Amid ICE raids, bishop tells SoCal worshippers they can stay home on Sundays

A Southern California Roman Catholic bishop told his diocese of roughly one million parishioners this week that they can stay home on Sundays to avoid Mass while concerns about federal immigration sweeps still loom over the region.

Bishop Alberto Rojas of the Diocese of San Bernardino wrote in the decree Tuesday that many church-goers have shared “fears of attending mass due to potential immigration enforcement action” and that “such fear constitutes a grave inconvenience that may impede the spiritual good of the faithful.”

In lieu of Sunday service, Rojas encouraged his members to “maintain their spiritual communion” by praying the rosary or reading scripture and directed diocese ministers to offer support and compassion to the affected.

Since early June, countless Southern California families have been living in fear and gone underground amid an extraordinary federal immigration enforcement push by the Trump administration. Nearly 2,800 people have been caught up in the sweeps in the L.A. area alone, including U.S. citizens and hundreds of undocumented immigrants without any criminal record.

The threat of an immigration raid has rippled through all aspects of Southern California life, including church attendance, where some houses of worship say up to a third or half their congregants are no longer showing up in person.

According to the National Catholic Reporter, multiple people were arrested at or near diocese churches on June 20, including a man at Our Lady of Lourdes in Montclair, which ICE officials dispute.

“The accusation that ICE entered a church to make an arrest [is] FALSE,” wrote Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin in an email to The Times. “The illegal alien chose to pull into the church parking lot [and] officers then safely made the arrest.”

Days later, Rojas wrote a message to worshipers on Facebook.

He said that he respected and appreciated law enforcement’s role in keeping “communities safe from violent criminals,” but added that “authorities are now seizing brothers and sisters indiscriminately, without respect for their right to due process and their dignity as children of God.”

As for his latest edict allowing worshipers to forgo Mass, Rojas said it will remain in effect until further notice or until the circumstances “necessitating this decree are sufficiently resolved.”

Times staff writers Andrew Castillo, Rachel Uranga and Queenie Wong contributed to this report.