"We've Done It Once Already!" Speaking with One Voice for Migrant Lives

Religious and especially Catholic responses to the current violence against migrant lives in the United States are coming from many different fronts. From statements from different Catholic Bishops against the current deportation regime and the construction of new detention centers, to the Episcopal Bishops' "Whose Life Matters?" video, to Church World Service's ecumenical "Ash Wednesday Declaration", the growing chorus of church voices decidedly taking a public stance for migrant rights and dignity witnesses to the Biblical command to privilege and protect "the foreigner who resides with you" (Leviticus 19:34). Would the cause of migrant rights be better served by a univocal religious public witness? This presentation examines the concern over the efficacy of disparate religious voices in the public square surrounding migrant rights by considering another instance in which churches, especially the Catholic Church in the U.S., spoke unreservedly with one voice: the pro-life movement and the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade.