HCW newspaper. Oct 2019. Vol. XXXIX, No. 4.

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Publication of Casa Juan Diego House of Hospitality

by Louise Zwick Reflection on the Good News announced by the angel on that Holy Night when Jesus was born brings to us an awareness of the profound beauty and reality of the Incarnation, but also the contrast of the harsher reality of the world of that time, as well as that of our own time in history. After centuries of preparation as recounted in the Scriptures, the Lord Jesus came as a baby into a world of persons and families awaiting his coming, but even then filled with suffering, wars, and oppressions.

Fritz Eichenberg’s Christmas picture on this page shows, in addition to the

Christmas star and the charming animals in the stable with the baby Jesus, a burning city in the background and a soldier’s helmet in the forefront. Much of Fritz Eichenberg’s art was created for Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker and, like this picture, depicts God’s presence in history in the midst of war, poverty, and persecution.

Entering into the mystery of the Incarnation can help us go beyond the commercials, the distractions, and the individualism of the Christmas season that threaten to overwhelm us.

Reflecting on the Lord’s coming to our earth in human flesh in the midst of

tragedies, cruelties, wars, oppressions, terrible journeys, and chaos can bring us to a very different perspective from consumerism.

What a difference an appreciation of this mystery can also make in how we look on our own role in human history and the history of salvation, no matter how small our role may seem. We cannot save our world alone or even as a small group. It is the Lord who does that. But we can pray that our efforts be transformed and transfigured by the Lord as we seek to follow that Christmas star.

Vol. XXXIX, No. 4

Fritz Eichenberg

A Meditation on the Incarnation

Mark Zwick Founder

Please see page 6

Cultivating Hope in Troubled Times

Samaritans and Solidarity

By Dawn McCarty, Ph.D., LMSW My job during the Tuesday food distributions is basically to organize the hundreds of people who come to the door.

Most come just for food and they organize themselves, really. Before the sun comes up, they have formed a line out the door and into our parking lot and sometimes further and further, all the way to the street. Others, however, have specific requests that they want to bring to Louise Zwick after the food distribution is over.

We put them into a different line, first come, first served.

The very sick or injured are not required to stand in line we try to find a place for them to sit and we give them priority.

Just this week, as we were wrapping up what I think was our busiest ever food distribution, I had a very strange experience. A thin, middle-aged man that I did not know asked me to see Sra. Luisa. He seemed fine to me, so I explained that he would have to wait his turn and pointed out the proper line.

As it turns out, he was not fine. About three weeks before, he had been viciously

attacked and robbed at a bus stop. The undocumented get paid under the table, usually in cash. Although it is possible to open a bank account with IDs from their home country, very few have done so - who knows when ICE will get the names and addresses of people who have used foreign IDs to open their bank accounts, a dead giveaway? So, they carry their cash around with them, and those who specialize in robbing the undocumented can tell them a mile away.

Additionally, people that are not authorized are unlikely to

We received with joy the news that Bishop Ramazzini of the Diocese of

Huehuetenango, Guatemala, is one of the new Cardinals that will be created by Pope

Francis at the October consistory.

Mark and Louise Zwick met Bishop Ramazzini in the in his former Diocese of San Marcos.

They were concerned about the plight of many homeless migrants in Tecún Umán, Guatemala, a city on the MexicoGuatemala border. As they started their journey to the United States or as they were deported back to their

Please see page 7

Friend of the Poor Named Cardinal

Casa Juan Diego Houston Catholic Worker P.O. Box 70113 Houston, Texas, 77270 Return Service Requested

NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. Postage PA I D HOUSTON, TEXAS Permit No. 1667

Please see page 3

A Christmas Letter

Dear Friends of Casa Juan Diego, Thanks be to God and generous people, Casa Juan Diego has completed its 39th year.

Because of your generosity thousands of poor people have been served and many refugees and immigrants and their families have been helped. Our Houses of Hospitality have been full for many months. The food lines grow longer each winter.

Our medical clinics are busy each day, thanks to volunteer doctors and assistants, and medicines are purchased for those who cannot afford them.

Our biggest challenge now, is the sick and injured person who has no insurance, no disability, and no way of getting help.

Each day we are presented with people who are seriously ill— mentally or physically, who have broken limbs or no limbs, or even more, broken heads or broken backs. Or they have been shot in the head and the back by thieves - and no one to receive them. There is an epidemic of neglect. All of these people have been abandoned by society.

Casa Juan Diego provides these services and keeps its houses going through voluntary contributions.

All money received goes to the service of the poor. There are no salaries at Casa Juan Diego.

The poor, the sick and injured who come to us for help often tell us that they pray for us. We ask them to pray also for all who help Casa Juan Diego in so many ways to do the Works of Mercy. For without you and your participation, nothing would be possible.

We ask you to remember us during Christmas time. We need your gift to continue another year.

Gratefully, Louise Zwick and all the Catholic Workers

Houston Catholic Worker

Notre Dame Student Shares Immigrants’ Stories

By Brendan Egan Brendan, a student at the University of Notre Dame, spent two months this past summer volunteering at Casa Juan Diego.

Time spent at the Catholic Worker in Houston is time spent in good company.

On one hand there is the sainthood of the workers and volunteers to admire. The good men and women who work generously, with energy and compassion, devote their labors toward a need that is greater than their own.

On the other hand, there are the only people holier than the Saints, the face of Christ himself in the guests who come to Casa Juan Diego; “In the poor, we see the face of Christ who for our sake became poor” tweeted Pope Francis.

Working at Casa Juan Diego, one is struck by the ironic beauty that comes when extreme suffering is juxtaposed by triumphant beauty.

Perhaps the most beautiful sight at CJD is the sight of reunion.

Alberto came in on a late bus ride from detainment. A worker and I drove to the Greyhound station at about 1 am to pick him up.

Greyhound bus stations are usually not located in the best

part of town, and on this night there were plenty of people hanging out. Standing 5’7” and weighing 145 pounds, a guy like me was looked at like a piece of mutton. When we met our guest in the station, he was a particularly tough looking fellow. He didn’t seem too happy to meet us, and remained a bit detached as we walked to the car. I, on the other hand, was elated to walk with him, feeling rather like the nerd who buddies up with the football player for protection. It was a pretty silent drive back home, we showed him in and went to bed. Now this man happened to be married to one of the women who was living in our women’s house. They had been separated when he was arrested, and she had their child while he was in prison.

The next morning, this man was able to meet his daughter for the first time. That morning, I ran into the new family taking the baby for a walk in a stroller. With all the joy of a father who has seen his daughter for the first time, Alberto’s disposition was completely changed from the night before. He came up to me grinning ear to ear to shake my hand and say thank you. I really hadn’t done much to make the haven

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of CJD possible for him, but I said “you’re welcome” nevertheless, having had my breath taken away from the radiant joy of the family before me.

