Find ‘courage to respond’ — Utah religious leaders pray for immigrants and refugees, condemn government crackdown

The Rev. Irene Pak Lee, pastor at Wasatch Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City, always wondered why her Korean immigrant parents gave her an American first name, rather than a familiar one in their language.

Was it a way for the family members, who had settled in Ogden, to assimilate with their new neighbors? Was it meant to help her “fit in” and not be seen as “other”?

“I named you Irene,” Lee’s mother told her one day, “because that was the name of my first American friend. The first person in this country who was kind to me, who made me feel welcome.”

Dozens of attendees in the audience gasped with painful recognition at Thursday’s interfaith prayer vigil at Salt Lake City’s First Presbyterian Church.

“We are reminded to have compassion on those seeking refuge, a new beginning, safety and a hope for a better life for themselves and their families,” Lee said. “I want to believe that this gathering symbolizes the need to be that first act for someone.”

The vigil speakers, self-described “progressive clergy,” came together to demand justice for immigrants and refugees, said the Rev. Brigette Weier, pastor at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in Taylorsville, and to condemn state and federal immigration policies they believe foster “isolation, exclusion and fear.”

It is time, Weier said, “to bring the matter to the divine.”

Dozens of speakers and attendees described what all their faiths — Catholic, Protestant, Latter-day Saint, Jewish, Muslim and Native American — taught about hospitality and generosity toward “strangers and foreigners.” They cited scripture, tradition and historic practices. They prayed to “Creator God” to give them strength as they speak out against “racist, dehumanizing policies” and to make Utah “a safe place” for all.

As a first-generation immigrant from Venezuela, Noriadnys Gomez, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said she “knows all too well the deep wounds that come with navigating the U.S. immigration system.”

This gathering is a moment “where we center ourselves in the spiritual practice of listening for God’s voice,” said Gomez, who was representing Mormon Women for Ethical Government, “and finding the courage to respond.”

The religious leaders are “the byproduct of generations who have resisted [injustice],” she said. “... We have inherited their strength.…Let us walk forward with that legacy in our bones.”

Courage isn’t the “absence of fear,” Gomez said. It is “acting anyway.”

The evening, punctuated with music by the El Coro Hispano from the Catholic Cathedral of the Madeleine, ended with a benediction by Utah Imam Shuaib Din, who prayed that God would “send peace and tranquility to those who are vulnerable” and would “guide our elected leaders to make wise decisions.”

After his prayer, participants walked quietly to the front of the sanctuary to light candles of hope.