Bishop Mark Seitz told Vice President Harris he welcomed her “on behalf of Christ, present in our borderland community in so many beautiful ways — present in our resilience, our spirit of compassion and service. And present in the poor knocking at our doorstep, in the migrant and refugee.”

He added, “We cannot ignore our historical complicity, our entanglement in an economy that kills, our inaction on climate change, our fueling of death-dealing violence with weapons of war and drug consumption, our obsession for power over the common good, our addiction to short-term results and eliminating opponents over the patient cultivation of social friendship, our indifference toward life, our racism.”