| EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S CORNER....................................................................... |
One of the results of the recent reorganization of the Bishops Conference which began to take effect in 2008 was the establishment of the Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church made up of five distinct subcommittees. Hispanic, African American, Native American and Asian and Pacific Island communities each have a subcommittee devoted to promoting the bishops’ interface with these constituencies and advancing greater participation and communion of all these groups in the wider Church. A fifth subcommittee previously under the supervision of Migrant Refugee Services (the Secretariat devoted to resettlement, advocacy and other services on behalf of refugees and immigrants) was attached to the Cultural Diversity Secretariat. This subcommittee on the Pastoral Care of Migrants, Refugees and Travelers (PCMRT) is chaired by Bishop John Manz, Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago, who has demonstrated a deep concern for each and every group that comes under the purview of his Subcommittee. He has shown special concern for migrant agricultural workers, the vast majority of whom are Catholic, by spending considerable time with them in the fields.
PCMRT has a most challenging and diverse mandate. Its primary concern, as its title indicates, is for the pastoral care of refugees and immigrant people. At least a third of all refugees that come to the United States are re-settled under Catholic auspices. This is one of the great, unheralded stories about the role of the Catholic Church in U.S. society today. Some immigrants, while not subjected to the pain of refugees, experience the reality of being undocumented which often means that they live on the margins of both church and society. The Subcommittee is involved with recently arrived groups such as the Burmese, the Hmong or Cambodians. It supports scores of ethnic communities from India and other nations of South Asia, Western and Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America as well as from the Caribbean such as the Haitians and people from various islands like Jamaica or Barbados. The support comes in the form of convening leadership and planning processes for more effective pastoral care for each one of these communities. This involves sharing of new ideas and approaches for pastoral care and developing ways to adequately finance these efforts. PCMRT encourages local dioceses and parishes to assume responsibility for communities in their respective areas. Sometimes, especially when these groups are relatively new and unknown, they do not get the attention they should from their local church leaders. The Subcommittee tries to encourage the various communities to establish effective relationships with their bishop on the one hand while inviting local bishops, pastors and other leaders on the other to reach out to these new groups.
The focus of the Subcommittee’s concern is the pastoral care of these communities rather than advocacy on behalf of their many social/economic concerns as is the mandate of other USCCB departments like Migrant Refugee Services or Justice, Peace and Human Development. Of course, the temporal and the spiritual/pastoral cannot be very well separated since one powerfully affects the other. The Subcommittee is, nevertheless, concerned with the access of these communities to the Eucharist, the sacraments of the Church, religious formation and to real ecclesial communities of faith. The Subcommittee has developed a vast network of national advisors or consultants from each of these immigrant communities –some priests, others women religious or laity—who report and advise on their communities’ wellbeing.
Perhaps one of the least known areas of concern for the Subcommittee is the pastoral care of travelers. Actually there is a vast network of organizations and individuals ministering to people who would otherwise “fall between the cracks.” More than 120 years ago, for example, an organization called the Apostleship of the Sea (AOS) was founded by an English Jesuit in the Port of Liverpool. AOS has grown to be a worldwide organization encouraged by the Holy See. There are chaplains in at least 25 ports throughout the U.S. that serve seafarers who spend brief periods of time off their ships when in port. Father Sinclair Oubre, for example, is national president of the Apostleship of the Sea, pastor and seaport chaplain in Port Arthur, TX. The PCMRT Subcommittee regularly receives reports from AOS regarding its activities throughout the country. PCMRT also maintains close relations with the National Conference of Catholic Airport Chaplains.
Perhaps the most obscure work of the PCMRT Subcommittee relates to its convening and encouragement of leaders in many “non-traditional” ministries such as those associated with circus and carnival workers, racecar drivers, horseracing and even bull riders! There actually are organized ministries for each of these activities in one or several parts of the United States and they come under the purview of PCMRT.
Interestingly enough, the Holy See itself through offices or “desks” established at the Vatican encourages this kind of creative and necessary pastoral outreach to and for groups which otherwise may fall through the cracks. The PCMRT Subcommittee performs an essential function today in the Church, one that is totally consistent with its mission to evangelize which requires creative pastoral responses in order to make Christ’s saving presence felt among people who otherwise might remain cut off from the many graces of Christian community and the sacraments.
Sisters Myrna Tordillo, MSCS and Joanna Okereke, HHCJ are staff for PCMRT. Their work takes them wherever the refugees and migrants are found and they are devoted to encouraging them and doing whatever they can to raise awareness in the wider Church regarding the challenges and blessings for our Church and society that come from refugees and immigrants, God’s beloved sons and daughters in our midst. The goal is to promote appropriate services at the parish, diocesan and regional levels so that these diverse communities made up of growing families and youth -- the Church’s future -- may truly flourish.
Fr. Allan Figueroa Deck, SJ, STD, Ph.D.
Executive Director