Of the guests that I met, the one whose story sounded the most frightening was that of a gentleman from Honduras named Felipe. He was not able to pay his rent in Honduras, and so was attacked by pandilleros. His scars told the story, a gash across the palm of his hand from when he tried to defend himself, and multiple gashes on the side of his head when the defense failed. He says he would have been killed if someone hadn’t stepped in to deter the assailant. After that point, the family thought it might be a good time to leave the country and seek the American Dream instead.

When he at last got to crossing the border, the family decided to do it alone without going through the coyotes. This is a particularly dangerous feat because if coyotes catch you doing this, they will kill you. However, their toll was too high to pay, so the family had no choice and went on their own.

Coming to the Rio Grande, the family used inflatable rafts and, holding hands, crossed together. They did not make it all the way into the US before being caught, but instead of the coyotes it was the U.S. Border Patrol.

The family was separated, and Felipe was sent to a prison center to wait for a court date. While in prison he was given a small burrito to eat every 9 hours, in his words “not enough food to feed a child”. There were no showers and no beds, and nor was there respect for the dignity of human life. The rest of Felipe’s family was in CJD by this time, and the prison would not give clear information about where he would go next. It seemed that he was going to be sent to a detention center, but then he was released for unknown reasons.

I met Felipe in the afternoon of the day he arrived. Asking him about his experiences, he said to me “Going through that horrible Please see page 5

What is Casa Juan Diego?

Casa Juan Diego was founded in 1980, following the Catholic Worker model of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, to serve immigrants and refugees and the poor with the corporal and spiritual Works of Mercy. From one small house it has grown to nine houses. Casa Juan Diego publishes a newspaper, the Houston Catholic Worker five or six times a year, to share the values of the Catholic Worker movement and the stories of immigrants and refugees uprooted by the realities of the global economy.

• Central office for donations of food or clothing: 4818 Rose, Houston, TX 77007. Correspondence: P. O. Box 70113, Houston, TX 77270.

• Women’s House of Hospitality: Hospitality and services for immigrant women and children, especially serving pregnant women.

• Assistance to paralyzed and seriously ill immigrants in the community.

• Casa Don Marcos for immigrant men new to the country • Padre Jack Davis Men’s Cooperative 4811 Lillian at Shepherd, Monday through Saturday 6:00 to 10:00 a.m.

Laborers available at $10.00 per hour minimum.

(713) 869-7376. (Must go inside the building) • Don Bosco House for sick and wounded men.

• English classes for guests of the houses.

• Casa Maria Social Service Center and Medical Clinic.

• Casa Juan Diego Medical Clinic.

• Food and clothing centers: For 600 families weekly.

• Casa Juan Diego in Mexico.

• Liturgy in Spanish Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m. at 4811 Lillian at Shepherd.

Funding: Casa Juan Diego is funded by voluntary contributions.

Our Needs

Maseca Canned pinto beans Tuna Coffee Sugar Adult diapers – pull-ups Editors Translators Proofreading

Adult diapers-briefs with tabs Underpads Wipes Toilet tissue Wheel chairs

Houston Catholic Worker Vol. XXXIX, No. 4

Louise Zwick and Susan Gallagher Sofía Rubio, Blanca Flores Dawn McCarty, Marie Abernethy, Emma Kloes

Colleen Sheehy, Meg Spesia,

David Miller, Will Kershner, Technical Director Joachim Zwick Circulation Stephen Lucas

Manuel Sierra, ,Julián Juarez, Manuel Rangel,

Valentin Martinez, José Viola, Pascual Reyes,

Carlos Varela, Victor Arrojo, Denis Varela,

Ramiro Rescalvo, Victor Díaz, Jordin Díaz

Felipe Servellon, Diego Rivas, Pedro Chun Permanent Louise Zwick Support Group Stephen Lucas, Lillian Lucas, Andy Durham,

Betsy Escobar, Kent Keith, Pam Janks,

Dawn McCarty, Julia Gallagher, Alvaro and Jane

Montealagre, Monica Hatcher, Joachim Zwick Volunteer Doctors Drs. John Butler, Daniel Corredor,

Nageeb Abdalla, Magdy Tadros, Wm. Lindsey,

Laura Porterfield, Joann Schulte

Jorge Guerreo, Sr. Roseanne Popp, CCVI,

Enrique Batres, Darío Zuñiga, Cecilia Lowder,

Jaime Chavarría, Amelia Averyt,

Deepa Iyengar, Justo Montalvo, Mohammed

Zare, Joan Killen, Gary Brewton,

Serena Shen-Lin Volunteer Dentist Drs. Peter Gambertoglio, Michael Morris

Mercedes Berger, Jose Lopez, Justin Seaman,

Maged Shokralla, Florence Zare Casa Maria Juliana Zapata and Manuel Soto

Casa Juan Diego P. O. Box 70113, Houston, TX 77270 Telephone: (713) 869-7376, email: info@cjd.org World Wide Web: http://www.cjd.org

Houston Catholic Worker

Love in Action

Raising a Prophetic Voice

before I walk through the door, and find onions on palates, chest high.

Some weeks potatoes or carrots are available. Last week we had a treat: oranges and tangerines!

Hundreds of pounds of them had been distributed by midmorning Tuesday. Rice and beans, we order by the ton, literally.

In addition to providing food for some 500 families each week, Casa Juan Diego provides hospitality to immigrant women and children, especially those who are pregnant or who have survived physical violence; operates Don Bosco House for sick and injured men; assists paralyzed and seriously ill immigrants in the community; runs a labor cooperative and a medical clinic, and offers Mass in Spanish each Wednesday evening.

In this way, we try to practice “love in action”, in the Catholic Worker tradition. In addition to these corporal works of mercy, we also feel called to share the work of Casa Juan Diego with the wider community through this newspaper. In it, we discuss not just what we do, but why we do it. We hope to clarify the spiritual underpinnings of the work and to engage our readers in

large copy of Fritz Eichenburg’s Flight into Egypt, in which the Holy Family is depicted as migrant parents and their child.

When I (a part-time volunteer) arrive on Mondays, the entrada is usually filled with food, just delivered by Houston Food Bank in preparation for the weekly food distribution.

Some weeks I smell onions

thinking about how to make a more just society, one in which it is “easier for people to be good,” to quote Peter Maurin.

We know that Christians are called to raise a prophetic voice when they encounter injustice, especially serious, sustained actions which threaten the safety and dignity of the powerless.

Peaceful public protest, direct

action, and civil disobedience are also means to speak truth to power. As the United States Catholic Bishops have said, “…

[Non-violence] consists of a commitment to resist manifest injustice and public evil with means other than [violent] force. These include dialogue, negotiations, protests, strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, and civilian resistance.”

