In his presentation, Canales, who grew up moving around Latin America with his pastor parents before coming to the U.S. as a student, said migration is part of God’s plan. “The movement of all of the species and of creation itself reveals that it’s a design that responds to the divine law of interdependence and relationality, of communion and liberty,” he said in Spanish.
He also said that maintaining critical memory, which comes from a Biblical tradition, is an opportunity for repentance and drawing closer to God. It’s why he and the Clergy Community Coalition are working together to have a presence at the stream of vigils like the one for Montoya in the Home Depot parking lot.
It’s also why he’s preaching about Latin American history, including “the decades of U.S. intervention in the economies, governments and militarization of the whole continent.”
Canales said in his lecture, “The movement of people isn’t an accident or a misfortune or a crisis. It’s a direct consequence of structural sins rooted in colonialism and extractivism.” Forgetting that history “creates physical and mental walls and borders,” he said.
This article originally appeared here.
