In mid-December, an intergenerational group of Pax Christi USA members participated in an encuentro border delegation as part of the Jubilee Year of Hope. The 12 participants from across the United States are involved in local immigrant support and advocacy networks; several of the participants are immigrants themselves. The majority of the group were young adults (under 40) and almost all were part of the Pax Christi USA Peace Pairs program.
Over the next few weeks, we will be releasing a series of reflections from some of the participants of the pilgrimage. The third reflection, written by Ryan Di Corpo, is below.
We are grateful to our generous donor who made this immersion trip possible.
Use this link to read more about the delegation and to read the other reflections.
Building a culture of encounter
Ryan Di Corpo
Pax Christi Young Adult Caucus
Peace Pairs 2026
The Austrian-born peace activist Hildegard Goss-Mayr — who, along with her husband Jean Goss, received the Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace Award in 1986 — contacted the Trappist monk Thomas Merton three years before his death to author an article on humility. First published in German and then released in English by 1967, his essay reflects on the Sermon on the Mount and describes Merton’s philosophy of Christian nonviolence, a Gospel-inspired practice that aims towards common truth and universal justice founded upon “the basic unity of man.”
Merton, who died in Thailand in 1968, makes a distinction between what he terms “nature-oriented” thinking, which regards human beings as “objects to be manipulated” for some end, and “person-oriented” thinking, which emphasizes “free exchange” among people, rooted in Christian love. “Needless to say that many otherwise serious and sincere Christians are unfortunately dominated by this ‘nature-thinking,’” writes Merton. “They never rise to the level of authentic interpersonal relationships outside their own intimate circle.”
The border — as an end and a beginning, a place both last and first, a eschatological reality — is, for Christians, a site of authentic human interaction, motivated not towards some pre-ordained political goal but by a genuine desire for connection. Borders, both near and far, facilitate the journey of peoples from different nations toward one another and gifts us the opportunity for encounter with the Other.
The foundation of Pope Francis’s pastoral legacy, building a culture of encounter means finding siblings among strangers, recognizing that people “who speak differently, as well as those who hold other beliefs,” share a common identity as children of God, as Imago Dei. As we discover the divine residing in others, moving into encounter brings us both closer to our fellow human and to God. And seeking encounter “supposes serious invitation to other cultures to share the experience,” wrote former Georgetown University president Leo J. O’Donovan, SJ, in 2022.
Encountering people in the borderlands, as members of the recent Pax Christi pilgrimage did in December, serves to challenge and ultimately dispel narratives, based in fear and intolerance, that define immigrants and asylum seekers as threats to our safety. What the culture of encounter threatens is our own ignorance; it threatens our false superiority, our insular attitudes, our rejection of foreigners. In the spirit of Easter, it drives out hatred and fosters concord. The border is dangerous not because of who it admits to our communities but because it forces us to confront our own humanity in the faces of others behind the wall. Such encounters are anathema to a government that labors to deepen divisions between people instead of combatting the myths that keep them apart.
In Texas, New Mexico and across the border in Ciudad Juárez, we spoke with people from 19 foreign countries over the course of four days. Their lives made present the drama of migration, the perilous journeys people make in search of a better life for themselves, and especially, their children. At the Catholic cathedral in Juárez, we encountered many adults, some single parents, with young children seeking something to eat. In a biblical sense, they model the Holy Family, who fled persecution in their homelands and sought refuge in Egypt. Pope Pius XII elaborates on this theme in “Exsul Familia,” his 1952 apostolic constitution on migration and the church’s definitive statement on the subject:
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, living in exile in Egypt to escape the fury of an evil king, are, for all times and all places, the models and protectors of every migrant, alien and refugee of whatever kind who, whether compelled by fear of persecution or by want, is forced to leave his native land, his beloved parents and relatives, his close friends, and to seek a foreign soil.
A frequent refrain in El Paso reminded us pilgrims that the border is everywhere. Faithful people of conscience, concerned with the situation in the south, do not need to travel there to witness our current crisis. It is in your backyard, in your town, in your social circles. And the crisis, to be explicit, is not of “foreign invaders,” but of a closed-off attitude that first rejects before it receives. The work of Catholics ahead is both internal and external, adopting a public posture of welcome to those in need while undertaking the hard work in private to transform our hearts. “Oh, that today you would hear his voice / Do not harden your hearts” (Psalm 95:8).
One thought on ““Building a culture of encounter”: Peace Pairs pilgrimage of hope at the border, reflection #3”