On December 21, the Center for Migration Studies of New York brought together some Catholic leaders for a Zoom conference on immigration.
The participants agreed that current federal immigration policies are broken. Timothy Cardinal Dolan, archbishop of New York said, “At our best, we have a generous, fair, and safe immigration policy, which we ain’t got now.”
The discussion did not address legislative measures but focused on humanitarian responses. Dolan contended that there is “a moral imperative for every Christian and Jew to welcome the immigrant.”
Dolan also said, “We have to distinguish between the political, economic, and security issues—which are broken and scandalous—and loving and caring for the people that are here, who really have nothing to do with that.”
Participants said that one way of opposing bigotry and suspicion of migrants was, in the words of Nicholas DiMarzio, bishop emeritus of Brooklyn, “to remember our own immigrant history,” since practically every American is either an immigrant or the descendant of immigrants.
Dolan mentioned an “all-Italian” Catholic parish in the northern part of the Bronx.
“The school is empty,” he said. “We were ready to turn it into a school for immigrant kids. The people in the parish rebelled and said, ‘Absolutely not. We will not have them here.’ I tried to reason with them by going back in history: your parents and grandparents faced the same things.” Some parishioners indeed had memories of an Irish pastor who made the Italians go downstairs to hear mass. “I’m not saying I was eminently successful,” Dolan added, “but some ice was broken.”
Kerry Robinson, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, said, “It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that we are speaking of human beings just like us, with their own stories and compelling hopes, especially on behalf of their children.”
DiMarzio noted that Pope Francis emphasized the need to remember that “these are faces, not figures” in order to accept “people as human beings, not as threats or invaders.”
Participants tended to agree that a hands-on, grassroots approach, “without a lot of top-heavy bureaucracy,” in Dolan’s words, works best.
Dolan went on to mention a Catholic parish in Wall Street that had about 80 immigrant families, with around 100 children, boarded in a hotel across the street. “Our parish said spontaneously, ‘We have to do something for them.’” The parish held a big Christmas celebration for the immigrants, and bought coats, winter clothing, new shoes, hats, and scarves for the immigrants. Dolan also observed that “these were Wall Street people,” and if they had just considered the immigrants in the abstract, “they might be opposed to any more positive approach.”
DiMarzio evoked another aspect of the Christmas theme: “Just remember: the Holy Family were instant migrants and refugees in Egypt.” Referring to current events, he added, “They moved through Gaza. Remember that when you see those donkey carts moving through.”
