The Immigrant Song

Pews Slow to Follow the Pulpit on Immigration Reform

RNS Daniel Burke looks at immigration reform, and the differing messages from the pulpit and the pews, in this week's full text article, linked above.

With Congress preparing to take up immigration policy in the coming weeks, a number of prominent religious leaders -- from all shades of the theological spectrum -- have called for a "comprehensive and compassionate" reform of existing laws. It's part of what they see as their biblical mandate to care for the stranger.

More than 60 percent of white evangelicals said immigrants are a "burden" to the U.S. because they take jobs, housing and health care, according to a 2006 poll conducted by the non-partisan Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Fifty-six percent of white Catholics and 51 percent of white mainline Protestants agreed, according to the survey.