(Harvest of Justice is Sown in Peace, 1993, http://www. usccb.org/issues-and-action/ human-life-and-dignity/ war-and-peace/excerptsfrom-the-harvest-of-justice-issown-in-peace-centrality-ofconscience-1993-11.cfm) For the past two years, some volunteers here at Casa Juan Diego have joined with others in peaceful protest of current immigration policies, such as the use of overcrowded, inhumane detention centers, the erosion of procedures for claiming asylum, and especially the separation of families and the ever more prolonged detention of children under appalling conditions.

On July 12, 2019, several full-time Catholic Workers joined me in attending a vigil to protest the current system of immigrant detention camps, especially detention of children separated from their parents.

We had our signs ready: They read, “Dignity for immigrants” and “I was a stranger and you welcomed me…Matthew 25.35” and “No Family Separation” and “Separating babies from their mothers is not the answer and is immoral.”

When we arrived at the vigil, in front of one of the detention centers for minors run by Southwest Key, I was pleased to see many people I knew. My former boss from an adult literacy program was there with members of her Mennonite Church. Friends from Trinity Episcopal Church Midtown were present, including several clergymen and clergywomen in their collars.

Representatives of the Dominican Sisters of Houston were there, carrying signs with the black and white shield that is their logo.

People of every age and race

Angel Valdez

by Susan Gallagher Casa Juan Diego is a busy place, powered by an amazingly hard-working core of full-time, live-in Catholic Workers and aided by a vast and varied troop of part-time volunteers. Multi-tasking is a must, since the phone and the doorbell never stop ringing.

Meals and meetings take place against the background hum of the immigrant mothers and children we are currently housing, and are interrupted repeatedly as workers excuse themselves to go to the door or answer a question or receive a donation.

Step into the modest entrada (entrance) of our main building, and you begin to get a feel for our work. On the right is a bookcase filled with issues of our newspaper and books about the Catholic Worker movement in English and Spanish. Over it is a portrait of Don Marcos, Mark Zwick, who founded Casa Juan Diego, together with Louise Zwick. The picture was painted as a gift after Mark passed away by a local artist who, despite being confined to a wheelchair, continues to produce artwork for our newspaper. On the left of the entrada is a payphone and on the opposite wall is an old sofa beneath a

were assembled. The person standing next to me as we all squeezed onto the side of the pavement turned out to be the librarian from my (now adult) children’s elementary school.

I saw representatives of Black Lives Matter, several Native American organizations, the Brown Berets and members of numerous Lantinx social justice groups.

Someone came through the crowd distributing candles. We lit them, lifted them up, and everyone chanted, “No hate!

No fear! Immigrants are

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welcome here!” We hoped that the children inside the detention center could hear us and know there were people who cared about them.

On the way home after the vigil, one of the young people who was just about to return to college said she had never attended a demonstration before and was so glad to have done so during her time at Casa Juan Diego. Given that Dorothy Day had participated in numerous peaceful protests, it seemed a fitting conclusion to her time Please see page 8

Pope Francis greets Cardinal Alvaro Ramazinni

New Cardinal Continued from page 1

country, the migrants had no resources.

Hearing from guests of our houses that they stayed in a park that they called “The Park of the Desolate,” we hoped to find local Guatemalans interested in helping. Mark thought of beginning by speaking to the Bishop. Bishop Ramazzini was very receptive and Casa Juan Diego collaborated with him in constructing a building and center there for migrant women. We attended his beautiful liturgies and parish celebrations.

Bishop Ramazzini is well known for his defense of the poor, of migrants, of humble workers so often exploited.

He has worked for land reform and confronted the activities of drug traffickers and coyotes, as well as international mining corporations who were adversely affecting the lives of the people. As a human rights advocate in a country with a history of extreme violence, he received several death threats. Undeterred, he continued his work as a Bishop and pastor to the

whole community, especially including the indigenous poor, a large percentage of the Guatemalan population.

Congratulations to Pope Francis for selecting Bishop Ramazzini, a true disciple of Jesus and the Gospel, a shepherd to all of his flock who defends their human dignity. An outstanding new advisor and assistant for the Pope.

Bishop Ramazzini’s comments to his people as he learned that he will be a Cardinal were widely published, especially in Latin America: “I give thanks to God and to Pope Francis for giving me the chance to be an advisor to him in order to tell him what is happening in this part of the world, where many times the information that arrives at the Vatican does not reflect the reality of your lives. The responsibility that I take on is to carry the voices of the Catholic and non-Catholic people of Guatemala to those offices where important decisions are made for the whole Church.”

Houston Catholic Worker

By BILL GRIFFIN More French-speaking guests have been arriving at Casa Juan Diego from Africa.

We have been fortunate to have volunteers who speak French and some of our Catholic Workers who have never studied French have begun a study of the language. Last spring we also had a visit from Pierre from Paris, who told us about Le Café Dorothy there.

When Bill Griffin’s article appeared (reprinted here from The Catholic Worker in New York), we were very interested to know more of the growing presence and awareness of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin and the Catholic Worker in France.

Dorothy Day wrote: “As you come to know the seriousness of our situation— the war, the racism, the poverty in the world—you come to realize it is not going to be changed just by words or demonstrations. It’s a question of living your life in drastically different ways” *** “We want to change the world....

By crying out unceasingly for the rights of workers, of the poor, of the destitute.... We can throw our pebble in the pond and be con dent that its ever-widening circle will reach around the world. “ These quotations feature on two striking posters. One features a severe line drawing of Dorothy Day by an unknown artist. The second shows the famous Bob Fitch photograph of her last arrest on an United Farmworker Union picket line in 1973. I brought sets of these posters to Le Café Dorothy in Paris and to Le Café Simone in Lyons on a trip to France in June. The main occasion for this trip was to celebrate my uncle Joseph Bernardo’s ninetieth birthday. His older sister, my mother Marinette, died last November.

The family gathering was very moving and the opportunity to visit the new French Catholic Worker-inspired experiments renewing. The opening of these centers accompanied the publication of a remarkable new biography

Dorothy Day: Révolution du Coeur

Dorothy Day: La Révolution du Coeur. It is a cooperative effort and has three authors: Elizabeth Geoffroy teaches philosophy, Floriane de Rivaz is a library conservator; both are recent graduates of the École Normale Supérieure.

Baudouin de Guillebon is a doctoral student in philosophy.

Their wellwritten book emphasizes the importance of her Catholic faith and practice and presents a detailed and largely accurate review of Catholic Worker history. The contribution of Peter Maurin is given much deference but the clarity and the force of Dorothy Day’s defense of workers’ rights and her critique of racism are even more prominent. Their book merits translation into English for the fresh new perspective it provides.

