Tijuana: In a powerful show of solidarity with migrants and displaced persons, Church leaders, theologians, and pastoral ministers from across the Americas gathered at the US–Mexico border for an international colloquium on migration and theology. The event, titled “The Challenges of Human Mobility in the Face of the New Political Horizons of Mexico and the United States from the Christian Perspective,” was held in Tijuana from October 9 to 11, 2025, just days after the Vatican’s Jubilee of Migrants.
Jointly organized by the Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church (CTEWC) Virtual Table on Migration and Borders in the Americas and the Universidad Iberoamericana (IBERO), the three-day meeting sought to address the moral and ethical challenges of migration in an era marked by tightening border controls and rising political polarization. Approximately 40 bishops, theologians, scholars, philanthropists, and pastoral workers took part in the discussions many of them migrants themselves.
American theologian Kristin Heyer, co-chair of CTEWC and professor at Boston College, set the tone of the gathering with a call for moral courage and justice-oriented action. “Christian charity requires not only humanitarian outreach and hospitality,” she said, “but liberation from the injustices marking cruel practices and dehumanizing policies.” Her remarks underscored the conference’s central theme that faith-based responses to migration must go beyond charity to challenge the systems that create inequality and suffering.
The meeting’s location Tijuana carried symbolic weight. The city stands as both a bridge and a barrier, a place where cultures, economies, and human destinies converge, divided by the imposing metal wall separating Mexico and the United States. “The border is not just a limit,” said Florentino Badial, director of IBERO Tijuana, “but a space for human encounter, compassion, and mission.”
Among the participants was Emilce Cuda, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, who praised the colloquium for integrating lived experience with theological reflection. “Migrant bishops and theologians, doing theology from their personal experience as a starting point, confirm once again that realities are greater than ideas,” she said, emphasizing Pope Francis’s long-standing message that pastoral practice must begin with the realities of people’s lives.
For Auxiliary Bishop Evelio Menjívar-Ayala of Washington, D.C., who fled El Salvador as a teenager, the discussions carried a deeply personal resonance. “This wall did not stop my dreams,” he reflected. Similarly, Silvia Correa, a doctoral student in psychological research at ITESO University in Guadalajara, shared her own migrant story: “When I crossed the border at age 17, my dream was to study and become someone in society. This colloquium gives hope it listens to the voices of those of us who are migrants, those who walk alongside the displaced, and those who reflect and make pastoral decisions.”
The colloquium also revisited the 2024 Pastoral Letter on the Border, titled “He Saw Them, He Drew Near to Them and He Cared for Them,” presented by Auxiliary Bishop Carlos A. Santos García of Monterrey, Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute in El Paso, and Sr. Dolores Palencia, a Synod on Synodality participant and minister to migrants in Veracruz. “We needed a letter like this,” Bishop Santos García said, “because we are one and unique Catholic Church we must go beyond nationalism.”
The discussions highlighted the Church’s responsibility to foster unity, compassion, and justice amid growing political tensions over migration. “When we combine these lived realities,” said Yohan García, a Mexican ethicist and professor at Loyola University Chicago, “we gain a clearer picture of migration than when it is studied only through policy or academic theory.”
Throughout the event, participants worked to develop a new model of academic-pastoral colloquium that fosters experiential dialogue and exposes the vulnerability of the human condition. The goal, organizers said, is to shape responses that are both intellectually rigorous and pastorally grounded capable of addressing the humanitarian crises facing both Mexico and the United States.
Notable attendees included Bishop Eugenio Lira Rugarcía of Matamoros-Reynosa, head of the Mexican Bishops’ Human Mobility Ministry; Norma Romero, founder of Las Patronas; Jutta Battenberg Galindo, Mexican theologian; Pablo Blanco, CTEWC Latin American coordinator; Alejandro Olayo-Méndez, SJ, Jesuit scholar and Boston College professor; and Victor Carmona, Mexican-American theologian from the University of San Diego.
As the gathering concluded, participants issued a united appeal to political leaders and faith communities on both sides of the border: to see migration not as a threat, but as an opportunity for solidarity and renewal. The conference’s closing statement affirmed that “every migrant is a bearer of God’s image” and that the Church must stand as a bridge between divided societies.
From the metal fences of Tijuana to the halls of academia, the message from the colloquium was clear borders may divide nations, but compassion and faith transcend them. Through this dialogue, Church leaders and scholars hope to inspire a renewed ethical vision for migration one rooted in dignity, justice, and the unwavering belief that every human journey deserves respect.