Archbishop of Newark Asks "What is America?" The Most Reverend Theodore E. McCarrick, Archbishop of Newark, uses the upcoming 4th of July holiday to ask "What is America?" In his Pastoral Letter on Immigration, Archbishop McCarrick asks Catholics and all people of good will to reflect on their ancestors' place in American society and on the role of immigrants today. He reminds "us that when we look into the mirror each morning, we see the face of an immigrant or the descendant of an immigrant." The letter comes in response to what the Archbishop calls "a difficult time for immigrants." A difficult time that he feels began in August of 1996 with the enactment of the federal welfare reform law. The archbishop says "while the law was well motivated in some ways, it was harsh and shortsighted in other respects." He asks the faithful of the Archdiocese of Newark to remember that the law affected legal immigrants, "people who pay tens of billions of dollars in taxes each year." Archbishop McCarrick's Pastoral Letter on Immigration
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