The roots of the youthful communities around Le Café Dorothy and Le Café Simone spring from the milieu of Catholic university students. Both cafés have a municipal status as café associatif in the public interest and not as commercial under takings.

However, it is the Catholic Archdioceses in Paris and in Lyons which have provided the roofs over their heads as far as I understand. Le Café Dorothy is located in the densely populated 20th arrondissement where there are encampments of homeless folks, often immigrants without papers.

There is no soup kitchen but there are regular job-training workshops in plumbing and carpentry. These are directed by skilled, older volunteers allied with the university students and provided, free of charge, to the poor youth of the neighborhood. French youth unemployment is very high.

Le Café Simone in Lyons is named after Simone Weil (1909-1943). Trained in philosophy at the famous, École Normale Supérieure, Weil made the extraordinary choice to work in auto factories in the late Thirties after graduating. She drew from her long and harsh experience many profound insights. The Need for

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Roots, Gravity and Grace, and Waiting For God are writings in the current of Catholic Worker analysis. Le Café Simone is a co-working space for students and others grappling with the precarious gig economy, based on computer technologies. Two engaging graduates there spoke with me about their work using the internet to start recycling programs to help reduce the enormous waste of supermarket foodstuffs and electronic equipment. I learned recently that 400,000 cell-phones are disposed of each day in the US. Work which does not degrade the worker is a fundamental concern in both communities as it was for Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin.

I was privileged to attend two fascinating roundtable discussions at Le Café Dorothy. One was titled “Simone Weil: How to Think about Work.” The Weil specialist, a professor whose name I neglected to write down, anchored the exchange of ideas in a lively, thoughtprovoking way. Weil’s 1942 essay, “Condition Première d’un Travail Non Servile” is translated as “The First Condition for the Work of a Free Person” and is available in Simone Weil: Late

Philosophical Writings.

This essay was the key text for the discussion and is also available online.

Here is a brief inadequate summary: First, manual labor is in no way inferior to intellectual work.

Under the proper circumstances it can nurture attention, contemplation and prayer. However, the former has been degraded under industrialized hyperproduction methods. Weil experienced the assembly line piece-work system, the Taylor system first imposed

by Henry Ford in his US auto plants, as absolutely soulcrushing. According to Weil, under both US capitalism and Russian Communist collectivism, this production system is aberrant. The illusion of the former is endless profits while under the latter endless worker progress is the empty dream.

The basis of Weil’s condemnation of each system lies in each one’s refusal to face the limitations of the human condition. Monotony and boredom in both manual and intellectual work, like sickness and death in life will always be part of the human condition.

Weil’s remedy resembles Peter Maurin’s linking together of cult,

culture and cultivation: “There is no choice of remedies. There is only one.

Only one thing alone makes the monotony bearable, that is light from eternity; that is beauty.... Such poetry can only have one source. This source is God. This poetry can only be religion. By no trick, by no process, no reform, no upheaval, can finality enter into the universe where workers are placed by their very condition. But this universe can be completely linked to the only end that is true. It can be hooked onto God.” Weil wanted to abolish both the private capitalist and the collectivist profiteering industrial systems.

The second roundtable talk I was fortunate to be able to attend was given by Pierre Jova. He is a journalist at the weekly Pèlerin (The Pilgrim). He presented his investigative study, Les Chrétiens Face aux Migrants: Accueillir ou Rejeter? This title translates as “Christians Face to Face with Migrants: To Welcome or to Reject?” This in-depth study took him to the four corners of France. His aim was, above all, to, “touch the human reality” and bring out the complexities and nuances of the current severe crisis.

He intentionally uses the word “migrant” to designate all political refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants.

According to a June 2018 poll of French Catholics only 45% stated that they welcomed migrants. Twentytwo percent of the respondents voiced having an “ambivalent” attitude toward migrants. A solid 33% said that they are hostile to their arrival and reject their presence in France. The words and the spirit of Pope Francis’ exhortations to European Catholics to welcome migrants are rejected by fully a third of French Catholics.

The plight of drowning migrants crossing the Mediterranean has led Pope Francis to decry the “globalization of indifference.”

His fullthroated appeal to the economically prosperous and Please see page 9

Houston Catholic Worker

Notre Dame Student Shares the Life of the Poor

Angel Valdez

Continued from page 2

treatment, without proper food, clothing, showers, or sleeping arrangements, all the suffering… the worst thing was the separation. To be without my wife and children is the most painful thing.”

Though Felipe was reunited with his family again, it is important to remember that many immigrants aren’t so lucky.

While in prison, the authorities had taken Felipe’s money and identification from him. When he left, they gave him a check for the money, but did not return his ID. The day after he arrived, we went to the bank to cash in his check, but it turned out that he could not cash the check without his ID. So not only was his ID stolen, but his money was not returned to him in a form he could use.

I sat in the back seat of the car with Felipe during our ride from bank to bank to try to find one that would cash this check. I don’t remember the conversation but remember thinking it ironic that the person sitting next to me had gone through all the atrocities and injustices that had, and yet he still possessed a hilarious sense of humor.

Driving around in a car and joking around, something so simple and common to the life of an American university student, I was

having a great time doing the same thing with Felipe.

Mother Theresa writes “The problem with the world is that we draw the circle of our family too small.” There is no reason for immigrants like Felipe to be outside of that circle.

One of the men in the men’s house, Antonio, had a bit of a speech impediment.

I found it quite difficult to understand him in either Spanish or English, though he spoke both quite well.

This, paired with the fact that he was extremely friendly, spoke 1000 words a minute, and that my Spanish is still improving, made some of my conversations with him quite frustrating for me. He would have to repeat things over and over and I would beat myself up for not being good enough at Spanish to understand it. Of course, in my insecurity, I also thought he might be teasing me in Spanish, but I was too foolish to understand it.

Because of all this, I was quite accustomed to strenuous effort when I attempted to hear him speak.

One night, after spending a long day compost-turning in the garden, I had fallen asleep dog tired. Additionally, I had to wake up early the next morning in order to make it to the clinic. Right before my alarm was set to go off, I

was awakened by a voice singing. A man playing the guitar belted out a Spanish melody with weeping words that brought me to tears while still laying in my bed half asleep. It was as if a choir of angels had gently woken me with music in the morning. I got dressed as fast as I could, but alas my muse had already left. It was only later that day that I found out it was no other than Antonio himself.

Examples of artistic genius among people experiencing homelessness at CJD are numerous.

There are painters, such as Enrique who made the gorgeous portrait of Mark Zwick in the entrada of CJD. Another example is one of our women from the Congo who made delightful bags from recycled newspaper.

Though we don’t often feel the American Dream of old, there are still people who will stop at nothing to achieve it.

