“The church in the United States has taken center stage in the debate over how to reform the U.S. immigration system,” wrote Bishop William K. Weygand in The Catholic Herald on March 3. This includes a “path to citizenship.”

The discussion has caused discomfort in some quarters. It is clear from the letters section in The Herald that the term “immigrant church” is often seen as more of a vague historical reference than an operating guide to public policy options.

In researching my forthcoming book, “The Search for a Civic Voice: California Latino Politics,” it is clear that the church has long been a central actor in the struggle to overcome discrimination and to encourage civic engagement.

Bishop Joseph T. McGucken, fifth bishop of Sacramento, played a pivotal role. Gov. Earl Warren tapped Bishop McGucken, then an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, to head a special committee to investigate the causes of the Zoot Suit Riots, where servicemen beat Mexican Americans in the streets of Los Angeles in 1943. Four years later, Bishop McGucken welcomed the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) to the state for the purpose of conducting its first-ever community organizing project in the Latino community.

Bishop McGucken’s decision had wide-ranging consequences. The IAF-affiliated Community Services Organization (CSO) registered 440,000 voters between 1947 and 1960. This led to the election of some of the first Latino-elected officials. The growth in registered voters also caused politicians to pay attention to their Latino constituents.

CSO likewise reached out to non-citizens with the help of the church. CSO helped change national immigration law in 1952 to make it easier for elderly immigrants to become citizens by taking the test in Spanish. The group then sponsored citizenship classes, which were often conducted at local parishes.

Anti-Mexican attitudes often complicated the process. For example, in 1953, a local Immigration and Naturalization Service examiner agreed to give the citizenship test as required by law only after Bishop Aloysius Willinger of Monterey-Fresno contacted President Dwight Eisenhower.

In terms of advancing social justice in the state Capitol, Msgr. Thomas O’Dwyer, a priest of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, was key from the 1930s through the 1960s. He successfully lobbied to outlaw school segregation, a bill signed by Gov. Earl Warren in 1947, and to outlaw employment discrimination, which Gov. Pat Brown approved in 1959.

Msgr. O’Dwyer also lobbied for a CSO-sponsored bill making non-citizens in the state for 25 years eligible for old-age pensions. Dolores Huerta, Stockton school teacher and CSO leader, served as the chief lobbyist for the bill, which Brown signed in 1961. The Kennedy administration helped fund the program as part of the New Frontier.

Today, a new generation of church leaders, clergy and laity are following this tradition by seeking ways to integrate Latinos into American civic life.

Kenneth Burt is author of the forthcoming book, “The Search for a Civic Voice: California Latino Politics.” He may be contacted at www.kennethburt.com.

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