform look like to you who someone who's studied it for so long what does reform look like to you to help us to catch those characters but as time you know taking on and what Christ taught us to do and that is to welcome people to have them here so that they can work hard and you know it 00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:30.000 I think nobody's under the delusion except for a very small group of our population that those that come here are hard workers and they really are just trying to make life better for themselves and their family but what does that look like to you because I'm that's a question on a lot of people's minds right before I'm gonna answer that in two to two ways if you had asked me that question before 2006 00:23:30.000 --> 00:24:00.000 team you know if you had that question during the Obama administration even in that question during the Bush administration I would have said that reform should look at not only its vetting of individuals that are coming into this country the system of vetting the people through interviews and so forth needs to be improved and brought up to date you know it's terribly archaic way way behind not enough workers to do to him to take all that input and so there's no possible they could 00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:30.000 effectively vet who the criminal element is from the legitimate family that's trying to seek refuge in the country or employment so prior to how to set reform is good to take a good look at not only improving the system and streamlining the system so that the vetting process can be more complete and not so you know nor for all that that would have been sort of the general direction I would have thrown you to it you know however 00:24:30.000 --> 00:25:00.000 I would have sent to Trump administration and the amount of grift and the amount of corruption that is hit the judicial system which like for instance right now they're considering a candidate to be attorney general who formerly was president Trump's criminal lawyer you know and partly considered that to be a good I'd say aspect to making him attorney general and so when you have a system in the judicial system that straight out corrupt 00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:30.000 individuals then virtually the idea of creating reform to you know to streamline this make it up to date and effective embedding system all that that gets thrown in the back seat you know what's on the seat is all the hoopla they can make in their deportation the detentions and all this type of stuff and everything and all the grift and and corruption that goes into that when you have a president that says I will give anybody citizenship in this country if you give me five million dollars 00:25:30.000 --> 00:26:00.000 and so right away he had scores of people that came in there could afford five million bucks and they got that's corruption and so what I would look to now is that we have to look at a reformation of our criminal justice system and our judicial system at large because of the way it has been manipulated by this administration and corruptly so that's like a two-point overview if you can crystal bonds and what would it take to fix this system 00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:30.000 right now I would say you'd have to start straight at the source at the judicial system at a reformation of the judicial system before you can actually get something moving on a legislative level to streamline the system and create a better system of vetting etc and don't forget many of the immigrants that do come across have valuable skills you know like instruction for instance I was a family in Phoenix where this guy was a craftsman as far as laying down tile wooden tile 00:26:30.000 --> 00:27:00.000 you know and everything he very good living at it doing that but he was undocumented of course but nevertheless he was a skilled person that knew what he was doing the other thing I want to mention too when you talked about the amount of income that comes into taxes through migrants and so forth another lie or fallacy I've heard this many many times from even good friends of mine and say you know I work hard life nobody's ever given me anything you know I've had to make and all that I just resent the fact that somebody that suddenly can get welfare 00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:30.000 an immigrant an undocumented person and illegal and not find themselves getting health care and I can't I have to pay my prescription they get free health care somebody might even put up in hotels and everything like that they're getting the rent paid by the government and all that well I can tell you that's just categorically not true migrants get the immigrant who are here without documentation that would be considered by our terminology as illegal get absolutely nothing yeah from both state city federal government absolutely nothing now 00:27:30.000 --> 00:28:00.000 I had a good friend of mine went to school with her through all the way to high school and all that stuff she became a nurse and she was working in the OBGYN floor of the hospital delivering babies and all that stuff and one time when at lunch she said Rick I'm just so sick and tired of these illegal because they come here and they get treated like royalty they get all this free medical care and they get all the we have to wait on them like like we're their servants and I resent that and that's actually that's category not true 00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:30.000 a hospital does not have people coming into it for free especially if they're an undocumented migrant you know there's no government money pouring into there nobody's getting there's no such thing as a free lunch there and that so I just want to make that point but to answer your other question about that those are the two points I would see as far as looking at it in a reform line yeah yeah I you know this this issue obviously since the since the 80s 00:28:30.000 --> 00:29:00.000 where people have decided they didn't want to do something and as I became of age to vote I remember in the early 2000s you know the Bush administration reform immigration and the amount of political pushback was insane and so I started kicking down the road and down the road now you mentioned something if I can just stop you for a second just to point out there's something 00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:30.000 