Pablo is as animate as he is friendly. He also was very good at English and loved to practice it with me, which frustrated me because I wanted to practice my Spanish with him.

Pablo came to us directly from the border, so was completely fatigued from his 5-day journey through the desert.

With the gusto that many of our guests had, he left with the men on the first morning he was at the house in order to work for the day.

Suffering from a lack of proper hydration and nutrition, he passed out on his first day on the job. It is amazing that when I would look for any reason to call into school sick, the guests here would work to the point of passing out.

Pablo and I got into a conversation about food. He is a vegetarian who objected to the meat-raising practices in Mexico.

I was struck that someone living in such conditions could at the same time be so mindful about the agricultural practices of his area. He also loved to garden.

Being unable to afford a yard, he tended to a plot of land next to a nearby river in his town.

He showed me pictures of the things which he grew: yuca, lemons, limes, corn. He described in detail the most perfectly ripe

tomatoes that he grew and cherished.

Pablo had to sell his house in order to pay the $8,000 fee to the coyotes in order to cross the border. Of course, that doesn’t make the journey completely safe. He had gash marks on his shins from the barbed wire that cut him at the border. Along with his house, he left his garden that he tilled with his own hands.

Such is the luster of the American Dream.

There are also those who will choose to leave their family in order to provide for them in the U.S. A father named Diego is living at CJD and sending the money he makes to his two sons so that they can go to school. It is hard to understand how difficult such a life would be without considering how important family is to many Latin Americans. You can

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imagine the type of discussions and tension within a family such a separation may cause. Many of the family members would have told him not to leave, that being together is the most important thing. The decision to leave is a difficult one, and for Diego is one of selflessness.

Yet, many people believe that giving their children an education is worth the suffering of separation, and because of this they come to America for economic improvement.

When one is blessed enough to spend time with the poor, through their example they will call us to more. It’s why our parents tell us to be careful about the friends that we choose: as we spend time with them, we often notice qualities about them that we want in Please see page 6

Vatican News has announced the publication of a new book in Spanish for which Pope Francis has written the preface. It is entitled: The Emergence of Popular Movements: “Rerum Novarum” of our time.” Edited by Guzmán Carriquiry Lecour and Gianni La Bella, it covers research into thousands of representatives of popular associations which have participated in the series of World Meetings held in Latin America since 2014. Very different from what is known as “populism,” these popular movements among people from the peripheries are, Pope Francis says in his preface, “a lever for profound social transformation.” The book is published by the Vatican Publishing House.

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Houston Catholic Worker

Continued from page 1

The Incarnation Should Make Us Prophets

L.V. Diaz

The example of Jesus’ coming as a small child, of his birth in a poor stable may give us a clue. Our role may not be well known anywhere.

Very likely it may be humble, but it may also be prophetic and it may be joyful, in spite of cruel realities.

Speaking about the condition of the world at the time when Jesus was born, Saint Oscar Romero said in one of his sermons, “The history of Jesus’ time is amazingly like our own.

There were political groups just as there are today. Some were in favor of empire, others were against it.”

Archbishop Romero went on to say, “I wish, dear fellow Christians, that we would assimilate this news so as to make it our way of life, our proclamation, our confidence, our security.

How I wish that we would be inspired, not by the pessimism, sadness, psychosis, and fear all around us, but by the angel’s confident message: “I bring you good news.”

We could add, we wish we would not be seduced by lures of power, possessions, or fame, especially at the time of the coming of God. Sometimes we are so far from recognizing and focusing on God’s presence in our lives and in our world that as C. S. Lewis wrote, “The joys of Heaven would be for the most of us, in our present condition, an acquired taste.”

The Magnificat The response of Mary, the mother of Jesus, to the exciting news of the coming birth that she shares with her cousin Elizabeth during the Visitation is the Magnificat.

This prayer is recited every day during the Divine Office and prayed by people around the world. Read in its entirety, the Magnificat is striking in its commentary.

It is a hymn not only about the greatness of the Incarnation and Mary’s acceptance of her role in it, but about the dignity of the poor and humble and about not making idols of wealth, power, luxury, and money.

Before being executed by the Nazis, the German

Dietrich Bonheoffer preached these words about the Magnificat in a sermon during Advent: “This song of Mary’s is the oldest Advent hymn. It is the most passionate, most vehement, one might almost say, most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. It is not the gentle, sweet, dreamy Mary that we so often see portrayed in pictures, but the passionate, powerful, proud, enthusiastic Mary, who speaks here. None of the sweet, sugary, or childish tones that we find so often in our Christmas hymns, but a hard, strong, uncompromising song of bringing down rulers from their thrones and humbling the lords of this world, of God’s power and of the powerlessness of men. These are the tones of the prophetic women of the Old Testament: Deborah, Judith, Miriam, coming alive in the mouth of Mary. (From Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christmas Sermons, edited and translated by Edwin Robertson, from Zondervan 2005.

Mary’s prophetic message can help us understand God’s project and our possible role in it. Here is the prayer:

“My soul magnifies the Lord And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; Because He has regarded the lowliness of His handmaid; For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed; Because He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name;

And His mercy is from

generation to generation on those who fear Him. He has shown might with His arm, He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.

He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and has exalted the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.

He has given help to Israel, his servant, mindful of His mercy Even as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity forever” (Luke 1).

people - and the world was changed.

The Shadow of the Cross at the Nativity When the baby Jesus was presented in the temple and Simeon pronounced him a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory for the people of Israel, he also predicted the cross, that a sword would pierce Jesus’ mother’s heart.

If we remember that the shadow of the cross and thus the prefiguring of the Pascal mystery were present from the beginning, we can better understand the implications of the Incarnation for ourselves and our world and the mystery of the poor.

“The joys of Heaven would be for the most of us, in our present condition, an acquired taste.” – C. S. Lewis Jesus’ Incarnation continues today among the poor, who suffer many crosses. As He told us in Matthew 25:31ff., what we do for the poor, for the sick, for the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the prisoner, we do for Him.

to our world and especially to the poor and the sick and the lame, so that we will not have so far to go when the time comes for the “acquired taste” for the Kingdom.

ND Student and the Poor Continued from page 5

Our Lady has continued her advocacy for exalting the lowly and filling the hungry with good things over the centuries, as she did when she appeared as Our Lady of Guadalupe. As Mark Zwick said some years ago, “Our Lady of Guadalupe continues to build up the Kingdom by reminding poor people that they are worthy of an apparition.” She appeared during the time of the conquistadors, a time of such terrible repression and lack of respect for human dignity that the Franciscan Bishop Zumárraga of Mexico wrote to the King of Spain to tell him that the situation was insupportable, that only a miracle of God could save the situation and the earth.

