La Iglesia Que Migra

podcastOPTalks
Written By Open Plaza

Father Brian Strassburger and Father Flavio Bravo discuss the Jesuits' efforts on behalf of migrants in the Rio Grande Valley with artist and anthropologist Cinthya Santos Briones

Altar Frontal with Doves (1450-1461), Casa Museo de Milano, medium: silk, silver, silver gilt, velvet weave, height: 90m, Source: m (3.54in) width: (240mm (9.44in), Fondazione artistica Poldi Pezzoli “Onlus,” 2013, Museo Poldi Pezzoli. Image and caption source: Wikimedia Commons

 
 

In this episode of OPTalks Father Brian Strassburger and Father Flavio Bravo converse with artist and anthropologist Cinthya Santos Briones about the Jesuits’ efforts on behalf of migrants in the Rio Grande Valley, what it means to acompañar migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border, and why they see themselves as an itinerant group as they work with migrants on both sides of the frontera.

In 2021, a small mobile team of Jesuit priests arrived in Brownsville, Texas, where they started Del Camino Jesuit Border Ministries to work with migrants on both sides of the Rio Grande, including migrant shelters in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

In describing their purpose, Fr. Strassburger explains, “We feel this call to go to the margins of society where people are most excluded or ignored or underappreciated or underserved and we certainly see that that is a truth and reality here on the U.S. Mexico border, especially when you see the conditions of migrants camps and shelters on the Mexican side of the border.”

This episode is part of the Faith and Flight: Latinx Migration in the Art of Belief project, based at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Educational Center and made possible through a grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc.

 
Featured
Flavio Bravo

A migrant from Chinandega, Nicaragua, Father Flavio Bravo, SJ, arrived in Miami, Florida in 1985 and entered the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1992. Fr. Bravo graduated from Saint Louis University in Missouri with a BA in philosophy and a minor in Spanish/ Latin American literature (1999). He taught Spanish as a high school teacher at Strake Jesuit College Preparatory in Houston, Texas, and then earned an MDiv in Pastoral Theology from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley (2005) at which point he was ordained a Catholic priest. He worked as a teacher and director of pastoral services at Strake Jesuit College Preparatory in Houston, Texas (2005-2015). Fr. Bravo went on to serve as Superior de la Compañia de Jesús, then President of Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola, and soon after as pastor of the Parroquia San Ignacio de Loyola, all in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Since 2022, he has served as the pastoral assistant for the itinerant team of Del Camino Jesuit Border Ministries, and as Superior of the Jesuit community in Brownsville, Texas.

Featured
Cinthya Santos Briones

Cinthya Santos Briones is a visual artist, educator, and cultural organizer with indigenous Nahua roots in New York.  Briones serves as adjunct faculty at the Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and as a Visiting Critic artist at Columbia University. She holds an MFA in creative writing and photography from Cornell University and a certificate in Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism from the International Center of Photography (ICP). She has also studied ethnohistory and anthropology at the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia in México, and worked as a researcher at the National Institute of Anthropology and History, focussing on indigenous migration, codex, textiles, and traditional medicine. As a writer, her texts have been published in academic and journalistic magazines such as NACLA and The Nation and newspapers such as La Jornada. She is co-author of The Indigenous Worldview and its Representations in Textiles of the Nahua community of Santa Ana Tzacuala, Hidalgo, and the documentary, The Huichapan Codex. As an artist, her work focuses on a multidisciplinary social practice that combines participatory art and the construction of collective narratives. Through non-linear storytelling mediums, she juxtaposes photography, historical archives, writing, ethnography, drawings, collage, embroidery, and popular education. She is the recipient of fellowships and grants from the Magnum Foundation (2016/2018/2020), En Foco (2017/2022), National Geographic Research and Exploration (2018), We Woman (2019), City Artist Corps (2020), National Fund for Culture and the Arts of México (2009/2011), Wave Hill House Winter Residency (2023), Mellon Artist Fellow at Hemispheric Institute in NYU University (2023-24), BricLab Contemporary Art (2023), etc. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Pdn, California Sunday Magazine, Vogue, Open Society Foundations, Buzzfeed, The Intercept, New Yorker, and The Nation Magazine, among others. Briones has exhibited her work individually and collectively in galleries and museums such as Sky Blue Gallery in Portland, Oregon, Latinx Project, NYU, International Center Of Photography, Museo del Barrio, Museum of the City of New York, Trout Museum in Wisconsin, Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery, and Stony Brook, among others. She has worked at pro-immigrant organizations in New York as a community organizer on issues such as detection, education, and sanctuary and has volunteered in programs accompanying migrants to the courts and asylum applications. Briones is a guardian of unaccompanied migrant children and a member of Colectiva Infancias, anthropologists who work through ethnographic and visual research on studies around childhood about migration, violence, urban studies, and epistemologies of the Global South.

Featured
Brian Strassburger

Father Brian Strassburger, SJ, grew up in Denver, CO, and went to college at Saint Louis University, where he graduated with honors in mathematics, a certificate in business administration, and a minor in philosophy. In 2011, he joined the U.S. Central and Southern Province of the Society of Jesus (the "Jesuits") to begin his formation to become a Catholic priest. After professing vows, Fr. Strassburger went to Fordham University, where he earned a master’s degree in international political economy and development (IPED), and he spent a summer working for Jesuit Refugee Service in South Africa. Fr. Strassburger holds an MDiv and a Master of Theology from Boston College. While in Boston, he was the chaplain to the Boston College men’s basketball team, worked as a prison chaplain, and served as a deacon at St. Mary of the Angels Parish. Throughout his formation, he has contributed to The Jesuit Post (TJP), an online platform run by Jesuits in formation with articles and videos, and has served as TJP’s editor-in-chief for the last two years. In 2021, he was ordained a Catholic priest in New Orleans and missioned to the Diocese of Brownsville, TX. Fr. Strassburger currently serves as the Director of Del Camino Jesuit Border Ministries, the new Jesuit project based in south Texas. Their mobile team visits migrant shelters on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border to celebrate Mass, accompany people, and bring humanitarian aid. He also co-hosts The Jesuit Border Podcast, which shares on-the-ground stories and includes interviews with religious leaders and advocates for migrants.

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