frequently gets looked over prior to George Bush administration in 2000 2008 the whole Department of Immigration was its own separate federal Department of Immigration Services you know but after September of 2001 within 14 days the Bush administration put through what they call the end game you know which was a project to deport 00:29:30.000 --> 00:30:00.000 at least 13 million undocumented immigrants into this country you know and in that and all the companies that own private prisons suddenly became extraordinarily wealthy because that's where they were putting all these people they were picking up and everything but what he did under the Bush administration was he took this new homeland security you know part of the cabinet around immigration to be 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:30.000 operated by Homeland Security you know so now we no longer have a separate Department of of Immigration Services like we used to have prior to President Bush now we have Homeland Security operating and running ICE for instance and all these other law enforcement agencies that are involved in that so we know we we took away this department and we wrapped Homeland Security around that and of course the Secretary of Homeland Security part of cabinet is picked by the 00:30:30.000 --> 00:31:00.000 President which is always in the president's political agenda and we know how that's working with this agenda right now so I just want to bring that up so I didn't mean to interrupt you on that I just want to clarify the wraparing around of immigration with Homeland Security which I never could figure out why immigrants posed a threat to Homeland Security in the first place because all those those 12 those 12 saboteurs on on 2011 11 of them were from Saudi Arabia I believe you know and they were all 00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:30.000 visas none of them are here on document go ahead brother go ahead we do next question I think that you're in that instance not to make an excuse just an observation I think it's a the knee-jerk reaction at the times and then you know I try to believe that where people may have had decent intentions but it all unraveled and now that it's become you know a hot button topic always wants somebody and that's what 00:31:30.000 --> 00:32:00.000 we've got we always want somebody to blame for whatever we just make things up and the truth of the matter is our immigrants are not the place to go in my opinion to blame for where we are they're contributing they're they're they're they're doing what our ancestors you know unless you're native to our ancestors have been trying to do since they got here and that's just to to to live life 00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:30.000 better to try to do better to work and you know and I sit around with members who you know hock all this talking for talking about earlier you know they don't contribute there's our resources and all that stuff and you're like you know and some of them my family members have hired people they know aren't don't have documentation only because they come and do a fantastic job at 00:32:30.000 --> 00:33:00.000 house repair and I might talk about hypocritical that's another interesting point you may not be at the wall you know rewind that to go back to the years being the oldest man in jurisdiction I could say this when Ronald Reagan was elected to be governor of state of California Ronald Reagan governor of California Republican who formerly had been a Democrat and all that president of a union and all this type of thing now he's Republican Ronald Reagan 00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:30.000 and wanted to break the back of the United Farm Workers Union and so the best thing he did was just basically put a big welcome sign at the border he wanted to come on over you know and we can push jobs and so you have this whole flood of people coming over here to get these jobs that were being taken away from the farm workers and now giving it to the people that were willing to work for less money and not be union members and all that type of thing and you know what happened with these people they had kids right and so now you have a whole 00:33:30.000 --> 00:34:00.000 group of kids that are not citizens their parents are not citizens of this country you know and here they are they're being deported back to the other country when they never grew up in that because you have any idea what it was about you know so it is a that's played there and I've seen it that in fact I was once organizing a rally in Phoenix or March and it attracted like around 40,000 people this March we needed to have a really big stage we had these speakers that were going to be giving those speeches and everything 00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:30.000 that type of thing and so we needed we had no money to organize these things so we're taking money from any place we can get it and everything but we need to construct the stage and put up all the sound equipment and do all that busy heavy work and so here it is this committee that I'm working with activists for the Latino community that are protesting the way that the immigration streets and all that type of stuff and you know what they told me they said we don't have the money to pay somebody to come and do this 00:34:30.000 --> 00:35:00.000 so go out and find a couple of illegals and have them do it work cheaper you know that that was the homeless you know this committee telling me them because they're cheap go to the actually what they told me is to go to Home Depot you know and park out Home Depot and then you pick up workers there and you'll be able to pay them just a couple of bucks an hour and they'll be glad to get it you know and yet we're organizing this March to protest the way they're being treated you know I mean it's a sort of like there's always 00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:30.000 pushing make them get so where does he get all his stuff the hats everything from China right you know so that makes a lot of sense just doesn't how do you say it doesn't match up it's kind of victory and all that type of thing but anyway is there anyone else that any questions before we move on to the to the main the main points of the the greatest manifesto so let's go ahead and go to the five points Padre Ricardo and let's let you go ahead and lay those out in the time 00:35:30.000 --> 00:36:00.000 we have very good very good you know the object of the campaign is really threefold you know first of all is to protect its citizens to provide a shield for the immigrants you know offering protection and solidarity is the survival and resilience with the church community and the immigrant preparing the worst times ahead you know how they say a good good offense you know so be prepared and then the other is to expand the movement itself 00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:30.000 especially in our own church group the independent Sacramento movement to engage them in the support and protection of the migrant communities within their parishes and all that so we're looking at recruiting on a grassroots level you know and really what we're searching for people who just maybe have an interest in the subject rather really for people that are more than interested but are passionately willing to engage 00:36:30.000 --> 00:37:00.000 themselves personally in it whatever that may take whatever whatever level they want to come in on it you know we want to get what we call this here leadership you know into the movement so number one in these five things looking at notice that we have to unite our leadership you know the leadership not only in the in all that but the leadership within our own parish communities to bring us together fostering a sense of unity and in cooperation among 00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:30.000 us all and then secondly we're looking for shared understanding you know and this is a something that and understanding we have to put some analysis and strategy as far as understanding exactly what is the problem that we're looking at and how can we create a strategy with a successful tactic that sees us coming through on the other side you know so the second part is this the second pillar is to understand through analysis is 00:37:30.000 --> 00:38:00.000 strategy and tactics how we can go about improving the situation and and giving offering more protection you know the third thing is that what we connecting levels or to bring bringing back all of the grass movements bringing all the different I'll just say fingers of activism for instance when we had the Black Lives Matter thing happen what was around 2020 when we had the George Floyd killing you know 00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:30.000 that we had all these protests suddenly you saw this groups and groups of people like Black Lives Matter and other groups marching peacefully marching and protesting the violence against black community and all that this idea of connecting all of these groups now one thing that recently has played out very effectively has been in and was it in Minnesota where we had the killing of that nurse the male nurse and the young 00:38:30.000 --> 00:39:00.000 woman the mother in her car that was shot was up in Minneapolis Minneapolis right there they were they set a very effective network that really wasn't connected to a central base in a sense like they had a a central you know rather you have all these different somehow they connected with each other through their all own interplay with a personal level but the people and they created a very strong network of being able to protect the other activists from being killed or roughed up or or 00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:30.000 or captured or whatever there's a term that just looks fine by the group with that's called that strategy where it's all isolated groups but yet working on a unified group to get a decentralized activism something like that right and it's a new wave of activism now and I think it has great potential the fourth pillar is the citizen engagement pillar this is the part where our webinar series that we're going to start 00:39:30.000 --> 00:40:00.000 with the Nazareth manifest this part is where we offer training programs we offer informational sessions chat sessions for instance online or whatever giving information of what are you right for instance you have this has to be made many times I was in Phoenix you have an undocumented migrant calling you on the phone or pounding on your door in the middle of the night saying I'm scared I'm afraid they're chasing me or they're going to get my 00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:30.000 my father my mother or whatever what I do where do I go what I what's going to happen to me you know and so what we did it might begin to having workshops how to construct a power of attorney you know so that if a minor children and they get detained and and maybe even deported those children will not get placed into some type of social services you know and possibly even face deportation themselves there's a power of attorney they can go to a relative you know or a trusted 00:40:30.000 --> 00:41:00.000 friend and legally so we held workshops on how to make power of attorneys you know and then also if they're knocking you have a customer enforcement agent knocking your door do you have to open your door you know do you have to let them in home you know if you're driving and all this pull you over do you have any rights when you get pulled over you know these are all relevant questions and they can be addressed into chat sessions into workshops you know and other how do you say 00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:30.000 work together with the migrant community to bring a sense of not only education but awareness of what they're dealing with and so that part number four of the citizens engaging into it and then we come now to the fifth you know and this is what we've labeled a messaging this is developing an effective messaging system and mobilization system especially involving children migrants that have 00:41:30.000 --> 00:42:00.000 children being able to create a sense of messaging and communication and also creating a sense of I would say intergenerational unity where you have older generations maybe helping younger generations and all working towards survival preparation for the migrant community this is this is involves citizens and migrants working together under that fifth pillar of effective messaging and networking so these five areas are the area 00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:30.000 that we cover in the readers manifesto initially when we wrote it it was 40 pages long and we've reduced it out to 20 you know and so this this a document that our blog