Archbishop Blase Cupich led off a Sept. 14 press conference with a call for Catholics in the archdiocese and across the United States to help migrants, including those fleeing to Europe from Syria and those who have come to the United States.

“I think few people are left untouched by the grief of Mr. Abdullah Kurdi, who is the father who lost his wife and young sons, being casualties of their flight away from war and the destitution of their homeland,” Archbishop Cupich said. “It awakened resolve in the traditional European havens and around the world and Pope Francis called on parishes throughout Europe to take in families and children who are refugees.”

Photographs of the body of Kurdi’s younger son, 3-year-old Aylan, washed up on a Turkish beach Sept. 2, flew around the world. Kurdi’s wife, Rehen, and his older son, Galip, 4, also drowned. The Syrian family was trying to make its way to Europe.

The church in the United States is calling on Catholics to donate to Catholic Relief Services, the international relief and development agency of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which will contribute to efforts to resettle and support refugee families in Europe.

More locally, he said, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago is already resettling refugee families, including some from Syria, and expecting more “if the U.S. permits them to enter,” the archbishop said.

The agency has run a refugee resettlement program for about 40 years and last year helped about 200 families, mostly from the Middle East, he said.

The crisis of migrants trying to make their way out of the Middle East is only one example of the wider issue of the need for peace and economic justice around the world, he said.

“Indeed, the pictures of that little boy, Aylan Kurdi, who was washed up on the shore could have been taken in the sea off the Florida Keys, the Italian islands, or the American desert, or any of the hundreds of places where refugees risk their lives every day,” Archbishop Cupich said. “As citizens of the world’s most powerful nation, we need to rally together as we do whenever there is a crisis. I speak particularly to those who are of Catholic faith, to make a strong and personal commitment to help those who are in need and to remedy the situation.

“I call on the leaders of our country to recognize the human dignity of each and every person in need of our help, but also to reorder our priorities in granting our assistance, and I urge all of you to reach out to your elected officials and tell them that the welfare of human beings seeking freedom that we enjoy is important to you,” he said.

The archbishop said he will forward to Pope Francis statements of solidarity from the Priests for Justice for Immigrants and the Sisters and Brothers of Immigrants. The organizations work with the archdiocese’s Office of Immigrant Affairs to support immigrant families and advocate for comprehensive immigration reform. They were to join the office in three simultaneous pilgrimages to Federal Plaza on Sept. 19 marking 10 years of the Catholic Campaign for Immigration Reform.

Pilgrims were to leave Holy Name Cathedral, 735 N. State St.; Holy Family Parish, 1080 W. Roosevelt Road; and the Pope John Paul II Newman Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago, 700 S. Morgan St., to walk to the plaza at Adams and Dearborn streets for a prayer vigil.

Without naming any politicians, he called on leaders to speak respectfully about immigrants.

“I think I would be remiss not to challenge the sometimes hateful language we hear in political discourse today which demeans immigrants,” he said. “This language fosters the reduction of desperate men and women and children to a sound bite designed to pander to our lower nature. It’s unworthy of this blessed country, a land of immigrants.”

Pope Francis scheduled his first visit to the United States to come to the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, but his agenda and itinerary have grown, Archbishop Cupich said. While he’s in the United States Sept. 22-27, the pope will address a joint session of the U.S. Congress, visit the White House, speak to the American bishops at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, and celebrate the Mass of canonization for Junípero Serra at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., and speak at the United Nations and visit Ground Zero in New York.

“What’s important is that the pope is attending this meeting on families to highlight the importance of families and marriages,” the archbishop said. “Families are under great stress, and he wants to be a partner with them and help them.”

Archbishop Cupich said he expects the pope will discuss the world and the economy, but also the need for greater compassion for those who are marginalized, including prisoners, the sick, the poor, the homeless and the unborn.

“No one knows exactly what he will say along the way,” the archbishop said. “He is a pope of surprises. … I think it’s going to be a great moment for our country and our church, and it will give him an opportunity to get to know us a little better as well.”

One surprise was the Sept. 8 announcement that the pope would streamline annulment procedures in some cases.

“What the Holy Father has done is, in effect, reinstituted a procedure that was in place in this country between 1971 and 1983. For the most part, the major impact is not having a ‘second instance,’ where the case has to be tried a second time” as it had to be previously, Archbishop Cupich said.

This doesn’t mean that the church is taking marriage less seriously, the archbishop said.

“We believe in the indissolubility of marriage, and the Holy Father has reaffirmed our authority as bishops to rule in these matters,” he said. The pope understood that streamlining the procedure might “endanger the principle of indissolubility”; to avoid that, bishops will make the final decisions.

In an effort to make annulment more accessible, some dioceses have announced that they will no longer charge for the process. Archbishop Cupich said the archdiocese tells people who apply for annulments what it costs for the archdiocese to do the work involved, and asks for a donation. However, no one is turned away for financial reasons, he said.

Pope Francis also made news recently by announcing that all priests would have the authority to offer absolution during the Jubilee Year of Mercy, which begins Dec. 8. Archbishop Cupich clarified that in the Archdiocese of Chicago and many other U.S. dioceses, that has been the practice for many years.

But the pope’s approach to pastoral ideas does mark a change from what some people might be used to.

“What we’re seeing with this Holy Father is an approach that really does put people and their circumstances of life first,” the archbishop said. “He really does want to make sure that we really accompany people, that we are walking with them through the journey of life. ... When we do that we’re going to encounter people in various stages of their own faith development, and what he’s saying is let’s be sensitive to that. Let’s see what their particular needs are. That’s a different approach than saying these are the rules of the church, these are the teachings, and we’re going to measure you by that standard. What he’s saying is let’s first of all help people understand the dignity that they have.”

Watch the press conference