NEWARK, N.J. (RNS) — Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, entered the Delaney Hall Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility Wednesday morning (Feb. 18) to celebrate an Ash Wednesday Mass for detainees.

Newark Auxiliary Bishops Pedro Bismarck Chau, Manuel Cruz and Gregory Studerus, who is retired, are also expected to celebrate Ash Wednesday Masses at Delaney Hall later Wednesday.

Tobin, who celebrated Ash Wednesday Mass again later at St. Patrick’s, Newark’s historic “old cathedral,” said starting the day with detainees was his priority.

“It’s important for the church to be part of this place, out of respect for the dignity of those women and men,” he said as he exited the facility escorted in the Newark sheriff’s blacked-out GMC.

The cardinal celebrated two Masses with the women detained inside and said that despite their detention, they showed strength.

“It was sad and yet there was a serenity among them, because they’re women of great courage,” he said.

Providing spiritual support in this moment is important, said the cardinal, adding that faith is “a way of looking at life that sees more than meets the eye, and faith is part of who they are.”

Ash Wednesday marks the start of the Lenten season for Christians, a season of fasting and atonement leading up to Easter. For the occasion, many Christians have a cross drawn with ashes on their foreheads, a visible reminder of mortality and a sign of humility and repentance before God.

Several Catholic bishops have labeled access to the sacraments in detention centers as a major religious liberty issue, with even the bishops closest to the Trump administration raising concerns.

Pope Leo XIV weighed in on the issue publicly in November, saying, “The spiritual rights of people who have been detained should also be considered, and I would certainly invite the authorities to allow pastoral workers to attend to the needs of those people.”

In Chicago, Cardinal Blase Cupich is expected to celebrate an outdoor Mass at a Chicago parish in solidarity with immigrant families Wednesday evening with an advocacy group, the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership, which won a preliminary injunction last week allowing the group access to Broadview, a local detention center, in order to provide ashes and Communion on Ash Wednesday. However, as of Wednesday morning, CSPL told RNS it had not yet received communication from DHS that its chaplains would be able to enter Broadview.

Cupich told RNS on Wednesday morning the purpose of the Mass was to “express our solidarity with people who feel as though fear right now is gripping their hearts as they look at the present policies, and we want them to feel supported and their families as well.”

In the interview, the cardinal expressed hope the Trump administration would comply with the court order mandating that CSPL have access to Broadview.

“We’ve seen that they have responded in the past, and so I think that we just have to wait and see when that’s going to happen,” Cupich said. “I would hope that we can move ahead with it in a very quick way.”

At noon in Chicago, CSPL announced that DHS had told the group a delegation of two priests and a sister would be able to enter Broadview at 3 p.m.

Tobin and the auxiliary bishops received clearance to access Delaney Hall last week, according to the Rev. Alex Gaitan, the archdiocese’s immigration ministry coordinator. The weekslong process required a sponsorship letter from the Archdiocese of Newark and a signed agreement from the cardinal and the bishops, allowing entry to the center only to provide religious services. 

After Tobin’s 8 a.m. Mass, the bishops are expected to celebrate up to five Masses for detainees and employees in Delaney Hall. They will distribute ashes in each of the facility’s five units — the large dormitories occupied by 120 to 150 detainees.

“We try to bring accompaniment, let them know that the church, we as church, are with them. That they’re not abandoned, that God walks with us no matter what,” Gaitan said.

Although celebrating the Ash Wednesday Mass was important to the archdiocese, Gaitan noted that the detainees’ needs extended beyond spiritual care. “It’s really frustrating trying to accompany people that you know that you cannot help with what they need,” he said.

Tobin has long advocated for immigrants. In late January, he urged Congress to vote against a funding bill that would expand the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement budget, calling ICE a “lawless organization.”

Tobin’s auxiliary bishops have also denounced the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement. Three of four Newark auxiliary bishops, including Chau, signed onto a letter calling on senators to vote against the funding bill.

As the Newark bishops take turns celebrating Mass in the facility, Catholic activists with Pax Christi NJ, a Catholic peace organization, are expected to gather in the facility’s parking lot to offer ashes for families of detainees and protesters. 

