By Catholic News Service

PARIS (CNS) -- France's Catholic bishops have denounced proposed immigration amendments that would allow the collection of ethnic data and introduce DNA testing for migrants seeking to join family members in the country.

"Christians should refuse in principle to choose" between those migrants living illegally, or in secret, and those in the open, "or between citizens who carry papers and those without," the bishops said in a statement. "Whoever they are, they are our brothers and sisters in humanity."

The Oct. 1 statement was published as lawmakers debated controversial amendments to France's 2006 immigration law.

The bishops welcomed parliamentary opposition to the proposed use of genetic tests, saying they risked "a grave disregard for the sense of the person and the dignity of the family."

During April 2006 talks with church leaders, now-President Nicolas Sarkozy, who campaigned for tighter curbs before his May election, promised to listen to the church's viewpoint, the bishops added.

"We appreciate being received and heard by the authorities, along with others, in a democratic dialogue," they said. "Until a vision of solidarity is clearly enunciated and implemented, the increasingly restrictive measures taken to deal with migrants will look like concessions to an opinion dominated by fear rather than by opportunities of globalization."

The bishops said Pope Benedict XVI had urged greater legal protection for migrants and their families, adding that the Catholic Church in France was now "urgently trying to make its voice heard."

"We are disturbed at the ever more restrictive conditions placed on the reunion of families, which is a right always to be respected," the bishops said. "The church feels a duty to be close, like the good Samaritan, to the clandestine and the refugee, the contemporary icon of the traveler, robbed, beaten and abandoned by the roadside."

The center-right lawmaker who drafted the amendments, Thierry Mariani, said DNA testing was already used in 11 other European Union countries and would allow visa procedures to be speeded up while eliminating bogus applicants.

The Catholic Church repeatedly has urged fairer treatment for France's 4.3 million immigrants, who make up 7.4 percent of its population and often suffer high unemployment.

France's June 2006 law, passed after inner-city riots in 2005, required migrants from outside the European Union to learn French and made it harder for the unskilled to settle in the country.

10/10/2007 3:15 PM ET