The missionaries prayed for a miracle. Shortly thereafter Mary appeared as an indigenous woman, Our Lady of Guadalupe, affirming the dignity of an oppressed

Hopefully, the Incarnation continues also in his followers. As Saint Oscar Romero said, “To the extent that we seek out the history of salvation, we also become incarnate in the history of our people.”

Pope Francis said, “We may not always be able to reflect adequately the beauty of the Gospel, but there is one sign which we should never lack: the option for those who are least, those whom society discards.”

(Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium 195) May we attempt to center our lives on the Good News of Christ Jesus and bring the beauty and joy of the Gospel

ourselves.

As Catholics believe that the poor are the face of Christ. The men at CJD molded me in the manner of Jesus to his Disciples. Each day I saw, through them, an image of the man I want to become.

Dear Louise,

At some point, we need to realize that we are all in the same boat; we need the help of the poor just as much as they need ours. When we reach that state of mind and action, we will know it by the triumphant joy that accompanies it.

Letter

I was deeply moved by your article and all the articles in the July-Sept. issue of HCW. Now that I am 89 years, I am not able to travel as much as before, but I feel deeply the plight of our dear brothers and sisters at the border.

I am very close to our L’Arche communities in Honduras – Choluteca, Tegucigalpa.

There are many families that come to Casa Juan Diego who are like Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Looking for a place to stay and receive comfort and nourishment.

If you have names or pictures you would like to send me, I will put them before the Blessed Sacrament, where I will remember them in a special way each day.

We are still very grateful for you and Mark (R.I.P.) present at our Faith & Sharing Retreat so many years ago. We still have our annual retreat. You are always in my heart and prayers. In the heart of Jesus.

Fr. Jim O’Donnell, Cleveland, Ohio

Houston Catholic Worker

Continued from page 1

go to the police after falling victim to crime for fear of being turned over to immigration authorities, so preying on them is practically risk-free.

While he was waiting for our staff to pack up some supplies, the man told me what had happened. With little memory of the event, after the assault, he was taken to the emergency room, where they stabilized him and admitted him for a head injury. He was hospitalized for a few days, then released, but he was only recently able to work again, and could not catch up in time to pay his rent.

For the first time, I really looked at him. Almost like pictures on a computer screen morphing from one photo to another, I saw the damage to his face. I did a double take, hardly believing my eyes.

The right side of his face was still swollen and covered in scabs. In my rush to get him categorized and in one line or the other, I had not really seen him.

I thought about the man all day. My mind kept shifting between images of the man’s ruined face and a painting I saw as a child of the Good Samaritan attending to a man ambushed on the road to Jericho. As told by Jesus (Luke 10:25-37), the parable is often seen as a lesson in how we should respond to the suffering of a stranger. The traveler along the road had been beaten, almost to death.

The officials, in their importance and place of distance from the poor, passed by but did not stop to help. However, a Samaritan, a person of a different and despised race, a man who was seen as the enemy, not only stopped to help but even paid an innkeeper from his own pocket for the care that the wounded man needed. A Good Samaritan, indeed!

This was probably the first parable that I can remember.

In my family, failure to help another person in trouble was not an option, so even as a child I thought that I would have stopped and given aid, no question! And, today as a Catholic Worker, sometimes I am guilty of thinking that, just maybe a little, we are

Samaritans and Solidarity

modern day Good Samaritans ourselves. But that is not the case, really. The role of the good Samaritan is played by our many funders. In the parable, the Samaritan gives the innkeeper money for the man’s care, and more importantly, promises to pay whatever extra he might need in the coming days. If we try to apply the parable to Casa Juan Diego, the closest analogy to the Good Samaritan must be our generous supporters.

All those that give small amounts of money and large, and all those that give up entire days during their week and very early mornings to help us with the many times difficult work of feeding and clothing and caring for a growing number of people, they, not us, merit being called Good Samaritans.

Catholic Workers fit a humbler role in the parable: that of the innkeeper who takes care of the injured man after the Good Samaritan rescues him, and gives the caretaker the resources needed to care for the stranger and provide hospitality. Our job at Casa Juan Diego, then, is to make sure we are good stewards of the many Good Samaritans who make our work possible.

But, taken in context, the parable goes much deeper than just a call to help strangers. Jesus and a lawyer were actually discussing how to attain eternal life! Jesus agreed with the lawyer that the path to salvation is the Great Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

But then, to “justify himself,” the text says, the lawyer asked, “Who is my neighbor?”

This seems odd. Your neighbor is the person who lives close to you, right? I consulted some commentaries, but there is not a lot of agreement on what all this means. So, let me offer my decidedly non-scholarly thoughts.

Houston is one of the most culturally, racially, and ethnically diverse cities anywhere, certainly more diverse than 1st century Palestine.

But even in

Houston, a lawyer’s neighbors, anybody’s neighbors, really, are a pretty good bet to be from the same ethnic group and roughly the same socio-economic class as the lawyer. The one in the story, quite naturally, would assume that his neighbors are people that looked like him, because they were. So, he must have been thinking, he would be justified in loving people who looked like him, and ignoring, or even mistreating, those who did not, would he not? After all, the Great Commandment says to love your neighbor as yourself, not to love strangers and foreigners. Take care of your own people first, right?

Jesus saw the issue very differently.

Rather than arguing with the lawyer, however, he tells a story about an injured Jewish man helped by a Samaritan. Now to the lawyer, to just about any Jewish person of that time, there was no such thing as a good Samaritan. A Samaritan was not only culturally and religiously different, he was, as Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out in a famous sermon, a man of another race. But Jesus

thieves? The lawyer had to answer that it was the Samaritan who showed mercy on him, not the “good” people who passed him by.

The Samaritan, who could not even have approached the lawyer’s house without being run off, let alone allowed to live next to him, was the one God commanded us to love, he was the “neighbor.” The person that is most different from us, the despised, the feared, the least among us-this is our neighbor.

At Casa Juan Diego, the work of taking care of our “neighbor” looks a little commonplace.

We cook, clean, fill out forms, drive our guests to mandated visits with immigration officials, to court, to medical appointments, transport our children to and from summer school because the bus does not run in the summer, make daily trips to the pharmacy to buy medication for the sick, answer the steady ringing of the doorbell of a person in need – these are just a few of the daily activities. There is no end to all these seemingly ordinary actions that make up the collective work of welcoming, nurturing,

Angel Valdez

Cultivating Hope in Troubled Times

makes a despised Samaritan the hero of the story! Then he puts the lawyer on the spot.

Remember, the discussion here is not about being nice and being helpful, it is about who is this “neighbor” we are commanded by God to love; it is about our eternal destiny.

And Jesus asks him who he thought acted as a neighbor to the man who fell among

forgiving, and sustaining our wounded traveler.

