Over half a century has passed since Lida Wickham became a parishioner at what is now the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph. When she entered its doors for the first time, it was a parish church, the closest one to her and her husband’s new home in Prospect Heights.
When I started writing this monthly column, “Walking With Migrants,” I spoke about the difficulties that religious communities were having with the R-1 Nonimmigrant Religious Worker Visa.
The Columbus Day Parade on Monday drew thousands of spectators to honor the famed explorer while joyfully proclaiming the contributions of Italian Immigrants to their new homeland — the United States.
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was created by an executive order issued by President Barack Obama in 2012 to provide temporary protection from deportation and work permits to more than one million childhood arrivals, of which 60% have applied for the program.
Over the past five months, the governors of Texas and Arizona have spearheaded an effort to transport asylum seekers and other migrants, processed by federal immigration officials at the U.S.-Mexico border, to Washington, D.C., and the New York metropolitan area. In effect, the governors are using migrants and refugees as tools to try to punish political leaders and jurisdictions for their more supportive positions on migrants and asylum-seekers.
The Catholic Church has been involved with refugee resettlement in an organized way ever since World War II, when millions of displaced people in Europe were resettled in various countries.
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who retired as bishop of Brooklyn on Nov. 30, donated his personal archives to the Center for Migration Studies (CMS), a think tank and educational institute he has worked with for several years and where he is a member of the board of trustees.
Since Bishop Robert Brennan is already a prelate, there will be no rituals for ordaining a new bishop on Nov. 30. Instead, the ceremony involves his installation as shepherd of his new flock — approximately 1.5 million Roman Catholics in nearly 200 Catholic parishes across the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens.
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, in his role as publisher of The Tablet, has been presented with the Catholic Media Association’s Bishop John England Award for his defense of First Amendment rights.
A commemorative stone emblazoned with the name of Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio will be unveiled at the Boy Scouts’ Ten Mile River Camp in Narrowsburg, New York, this summer, in recognition of his support for the scouting movement.
