Nearly 90 parishioners and guests attended a panel discussion at
St. Agnes Church in Arlington on immigration from the standpoint of Catholic
social teaching and how the church is involved at a local, state and national
level.
Panelists included: Father Frederick H. Edlefsen, pastor of St.
Agnes Church; Ashley Feasley, director of policy, U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops; Jeff Caruso, executive director, Virginia Catholic Conference; and
Gregory McKinney, associate director of community engagement, Catholic
Charities Migration and Refugee Services.
Father Edlefsen said the panel was an important way to highlight
a timely issue. “Catholic social teaching begins with the person,” he said in
an interview prior to the event. “A poor or refugee family is a vulnerable
group of people and society is there to serve the common good.”
Covering it from a Catholic social teaching perspective, Father
Edlefsen shared key principles, including common good, universal destination of
goods, subsidiarity and solidarity.
Feasley continued by sharing three principles her organization
tries to implement. “Everyone has a right to be free of persecution; ensure
laws are just and humanely enforced; and the right to access due process and
protection. We talk about policies in the abstract but need to remember the
human consequences of those policies,” she said.
Caruso addressed immigration issues that the Virginia Catholic
Conference anticipates the Virginia General Assembly may consider in 2019,
including in-state tuition for DACA and Dreamers.
McKinney explained that his office works only with those from formal
refugee programs or people who are approved for asylum. He said the numbers of
Special Immigrant Visas for Afghan and Iraqi citizens who served the United
States military have fallen.
Jean Shirhall, the parish migrant and refugee outreach
coordinator, said, “We feel the people who are newly arriving into the country
deserve a helping hand. They have left family, homes, all their connections to
come here because it is safe for them,” she said. “It must be overwhelming to
arrive in a new country, not know anyone, not know where you are going to live.
As Christians that’s what we are about — helping others.”
The parish did a weekend donation drive, collecting $3,500 in
gift cards and additional money from the offertory collection. “With the cash
we have been buying mattresses for the refugees’ apartments,” said Shirhall.
“With remaining money, we are giving the money to MRS to help pay the fees to
progress along to citizenship.”
“Like many of the issues in our society, the discussion is
dominated by extremes and I wanted to hear another view to understand the
Catholic perspective on this,” said parishioner Mike Barbero.
For Sally Diaz-Wells, social justice and outreach minister at Our
Lady, Queen of Peace Church in Arlington, the panel discussion was an
opportunity to learn more. “It is good to know what’s out there, how we can
continue to help, and how other people are seeing and viewing how we are using
our Catholic social teachings to help find better ideas.”
“This is what I do for a living. Learning and having a
primer reinforces the work,” she said. “For me it was interesting because we
have a large immigrant population we help with our food pantry and with financial assistance and clothing.”