St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality is a sanctuary house for undocumented workers in need of shelter, safety, advocacy, and accompaniment.
We take this stand on the foundation of Catholic social teaching based upon Jesus’ gentle personalism, as expressed in Pope Paul VI’s 1965 encyclical Gaudium et spes:
“In our times a special obligation binds us to make ourselves the neighbor of every person without exception, and of actively helping him when he comes across our path, whether he be an old person abandoned by all, a foreign laborer unjustly looked down upon, a refugee…or a hungry person who disturbs our conscience by
recalling the voice of the Lord, ‘As long as you did it for one of these the least of my brethren, you did it for me’”
(Matt. 25:40). (#27)
“… [W]hen workers come from another country or district and contribute by their labor to the economic advancement of a nation or region, all discrimination with respect to wages and working conditions must be carefully avoided. The local people, moreover, above all the public authorities, should all treat them not as mere tools of production but as persons, and must help them to arrange for their families to live with them and to provide themselves with decent living quarters. The native should also see that these workers are introduced into the social life of the country or region which receives them.” (#66)