What's at stake:
During a Good Friday procession, faith leaders and community members combined prayer, scripture and migrant testimonies to highlight the experiences of immigrants and call for compassion and justice.
More than 100 community members gathered Friday afternoon outside the Fresno Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office to mark Good Friday with prayer, song, and scripture, centering their message on compassion for immigrant families.
Good Friday is a Christian observance commemorating the day Jesus Christ was crucified, a moment believers recognize as his ultimate sacrifice for humanity’s sins. During the gathering, pastors guided attendees through the Stations of the Cross, a series of 14 reflections that trace key moments from Jesus’ sentencing to his death and burial.
The Rev. Joseph V. Brennan of the Diocese of Fresno and Armando Ochoa, the diocese’s former bishop, joined other clergy at the gathering, which was organized in collaboration with Faith in the Valley.
As community members moved in procession around the ICE office, clergy took turns reading biblical passages and leading prayers tied to each moment, creating what organizers described as both a spiritual and communal act.
“We’re praying in particular for families who have been separated, families who are struggling, those who are living in fear,” Father Art Gramaje, who serves with Claretian Missionaries, said. “It’s an accompaniment of our immigrant brothers and sisters, and these are acts of love.”
Gramaje said it’s “very rare that any prayer event would have two bishops,” highlighting the gathering’s significance to the crowd.
Before and after each station, clergy and community members would pray traditional Catholic prayers, including Adoramus Te and Gloria al Padre. Many people kneeled in reverence, bowing their heads in prayer and reflection.
Throughout the Stations of the Cross, Liza Apper, director of St. Benedict Catholic Worker, shared what she described as firsthand accounts from members of the Jesuits USA Central and Southern Province and others who work with immigrants and asylum-seekers in the U.S.-Mexico border and beyond.
The stories, with some names changed to protect individuals’ identities, are intended to mirror the suffering of Jesus Christ.
During the procession, Apper read one passage describing Sacred Heart Church in El Paso, Texas. Beginning in December 2022, the church opened its gymnasium to provide overnight shelter for migrants seeking asylum in the United States, offering emergency accommodations during winter weather as they awaited next steps in their cases.
Brennan closed the gathering by pointing to a recent, unified stance taken by Catholic leaders nationwide on immigration.
He noted that during the November 2025 plenary assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore, nearly all of the country’s 224 bishops approved a “Special Message” expressing concern about the evolving situation facing immigrants in the United States.
It marked the first time in more than a decade that the conference used this heightened form of collective statement, with only five bishops voting against it.
“It’s both prayer and action for us,” Brennan said about the gathering. “We’re not here to vilify, we’re not here to demonize. We’re here to notify anyone who might be listening that we are here. We want to notify people that we have a God who cares for them and for us and who calls us, calls us to do justice and to pray too.”
