When writing for Sightings I can look down from our residence window on two cathedral towers. A century ago, in the years after the Chicago Fire of 1871, those towers towered over a rebuilt cityscape, still of low-rise buildings. Cathedrals dominated the scene back then, but they are nestled among skyscrapers now. So, as an architectural theorist once advised, sanctuaries today have to stress substantive rather than dimensional references.
“Substance” relating to the U.S. immigration debate is currently on display from one of these structures, Holy Name Cathedral. Headlines in Chicago newspapers early last week were typical. “[Cardinal Blase] Cupich on immigration: ‘Let's see where Christ is leading us'” was one, while the other headed an article by the cardinal himself: “It's immigrants who have made America great.” He urged: “When so many want to make us afraid of diversity, of the migrant, of the immigrant… Let us not be afraid.”
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