Dodge City ? In keeping with the teachings of their faith, leaders of the Catholic Diocese of Dodge City are leading an effort to help make life easier for undocumented immigrants.

The connection with immigrants is strong in the Catholic faith, said Bishop Ronald Gilmore.

“There’s almost a mystical identification between Jesus and the stranger, Jesus and the immigrant,” he said. “We’re clearly an immigrant church. We always have been; we always will be.”

The diocese in southwest Kansas, where there has been an influx of immigrants in recent years, meets regularly to work with parishioners and mold public policy on the issue.

The effort has met with both good and negative reactions, said Father John Fahey, director of the diocese’s Office of Hispanic Ministry.

Following the lead of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Dodge City diocese is supporting changes to give undocumented immigrants more clearly defined methods to achieve legal residency.

It also supports creation of a temporary worker program to allow foreign workers legal access to jobs that U.S. workers don’t want, and reductions in the lengthy periods that immigrants’ family members usually must wait before being allowed to come to the United States.

The effort has included three assemblies since last November. Catholic leaders are co-sponsoring a gathering next month with area leaders from Episcopalian, Methodist, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches.

“The system is broken,” Gilmore said. “We think there are more just ways of fixing it, and that’s what we want to bring to the table.”

The Diocese of Dodge City is comprised of 28 counties and includes Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal. Gilmore estimates 60 percent of the diocese’s 55,000 Catholics speak Spanish as their first language.

“It’s sort of like we’ve been called to leadership – southwest Kansas particularly – because of the immigrant presence here,” Fahey said.