Consolata Sister Ines Arciniegas walks with a girl during a visit to a community of Warao indigenous refugees in Boa Vista, Brazil, April 2, 2019. (CNS photo/Paul Jeffrey)
OFFICE FOR SOCIAL MINISTRY
“Families are the foundation of our faith, our society, our history, and our immigration system. As Pope Francis notes: ‘Family is the place in which we are formed as persons. Each family is a brick that builds society.’ (Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Bishop Joe Vasquez, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration)
Family and caring for one another as One Ohana is essential to our diocese initiatives and ministries. We just celebrated the ordinations of Father Romple Emwalu and Father Vincent Anh Xuan Vu who reflect our church’s beautiful family roots in Hawaii’s migrant Micronesian and refugee Vietnamese communities.
The day before the ordinations, a workshop at our diocese’s annual priest convocation discussed why Pope Francis, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, focus on migrant and refugee families as fundamental to our faith’s position on immigration. The workshop brought the Ohana theme alive through the testimony of two Filipino migrants who talked story about their inspiring journeys to become American citizens and the challenges they overcame to create a better future for their families.
Gemma shared her story of migrating to Hawaii in 1990 and finding work in the hotel industry as a housekeeper. While struggling to provide for her family, she faced daily the fear of separation and deportation until she was able to become a U.S. citizen. Thanks to community support and an ohana spirit, today she is a community leader and president of the Local 5 union representing hotel workers, many of whom are migrants.
Bryant talked story of his own plight as a young migrant facing fears with his family. Through the Local 5 immigration workshops with community partners, he too was able to achieve the dream of American citizenship and is now a young union community organizer helping other migrant families overcome their fears by becoming active U.S. citizens.
At the workshop, we watched a video message from Pope Francis speaking about the World Day for Migrants and Refugees. “It is not just about migrants, it is about all of us, our fears and our dreams,” he said. “The ugly cruelty of our time tempts us to abandon any dream of freedom, and so we close in on ourselves, within our fragile certainty and security inside the circle of people we like, in our safe routine. Withdrawing into ourselves is a sign of defeat and it increases our fears of others, strangers, outsiders, foreigners … especially today when migrants and refugees arrive to knock at our doors in search of protection, security and better future.”
The U.S. bishops have also expressed solidarity with migrants and refugee families by advocating for young DACA Dreamers and Temporary Protected Status holders, calling for stronger policies to provide “a better path to citizenship to ensure their full integration into American life.”
The U.S. bishops say, “Securing our borders and ensuring our safety is of the utmost importance, but this will not be achieved by heightening human misery and restricting access to lawful protection in an attempt to deter vulnerable asylum-seeking families and children. Instead, we must confront the root causes of migration and look to humane and pragmatic solutions, such as improving our immigration courts, expanding alternatives to detention, and eradicating criminal networks. We urge lawmakers to put aside differences and engage in meaningful action on humane and just comprehensive immigration reform.”
Our Holy Father calls us all to see each human life as part of One Ohana, acknowledging: “It is not easy to enter into someone else’s culture, to put on the shoes of people who are so different from us and understand their thoughts and experiences. And so we often refuse to encounter others and raise barriers to protect ourselves. Instead of this, we are called to overcome fear and open up to encounter.”
Pope Francis concludes his video with a final message of hope and aloha for our brother and sister migrants and refugees: “You are not marginalized, you are at the center of the heart of the church.”
To view the pope’s World Day for Migrants and Refugees videos, please visit the Vatican’s new Migrants and Refugees Section website www.migrants-refugees.va.
Mahalo,
Your friends at the Office for Social Ministry
