Appeared in The Catholic Virginian
November 13, 2000
Refugee and Immigration Services
Jubilee 2000 has truly been a springtime of hope for many groups and
associations. This year, our own Refugee and Immigrations Services observes its 25th
Anniversary in the Diocese of Richmond. As of this date, 11,704 people from other
countries have found a home and a haven of hope through the efforts of the staff in our
three Refugee and Immigration offices in Richmond, Tidewater and Roanoke.
I remember vividly our humble beginnings back in 1975, a year after I became bishop of the diocese. There was going on then a vast exodus of people out of Cuba. Castro was allowing the deportation of numbers of professionals and their families as well as those who were successful in business. A call went out especially to dioceses along the eastern seaboard to open their doors in the name of Christ (our millennium Jubilee theme). About 20 families resettled in Richmond. We set up what I thought would be temporary offices under the direction of Phyllis Conklin, a Quaker, who died of cancer several years ago. Phyllis was a tremendous inspiration and I learned much from her about the resettlement process.
Just two years later, under the direction of Marilyn Breslow, a dynamic woman who continues as director today, the resettlement offices welcomed a new wave of refugees, the boat people escaping from Vietnam. It is hard for any of us to imagine the suffering that those Vietnamese people underwent. First, they left their homeland in search of freedom. Then they had to spend many days in lifeboats with little or no hope of survival. Then, if received, they spent months and even years in refugee camps in the Philippines. I remember so clearly on Christmas Eve, at a Mass at Saint Joseph Villa, welcoming the first refugee family from Vietnam - a mother, whose husband had died, and her seven children. They knew not one word of English and had few possessions. And yet, they entered the springtime of hope. Incidentally one of the daughters recently made her final vows in a religious community.
Many parishes around the diocese have sponsored Vietnamese people. The Vietnamese are a resilient people. They are literally survivors much more than anything we saw on the recent TV show that captured our imagination. We now have three Vietnamese parishes in the diocese - Church of the Vietnamese Martyrs in Richmond, Our Lady of Lavang in Norfolk and Our Lady of Vietnam in Hampton. Visit one of these parishes and you will witness firsthand a people of faith, people who survived the worst of suffering and deprivation and people who are truly our brothers and sisters.
Like the Vietnamese, other parts of our diocesan family are made up of the Hispanics who have come from 24 countries; our Korean people who now worship in two parishes, one in Hampton and one in Richmond. There are also our refugees from the oppressions in Poland and Bosnia, our people from Cambodia and Laos, and those from the former Soviet Union. All of these make up the members of the rainbow of ethnic, cultural and religious diversity that adds to the richness of our diocese.
There are many, sadly, who look down on our efforts to settle people from other lands. After all, it is said, these foreigners take our jobs or they are outsiders and don’t know our language or culture. Some people have difficulty with diversity. The worst heresy, I believe, is the famous so-called American melding pot, as if everyone has to look alike, think alike or be “just like us”. As I work with refugees and immigrants, I have begun to realize that in my own family there are my grandparents on my father’s side who came from Ireland and my mother who was born in the Netherlands and came to this country with her parents through Ellis Island at the age of six.
I’m proud to say to say that I am first generation American and I want others to say and feel the same. I am so proud of our refugee offices and immigration services. They can tell a beautiful story of hands-on care for those who want to be our neighbors and us with them. Our diocesan offices have received national recognition because we believe in the personal dignity of each individual and work so that families should not live in dependence, but can have opportunities to be self-sufficient and develop their own talents to the full. Our refugees do not end up on welfare rolls which would entrap them in another form of dependency. Families are given the chance to become self-reliant upon arrival. They need the support and encouragement of our parishes to provide individuals to serve as sponsors and promoters.
I have learned much in the process of the resettlement of people. We must always respect the ethnicity, culture and religious experience of each person. We resettle people not because they might become Catholic, but because they have an inherent worthiness as God’s children. I always see the face of God in those who come to us with only a battered suitcase or a few personal belongings.
I greatly admire our new arrivals because they have a great commitment to family values, often much more than we do. We have much to learn from them as they do from us. I always insist that they retain their culture and language. In time, they might learn English, especially their children. Yet their language of worship will always be their native language as we must always preserve it that way for them. I think about those who assert that immigrants, once they learn English, should come to one of our English-language liturgies rather than have liturgy in their native language. What a heresy when we imply that we are the only ones who know how to worship God. Our God is a God of many languages and cultures, a God of many peoples. Because of our refugees and immigrants, our own worldview has expanded and our horizons have broadened.
I say thank God for our Office of Refugee and Immigration
Services! Our refugees and immigrants are beautiful people who come to live among us, who
help us discover the beauty in our own lives. Yes, they are a springtime of hope both for
themselves and for us.
+ Walter F. Sullivan