at the office of faith justice the humanitarian if you want to download it and read it in full you can get all of the details that are in between all this stuff and if you have any questions you can write to me or bishop rear and we can address those questions 00:42:30.000 --> 00:43:00.000 for you so in closing let me just say about this this is I as I mentioned earlier probably one of the most challenging projects if not the most challenging project I've ever taken before to be able to effectively support the immigrant community it requires those five essential components working in cooperation with the local jurisdictional level of your church community and your parishes we also need to look at 00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:30.000 how to say making our parishes more conscious and aware what's happening not only with the administration but the way the administration is carrying out its policies towards immigrant and the way they're detaining immigrants more than ever we need to come aboard on this and I think that the severity almost daily gets worse each day I read more about unlawful detentions even murder families being irretrievably broken this is happening now I've seen many 00:43:30.000 --> 00:44:00.000 parishes turn away from it because they view it as too political and they think that that is a separation church estate and that this is a political matter actually it's not this is a matter that actually involves what I call institutionalized sin in other words take the sin of slavery slavery is a sin you know but yet our institution for many slavery you know and now I think there's an interest to return to slavery even especially through 00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:30.000 and act some type of guest worker program or something like that so we need to look at this as a spiritual community this is not a political problem this is actually a problem that deals with a deeper sense of morality anyway thank you Bishop you're giving me this time to present this subject it is a very complex subject and it's very compelling and it is playing out in real time right now in a very dynamic way you know I I can tell you personal experience when I live in Phoenix and I 00:44:30.000 --> 00:45:00.000 was born and raised in Phoenix my father was born in Phoenix my grandmother lived in Phoenix when it was Arizona territory I must have been detained and pulled up by the sheriff's department and I lived in Phoenix probably over 50 times literally detained made stand spread eagle in front of my car and search for nothing more than just trying to find out whether I had legal documentation to be in this country and so I've had a play out at me personally and the way things are right now 00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:30.000 and as close my close distance between here and Mexico my wife and I rarely go outside of our RV park because I is just constantly patrolling our areas you know and they can just see me like make a wrong turn or go too fast or something cool me over and without explanation they can detain me take me away you know and my wife would never know to me until whenever she was finally able to find me that's the way we're living right now in our society it's very crucial to 00:45:30.000 --> 00:46:00.000 very dangerous and so I'm very grateful that the Lord has needed this opportunity to serve the church by you know administrating this office to take on their important projects so thank you Bishop here for this time well thank you for being here Padre Ricardo Reverend Mark do you have any closing thoughts or comments or questions no just Padre thank you for all that you're doing and we just have to keep the faith and live and hope right right 00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:30.000 Dr. Mark feel free to come on the board and join us anytime and we certainly couldn't enjoy your your commentary and your ideas this is very much an organic I would just say movement would you say Bishop here we've been at it now for about 11 months and I think we've made significant progress each month and we're ready now to kick it open and by the way Dr. Mark make sure you get and download the lightest issue of convergent streams always always helping me push convergent streams 00:46:30.000 --> 00:47:00.000 appreciate that absolutely it's a it's a great great journal I got mine a few days ago here it is my print edition it's a beautiful magazine and I bought four of them from friends of mine to get this from Amazon it was $9.99 you know so if you haven't got yours yet I'm sure Bishop will be happy to give you the link absolutely Bishop Ben any final thoughts comments or questions no that's 00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:30.000 thank you for sharing we appreciate you and thank you thank you and I will say it has been an interesting 11 months building this project we stand on the cusp of beginning the large messaging campaign and and getting the word out about it that starts August 1st and I'm sure we'll have you back Padre Ricardo in the future to 00:47:30.000 --> 00:48:00.000 update us on the progress of love to of this project and we so appreciate all your hard work thank you for coming here tonight thank you Reverend Mark and Bishop Ben for being here as always I so appreciate it nice to meet you Reverend Mark thank you for having us I look forward to seeing you next Friday night on our next leadership meeting and thank you all for joining us tonight and our studio audience and just a reminder that you can find us at 00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:30.000 as well as Apple podcast and wherever you get your favorite podcast from join us again next Saturday when we have a exciting topic and we once again attempt to expand your keep shining bright my friends thanks for spending this time with us on expanding your faith if today's conversation encouraged you share the episode it helps more people find the show you can listen wherever you get your podcasts and you can also 00:48:30.000 --> 00:49:00.000 find us online at podcasts dot my OCCI dot social and our St. Francis dot org follow us on Facebook at expanding your faith our producer is Bishop Ben Williams expanding your faith is an outreach ministry of St. Francis parish and outreach in Augusta, Georgia produced in cooperation with the Metropolitan Community Church of our Redeemer in Augusta, Georgia until next time keep expanding your faith