A step to protect history
In the nearly 90 years since the sculpture’s completion, thousands of pilgrims have reached the summit with faith.
Mount Cristo Rey, also known as the Sierra de Cristo Rey, saw its first pilgrims in the early 1930s, when a local priest, Father Lourdes Costa, looked out his window and envisioned a high crucifix on its summit. Father Costa made the challenging journey and shared his vision with the Diocese of El Paso, which had purchased the land from the state of New Mexico. In the nearly 90 years since the sculpture’s completion, thousands of pilgrims have reached the summit with faith.The diocese then proceeded with the constitution and canon law. Its lawyers, the same Georgetown team that previously defended the South Texas chapel against the Trump administration’s wall, argued that closing a pilgrimage site significantly burdens the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and that church property of this importance cannot be surrendered without the consent of the Holy See. On July 6, the diocese demanded a jury trial.The Justice Department responded on July 20 to Judge Kenneth J. The motion for judgment on the petition before Gonzales came down to: “Federal law recognizes no other valid objection that a landowner may file to prevent the government’s exercise of his eminent domain power.” A hearing scheduled for July 23 in Las Cruces was postponed.Bishop Peter Baldacchino of Las Cruces has welcomed the bulldozers to the lawsuit. He celebrated Mass at the summit on June 28 with hundreds of pilgrims and Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Cellino of El Paso, just weeks after warning that “the construction of a physical symbol of division and dehumanization on the sacred site of Mount Cristo Rey will destroy the sacredness of that cherished place.” The Diocese’s legal brief is clear: “The wall is a physical manifestation of this government’s attitude toward migrants. “Nothing could be less Catholic than that.” The church claims a massive steel barrier would desecrate a sacred site and violate the religious freedom of those who want to worship there.A week earlier, Representative Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat, introduced the Mount Cristo Rey Protection Act, a bill to prevent the federal government from taking Catholic Church land for a border wall. Not a single member of Congress joined him as a co-sponsor. Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso supported the bill as a demand that the federal government “refrain from gross abuses of power against this sacred place.”
Trump’s ‘dream’
To deal with illegal immigration, Donald Trump has dreamed of an answer. A “beautiful” wall that spans all four states bordering Mexico across a 1,989-mile border.
To deal with illegal immigration, Donald Trump has dreamed of an answer. A “beautiful” wall that spans all four states bordering Mexico across a 1,989-mile border. Mexico would pay for its construction otherwise Mexicans in the US would be prevented from sending money back to their families, he said. According to a BBC report, the Trump White House will “seize all remittance payments derived from illegal wages”. The danger is not small. According to the Bank of Mexico, money sent abroad by all Mexicans amounted to $24.8 billion in 2015, more than the country’s oil revenues.Customs and Border Protection has acknowledged the importance of Mount Cristo Rey, but the agency has argued that the site is also popular with drug smugglers and human smugglers. The mountain is the only stretch of land in the area not fortified by a high fence, Cristo Rey was long considered a natural barrier, and the federal government now views this gap as a security problem. Part of the new section will be built on federal land and the rest will have “no adverse impact” on Mount Cristo Rey, the government said, because it will not block the path to the statue of Jesus Christ. Construction will take place several hundred feet below the statue.The diocese said it respects the Trump administration’s right to secure the area. When Border Patrol officials asked to build a road through Cristo Rey property in recent years, the diocese agreed and did not charge the government anything. The church has expressed no objection to the agency’s use of sensors and cameras around the mountain. But the wall is too far, said Deacon Winder, chancellor of the diocese.Justice Department lawyers, on the other hand, are pushing to expedite the case by filing a petition to condemn and take possession of the property. “Timing is of the essence,” he argued, as the government has already signed contracts with construction companies and penalties could be imposed if the project is delayed.There is a way to win, which has been achieved before. In 2019, the government went after La Lomita Chapel in Mission, Texas, the 19th-century mission church that gave the city its name. Bishop Daniel Flores refused to consent, Georgetown lawyers fought the case, and Congress eventually wrote protection for the chapel into the appropriations bill. Two weeks ago, Homeland Security agreed to build a new wall behind the chapel rather than separate it from its people.