Immigration and Our Sister Parish
Immigration and Our Sister Parish
By Kevin McCarthy
Immigration is an issue that is at the center of our national political debate these weeks as Congress looks at whether or not criminalize or embrace the estimated 11-12 million immigrants who are in this country illegally. As Christians we are challenged to think about how we should respond.
Migration is also a poignant and critical issue for our sister parish, San Bartolome Apostol, in Chiapas, Mexico. Given their location about 2 hours from the Guatemalan border, the people of San Bartolome face the twin challenges of Central American migrants who are moving through the area and of their own people who can't support themselves and leave to find work in Mexican cities, resort towns, or in the U.S. Padre Javier, the pastor, identifies disintegration of the family and migration as the two most serious problems that the parish faces. In one parish community I visited people reported on the problem of receiving only $20 pesos or $2 dollars a day for work. Many who leave do find jobs and send money home and others are never heard from again. Throughout Chiapas there are villages where you will find no young people in their 20's or 30's. Imagine the impact of this.
At the same time I was visiting the parish last summer they were providing refuge for four immigrants from Central America who were hopefully on their way further north to the U.S. There were two men and two women all in their early twenties and one whom was obviously pregnant. Although San Bartolome is a poor parish, there was no question that they would provide food and shelter for these immigrants who showed up at the rectory door. This is something that they apparently do on a regular basis. I had the chance to talk with Sandra, from Honduras, who told me she was 22, and looked younger. She said that she had a father in Chicago and a mother in Boston and that she was heading towards whomever would offer her help.
The four Central Americans and I left the parish the same night, provided with a ride by Padre Javier - they in the back of the pickup truck and I in the front. He gave us a ride two hours further north where I would catch my bus and they would start the next leg of their long and risky journey. The immigrants and I were both headed to the U.S. - I to the security of my home and they to the uncertainty of life illegally in a new country where they sought the chance to make a living. What would Christ have us do with them?