But, all these acts in reality are collective Works of Mercy, sometimes hidden in plain sight, that also create the foundation for what I have found to be the most important thing we provide at Casa Juan Diego: solidarity with our guests.

By voluntarily joining migrant

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persons in their struggle, taking on as much of it as we can, sharing their lives, their living conditions, and their vulnerability, whether to ICE or to angry anti-migrant folks who show up to yell at them and us. It may seem counterintuitive to draw closer to the fire, but it is where we find salvation, according to the parable. Solidarity does not require a particular political affiliation or viewpoint on migration; in fact, such things are irrelevant and get in the way.

It is the acknowledgement that a person who does not resemble you at all, a person from another society is your neighbor in Jesus’s sense, the neighbor that you are commanded to love. It sends the message to a person in trouble that they are not alone, and that they matter. It demonstrates in action a clear and direct message that they are valued; a magic word for those on the margins. For many just knowing that they are not alone, that someone is on their side and has their back, is what allows people to keep going under unimaginably difficult circumstances.

Solidarity is also the antidote to the despair I feel when I hear firsthand reports of terrible abuse by our own government at our southern border, or read the paper or see the latest rule that is designed to harm and terrorize people that I love, people that literally have nothing but the children they have carried across a continent. In solidarity with our guests at Casa Juan Diego, I am also not alone in these frightening times. And while love is not required as the initial motivation for solidarity, I can testify that it is always the outcome. So, take heart my sisters and brothers, we are not powerless even when the scales of justice seem heavily weighted down on the side of fear and hatred. Cultivate solidarity in whatever way you can. Being in solidarity is an intentional joining of hands and boldly stating to the world that if they come for you, they also come for me. There is nothing more powerful and transformative in our human community.

Houston Catholic Worker

A Prophetic Voice Continued from page 3

as a Catholic Worker, she said.

Not only did Day believe in the value of public protest, she also at times felt called to go further and engage in civil disobedience. According to her granddaughter, Kate Hennessy, Day was arrested eight times in connection with civil disobedience, between 1917, when she was arrested with a group of women suffragists, and 1973 when she picketed with Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers (Kate Hennessy, Dorothy Day and a: The Miracle of Our Continuance 107-8).

Between 1955 and 1961, Dorothy Day and other Catholic Workers engaged in a series of direct actions in New York City to protest air raid drills that civil defense authorities said would protect the populace in the event of nuclear war. At an appointed time, a siren would sound and citizens were to proceed into the subway or basements of buildings to take shelter. (I myself remember drills such as these when I was a school girl in Brooklyn, New York, and we students were told to crouch under our desks.)

Instead of taking shelter, the Catholic Workers sat on benches in City Hall Park until they were arrested and jailed. In the July-August 1955 issue of The Catholic Worker newspaper, several articles explained the reasons for this civil disobedience.

First, as pacifists, the Catholic Workers thought that war was immoral.

Furthermore, sheltering in basements or subways would be utterly ineffective in protecting citizens from harm in case of a nuclear strike, and therefore, The Catholic Worker argued, the air raid drills were dishonest and were more useful in creating panic and justifying warspending than actually keeping people safe.

In that issue, Dorothy Day wrote that she saw her act of civil disobedience as “an act of public penance” for the fact that the United States had been the first to use nuclear weapons (Dorothy Day, “Where Are the Poor?

They Are in Prisons, Too,” The Catholic Worker, July-

Civil Disobedience and Divine Obedience August 1955, 1,8).

She framed her civil disobedience as a form of penance a year later, when she again refused to comply with the air-raid drills. After she was arrested, she told the judge she wanted to “offer her freedom” in

ones were not rapists or murders, but were children of God. As I read and watched and listened to accounts of this Catholic “Day of Action” in Washington , I was struck by similarities to the Catholic

L.V. Diaz

Page 8

support of her pacifist position (Nancy L. Roberts, Dorothy Day and The Catholic Worker,151).

As I drove home from the vigil in Houston in July 2019, I thought about the protests in New York City and the articles from July 1955. I thought about them again a week later on July 18, 2019 when I heard about the civil disobedience in Washington, D.C., in which 70 Catholic leaders were arrested as part of a “Catholic Day of Action for Immigrant Children.”

Numerous press reports describe a coalition of more than 200 Catholic lay people, religious women and men, and clergy, who entered the rotunda of the Capitol. Each of them held a large picture of a child who had died in immigrant detention. Five demonstrators lay on the floor forming the shape of a cross as the group prayed and sang. Various speakers renounced the detention of children, and, calling attention to the pictures of the children who died in detention, said that these little

Worker’s action in 1955 and 1956.

In the Washington protest, the leaders utterly rejected the policy of separating families and detaining children, just as Dorothy Day and her fellows rejected war.

Just as the Catholic Workers of the 1950’s rejected the false claims that were the basis of air raid drills, the Washington protesters also rejected the lies that lay at the basis of the immigrant detention policy.

Look at these innocent children who died while in the custody of our government, the protestors said, these are the ones who come to us claiming asylum.

They are not “invading” the United States.

They are innocents, not “criminals.”

The false claims that immigrants are dangerous criminals invading our country are being used to justify changes to the immigration system of unprecedented and unwarranted cruelty.

As I read more deeply about the Catholic Day of Action for Immigrant

Children, I came across the words of Tinamarie Stolz, one of the participants, explaining her decision to engage in peaceful civil disobedience.

She wrote, “…[Why] I feel called to participate in non-violent civil disobedience again is simple -- sometimes I just have to put my body in the way. …there are times I believe the Holy Spirit invites me to hear and feel a microscopic reflection of God’s pain in the world” (https://ignatiansolidarity.net/ blog/2019/07/17/non-violentcivil-disobedience/) Her motivation seemed to me to be similar to Dorothy Day’s description of her civil disobedience as a “penance.”

Stolz concluded, “God does not call everyone to nonviolent civil disobedience.

But God calls everyone to faith in action”(ibid).

Sixteen days after the day of action at the Capitol, on August 3, 2019, we learned of the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, which left over 20 people dead and others wounded. It has been widely reported the shooter complained of a “Hispanic invasion” and that he intended to kill Hispanic people.

We were all profoundly shocked, bent over with grief. Here at Casa Juan Diego, we have particularly close ties to many who live and work in the El Paso area. Some of us have lived or worked there ourselves. It felt very close to home, very personal.

God’s sinful people. God is presented saying, “My people perish for want of knowledge!

Since you have rejected my knowledge, I will reject you from my priesthood; Since you have ignored your God, I will also ignore your sons.

One and all they sin against me, Exchanging their glory for shame.

They feed on the sin of my people, And are greedy for their guilt.”

(Hosea 4.6-8) Here is a depiction of an angry God, like a brokenhearted and angry parent. But that is not the end of the story.