Chau, who will celebrate two Ash Wednesday Masses in the facility, has visited detainees before and has been involved in the archdiocese’s immigration ministry.

Ash Wednesday, he said, marks the beginning of an “important journey” for Christians, and ensuring Catholic detainees can take part in it is crucial. He hopes they can feel God’s presence in the imposition of the ashes “even in this dark moment of my life.”

“We want to bring Christ to the people that are here,” he said. “All the people that are in that, detained in Delaney Hall, need of God. My desire is for them to know that God is telling (them) ‘I’m here with you.’”

An immigrant from Nicaragua, Chau crossed the U.S. border without authorization, fleeing military conscription as a teenager in the mid-1980s, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. Cruz is also an immigrant and was born in Cuba.

Kathy O’Leary, New Jersey regional director of Pax Christi USA, a Catholic peace organization, said the visits of Tobin and the auxiliary bishops mark an important moment for the Catholic Church’s public witness against immigration detention.

On Wednesday morning, Pax Christi USA members demonstrated in front of St. Patrick’s to thank Tobin for visiting Delaney Hall. The dozen protesters brought signs reading “No human being is illegal” and “Jesus was a refugee.”

“To have this focus on people in our diocese who are suffering in this way is very new and just really beautiful,” O’Leary said in an interview before Ash Wednesday. “To see them choosing to walk with the people who are suffering was heartwarming.”

For nearly 30 years, according to O’Leary, Pax Christi has marked Ash Wednesday with public witness against immigration detention in New Jersey, and individual bishops and archbishops have attended services and demonstrations outside detention centers, including Liberty State Park and the Elizabeth Detention Center. But O’Leary said the presence of bishops, including Tobin, inside Delaney Hall represents a new level of support from the archdiocese.

“It’s definitely on a different magnitude to have the resources of the archdiocese behind the event,” she said. “When you have both the grassroots folks who have been organizing these efforts for decades and the priests, nuns, bishops and the institutional church joining together, that feeling of communion is much more palpable.”

The tradition began after clergy were expelled from the Elizabeth Detention Center, across the road from Delaney Hall, in the 1990s, O’Leary said. After a priest wrote a Gospel verse on a board that made reference to visiting people in prison, detention center officials shut the program down, accusing volunteers of giving detainees “too much hope,” she said.

“People were so angry about being thrown out for providing hope that that’s when they started protesting outside the Elizabeth Detention Center on Ash Wednesday,” O’Leary said.

In the past 20 years, the Archdiocese of Newark has also organized a march for immigrants on Ash Wednesday, Gaitan said.

“We’re still working with our immigrant sisters and brothers,” he said, noting the archdiocese had donated Bibles and rosaries for detainees. “Now we have to walk the most difficult walk, which is right there inside the detention center.” 

During the 6 p.m. procession outside Delaney Hall, participants plan to read the names of people who have died while held there, as a way to affirm the dignity of people in detention, O’Leary said. 

O’Leary said she hopes the archdiocese’s involvement will encourage similar efforts elsewhere. “We hope that this catches on in the other dioceses.”

After the Mass, when asked whether he hoped to see other cardinals follow his example, Tobin said he hoped “cardinals, or anybody who has pastoral responsibility in the church, will use every opportunity to reach others.

The cardinal didn’t mention his visit to Delaney Hall during his homily at St. Patrick’s. Before offering ashes to parishioners, he spoke of the need to address evils in society.

“There appears to be a steady decline (in) humanity,” he said. “Globally, there are breaches to be mended and lives to be held safe. We can do this with the mercy and the grace of God.”

After the Mass, he told RNS that the women he visited at Delaney Hall were on his mind as he delivered his homily.

“They were in my heart. … They really touched me,” he said.

As Chau entered Delaney Hall this morning, he said he was unsure what to expect. “Sometimes we think we’re helping people, sometimes those people help you…As I bring God’s presence to them, I hope that I can see God’s presence in them as well.”

Fiona Murphy is a national reporter for Religion News Service.