My best friend and next-door neighbor, Amelia, and I rode our ripsticks in our white dresses the day of our First Communion. Some years later in eighth grade, we ate chicken parmesan and talked about boys after our confirmation. 

Those memories with Amelia are the parts of being raised Catholic that I hold close to my heart. I don’t remember the lessons taught in Sunday school over the 10 years (apologies to my parents, who often moan and groan when I tell them this), and the only prayer I can still recite from heart is the “Our Father.”

My parents instituted a rule early on that we would go to Mass every week. Many Sunday mornings were spent with me crying and proclaiming that my parents couldn’t “make me” go to church. Despite my outcries and whining, I still loaded into the car with the rest of the family to ride to Mass. 

In 2019, after the revelation of another mass sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, my family came to the understanding that maybe attending weekly Mass wasn’t absolutely necessary anymore. We stopped saying grace at the dinner table. I remember the first year we didn’t go to Mass on Easter. It was a shock.

When I started at DePaul, the largest Catholic university in the country, my relationship with Catholicism felt like a strange, distant memory and certainly was not at the forefront of my identity.

This year, I enrolled in my final political science class towards my undergraduate degree. It’s called “Politics of Sanctuary.” The class dives in depth into the origins and different conceptions of the Sanctuary Movement.

The Sanctuary Movement, having both political and religious connotations, supports immigrants and refugees facing deportation in various ways. Cities, such as Chicago, are deemed “sanctuary cities,” meaning local law enforcement will not give information to ICE. 

The very word “sanctuary” has its roots in religious beliefs, according to William Cavanaugh, professor of political theology at DePaul. Deriving from Latin, “sanctus” translates to “holy.” 

We dove into literature in class that has become usually referred to  in my radical political theory studies — activist Edward Said’s experience in occupied Palestine, historian Hannah Arendt’s ideas on the nation-state and power. 

But a particular reading from another author stood out from the rest.

“Refuge in the Lord” by Lawrence McAndrews speaks about the New Sanctuary Movement’s founding in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York and Seattle. At the forefront of this movement in American cities were Catholic leaders.

It seemed like the ice around my Catholic heart was melting in the 90 minutes we spoke about these leaders in a recent class. I was struck with a heavy realization that this is the very Catholicism that my parents tried to instill in me by taking me to church every Sunday.

One of these Catholic leaders in Chicago’s Sanctuary Movement is Sister JoAnn Persch.

Persch is a member of the Sisters of Mercy, a congregation dedicated to committing their lives to God and serving those in need.

In an interview with Persch, it became clear that this is exactly what she has done and continues to do at age 90.

Persch began her work with migrants 40 years ago alongside another Sister of Mercy, Pat Murphy– aiding those escaping violence in Central America.

“A group of religious women from different communities decided that we would found a Catholic sanctuary,” Persch said. 

Persch has spent decades fulfilling what she sees as her mission. She now works at the forefront of Catherine’s Caring Cause, a nonprofit organization in Chicago providing support, resources and empowerment to asylum seekers. Catherine’s Caring Cause continues to support 17 families, primarily on the South Side of Chicago. 

Persch helps secure funds for migrant families to find and sustain apartments in Chicago, providing them with legal support and monthly stipends for groceries and other necessities. 

Intertwined with social justice and political activism, at the core of Persch’s work, as she will tell you, is her belief in God and her devotion to her Catholic faith. 

At its base, Catholicism calls for the very work that Persch is doing, along with the reframing of how we view both immigrants and the very religion in the first place. 

“If you are Christian, then you should have a certain attitude about the way that people who come across the border are treated,” Cavanaugh, the DePaul professor, said.

Christianity, and how it may be practiced in the political and social sphere, is about “reaching outside your own circle and to strangers and expressing love to them,” Cavanaugh said.

As sanctuary continues to be under attack, and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is preparing to testify in Congress next week in support of Chicago’s sanctuary city status, it is important to remember the core beliefs of the movement. 

Persch is in her 19th year making weekly visits to the Broadview detention center. Originally, she would arrive to pray outside the facility on Fridays, when detainees leave for deportation procedures.

But that outside support wasn’t enough, Persch felt.

“We met families and saw how torn apart they were,” Persch said. “So we decided we should be inside with the people being deported.”

Unsurprisingly, this was not an easy task to achieve. Immigration detention centers are widely closed off to the public, but as Persch said, “Sister Pat and I have developed a motto now that we do things peacefully and respectfully. 

“But we never take ‘No’ for an answer.”

The nuns did not back down. Instead, they did the complete opposite.

Their advocacy passed the Faith Behind Bars Act in Illinois, which allows a person committed to a correctional institution the constitutional right to practice their faith in the facility. The act guarantees access to pastoral and spiritual care. 

Persch eventually planned to take a step back from her cause as she reached an older age.

Then the buses from Texas full of vulnerable families started arriving in Chicago.

But what struck me the hardest was that this wasn’t for political gain or celebrity. Persch wasn’t spewing talking points in order to win the presidential election or to get on the front page of The New York Times. 

It all comes from a true belief in caring for those who are most vulnerable at a time where they need support the most. What makes Persch’s care so strong is her unwavering commitment to her faith and the Catholic Church. Persch is not a politician, but her belief is having a political impact. 

Romans 13:8 reads, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”

Hebrews 13:1-3 reads, “Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.”

These verses didn’t resonate with me as an angsty teenager counting down the seconds until church was over early on a Sunday morning.

But as I continue to live and work in Chicago — a city I deeply love, a city that “has always been a city of immigrants,” as Cavanaugh says — as our neighbors fear deportation and hate, I now see the significance of these verses.

This significance hits me even harder when I see them put into action by amazing (specifically women) leaders like Persch and not read to me by a male priest in my adolescence. 

The Sanctuary Movement provides an opportunity to reimagine what Catholic faith is and how we can utilize belief to translate into effective, caring social action not rooted in gain, but in love.

In no means do I admit my confusion with faith to idealize the very reasons that pushed my family away from the Catholic Church in the 2010s — and the reasons why I continue to feel disillusioned by an organized religion dominated by men.

But I now understand why my parents dragged me by my hair to our Catholic Church every Sunday. The answers I have been seeking as I become an adult have been found in Chicago’s sanctuary movement. 

Catholicism doesn’t have to be associated with the JD Vances of the world or the nightmare abuses of the Brooklyn Archdiocese and so many others. Love, social justice, care, action and perseverance can be how it is defined and used.

“That’s the kind of love the world needs,” Cavanaugh said.

Related Stories:

• Pope Francis grants blessings to same-sex couples, embracing a pastoral approach to controversial issues
• PPGA showcases the voices of Catholics who support abortion rights
• COLUMN: Catholic Church struggles to attract young people because of hateful messaging

Stay informed with The DePaulia’s top stories, delivered to your inbox every Monday.