Because, of course, God continues by speaking of tender and merciful love: “I drew them … with bands of love, I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks” (Hosea 11.4). God calls the people to return: “Return, O Israel, to the Lord, your God…Say to him, ‘Forgive all iniquity’… I will heal their defection, I will love them freely; for my wrath is turned away from them” (Hosea 14.2a, 3a, 5).

Suddenly I could imagine that someone inclined to violence was like the recalcitrant and idolatrous people described in Hosea.

Suddenly it seemed very urgent to repent of my rage, and to pray daily for any persons who might be tempted toward violence and

Dorothy Day wrote that she saw her act of civil disobedience as “an act of public penance” for the fact that the United States had been the first to use nuclear weapons.

Grief, sorrow, fear were not my only emotions, however.

I also felt rage. At the one who did it. At the ones I thought encouraged and facilitated prejudice and hate and violence. At the ones (including myself) who did not do enough to make things right. I am not proud of my anger, but I surely felt it. Nurtured it, maybe, as an alternative to despair.

The next day was Sunday, and at Mass the priest spoke of the Book of the Prophet Hosea, about God’s anger at

hate, and ask that by the grace of God we might be comforted and healed and diverted from that dark path.

There is a prayer I have always loved, called the Lorica or St. Patrick’s Breastplate.

In it, Patrick calls upon God’s protection as he walks through hostile territory: Christ with me Christ before me Christ behind me Christ within me Christ beneath me Please see page 9

Houston Catholic Worker

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Continued from page 4

organizationally sophisticated European Union of some 500 million citizens to create humane structures for several million migrants is being rejected. The Pope is accused of being naive about the dangers posed by the Islamic faith of the majority of the migrants. Nothing is being said about US and European governments whose serial wars over the last twenty years in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Mali and now Yemen have devastated those countries and forced men, women and children to flee. The destructive US-sponsored war in Central America throughout the 1980s is similarly a major cause of the migrant crisis today on the US southern border.

Pierre Jova’s investigation documents many small grassroots Christian efforts to intelligently and effectively aid the desperate migrants.

These efforts are diverse, ranging from cultural immersion programs in French families, language instruction and assistance with finding employment and navigating the French bureaucracy which is a big challenge. Jesuit Relief Services stands out as excellent in what they accomplish. Other less official efforts include bringing material aid to the encampments of homeless migrants in the povertystricken northeast neighborhood near Le Café Dorothy.

This last kind of

effort was promoted and is inspired by Fr. Benoist de Sinety. He contends that the French state is failing dismally to do its duty towards the migrants, so many of whom are weak and vulnerable.

Formerly in charge of the Parish of St. Germain des Prés, one of the oldest churches in Paris, located in the Latin Quarter, he helped start Le Café Dorothy. He was chaplain to university students initially inspired by Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato ’Si and its critique of the ecological crisis resulting from the dysfunctional and polluting organization of work. He is now the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Paris and a very eloquent advocate for migrants whose cause is now central to his ministry.

Pierre Jova raises an important consideration in the current, intense polemical debates swirling around the migrant tragedy. He cites the concerns of Andrea Riccardi, the main spokesperson for the Sant’Egidio movement which is especially closely aligned with Vatican positions on war and peace. Riccardi has voiced the opinion that Pope Francis does not fully appreciate the depth of the “psychosis” (Riccardi’s word) of his more than thousand year-old European Catholic flock.

He respectfully characterizes Pope Francis as the product of recent twentieth century Italian emigration to Argentina.

Riccardi holds that the Pope must deepen his analysis of concerns about national identity and culture.

He must distinguish them from those of xenophobic, ideologically fascist and racist discourses.

Riccardi calls for a new papal encyclical to clarify hearts and minds. Although the 2005 papal encyclical, Erga Migrantes Caritas Christi, (The Charity of Christ Towards Migrants) spoke unequivocally, the situation in Europe now calls for fresh guidance and an exhortation from the Pope.

In conclusion let me cite Father de Sinety expressing the spiritual priorities of the com- munity around Le Café Dorothy which was so hospitable to me: “To defend life is to defend the child who is going to be born, the old person who is going to die and also that of the homeless, the unemployed person and the migrant. We cannot compartmentalize our combat for human life.... The Church is not here to govern people but to constantly recall for them the essential things.

I am not saying that no conditions should be placed on migrants. It is normal for the state to guarantee national unity. But the Church is here to affirm that nothing can ever justify inhumanity in that process.”

It is remarkable that the vision of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin has found a renewed and quintessentially French incarnation today: the philosophy of personalism, a philosophy so old that it looks new. Both of the communities at Le Café Dorothy and Le Café Simone appreciated the posters.

L.V. Diaz

Hi Monica, Catching up on my reading this evening, I read your good article in the recent Houston Catholic Worker paper. It was such a good description of the situation and of your open heart toward all the refugees coming through Annunciation House.

In Dec-Jan a few years ago I was a volunteer through Ruben Garcia in El Paso when the refugees were received at the unused wing of the Loretto Nursing facility.

Hundreds pouring in with tether on their ankle needing a welcome smile, phone calls,

L.V. Diaz

Le Café Dorothy: The Catholic Worker in France

A Prophetic Voice

Continued from page 8

Christ above me Christ on my right Christ on my left Christ when I lie down Christ when I sit down Christ when I arise Christ in the heart of everyone who speaks of me Christ in every eye that sees me Christ in every ear that hears me.

I love how Patrick’s protection against his enemies comes through his blessing them, rather than cursing them – through wishing them grace and not affliction. It is a response I

hope to emulate.

Now the months are passing.

We are about to enter Advent and a new liturgical year. Our work of hospitality continues, work that makes demands on body, mind, and spirit. I am trying to remember the importance of loving all my neighbors and even my enemies, even though I am no good at it. We are all trying to remain ever hopeful.

Maranatha, come Lord Jesus, we await you.

Be born in all of us, saints and sinners alike. Be incarnate in our broken and wounded world.

Letters

food, shelter, clothing, rides to airport and bus station with a meal in their plastic bag. . .

God knows where each one is now. It was so needed, so exhausting, such an impact on my heart that I’m always remembering them. I’m sure you know that experience too.

Anyway, I just wanted to say hello and tell you how your article brought all that back to me.

We continue to be troubled by the disrespect of the people at the border. . .and feel helpless in the face of it.

Thanks, Kate O’Brien IHM, Michigan

Dear Good Folks@Casa Juan Diego, I am sure you have been overwhelmed with the “problems” at our border, and that many people have turned to you for help. albeit even temporary.

I am praying for your work and success in helping some people to have hope and a welcome, open door to our country.

Sincerely, Fr .William Arnold Columbus, Ohio