Cardinal Tobin celebrates Ash Wednesday Mass for detainees in Newark ICE facility

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 will celebrate 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, of the 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.

Tobin, who celebrated two Masses with the women detained inside, 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.”

Cardinal Joseph Tobin leaves the Delaney Hall Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility after celebrating Ash Wednesday Masses with detainees, Feb. 18, 2026, in Newark, N.J. (RNS photo/Fiona André)

The Newark bishops are the only confirmed U.S. bishops who plan to celebrate Ash Wednesday Mass in an ICE detention facility. The ability of religious groups to enter detention centers to provide pastoral care has been embattled and inconsistent, with chaplaincy groups often waiting for last-minute decisions by centers about whether they will be allowed to enter for major holidays.

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.

Over the past year, bishops across the country have denounced the “vilification of immigrants” in the U.S., as well as the lack of access to detention centers for pastoral care.

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.”

Despite the fact that CSPL had yet to receive confirmation that they would be able to enter Broadview, Cupich 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.”

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 cardinals and the bishop, 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.

The visit aims to bring hope to detainees, said Gaitan, adding that some have seen their detention as a punishment from God.

“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,” he 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, who was named the archbishop of Newark by Pope Francis in 2016, 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,” in the wake of the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota by federal officers and the detainment of a 5-year-old boy.

“We mourn for our world, for our country, that allows 5-year-olds to be legally kidnapped and protesters to be slaughtered,” he said.

Tobin’s auxiliary bishops have also denounced the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement. Three of four Newark auxiliary bishops, including Chau, signed onto a January letter with other Catholic bishops, heads of religious communities, nonprofits, sisters and priests calling on senators to vote against the funding bill.

The letter called for immigration policy to be shaped around family unity, the treatment of all people with “respect and care,” the prioritization of alternatives to detention whenever possible and oversight and accountability to prevent abuses.

Funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapsed on Saturday after Democrats and the White House failed to reach an agreement on proposed immigration enforcement reforms, including a stricter code of conduct for federal agents.

ICE and the Customs and Border Protection, which operate under DHS, will still be able to tap into the tens of billions of dollars passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year, so operations can continue uninterrupted — though like Transportation Security Administration and Federal Emergency Management Agency workers, their staff may be working without pay.

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, was ordained auxiliary bishop in September. He has visited detainees before and has been involved in the archdiocese’s immigration ministry.

Bishop Pedro Bismarck Chau speaks to RNS before entering Delaney Hall Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility for Ash Wednesday Masses with detainees, Feb. 18, 2026, in Newark, N.J. (RNS photo/Fiona Murphy)

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.’”

Cruz, a Cuban American priest who was ordained auxiliary bishop in 2008, has participated in a prayer vigil outside Delaney Hall before, as part of the nationwide “One Church, One Family: Catholic Public Witness for Immigrants” initiative.

“They’re willing to go there. … It’s not gonna be celebrated in huge altars and beautiful marble altars, but it’s gonna be celebrated with people of faith that will receive these as a blessing,” Gaitan said.

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

“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. “Distributing ashes and witnessing to a tremendous injustice was just something that was extremely powerful to them and to the people who came. And it just stuck.”

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.