Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Bringing Christ's love to the world

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Teaming Up to Help Our Immigrant Friends

The Cabrini Immigration Commission of the Guadalupe Province, and the Cabrini University CAVS and community responded to an urgent need in a local school district in Southeast Pennsylvania. Three immigrant families in that district are in dire straits due to varying circumstances. When contacted by Karol Brewer, Co-Chair of the Cabrini Immigration Commission, Holly Oliver, the district social worker, explained the differing plights of these families. Due to the overwhelming generosity of Cabrini University alumni, faculty and staff and Villanova University staff members over the past year, Cabrini was able to provide support in the form of gift cards to assist these struggling families. Holly Oliver administers the gift cards to ensure that they provide the necessities needed. Abundant thanks to everyone who allows our support to continue.

Be sure to mark your calendars for Mother Cabrini’s 176th Birthday on July 15th from 1 – 4 pm at the Cabrini Cottage when we will once again be giving Mother “birthday gifts” that will enable us to support these families in meaningful ways.

 

CIS-NYC Advocating in Multiple Dimensions

At Cabrini Immigrant Services of NYC, our staff, through the program Justice for Immigrants (JFI), has participated in a number of mobilizations in the city and in our state’s capital to show our support for protecting immigrant rights!

We joined the New York Immigration Coalition’s Annual Member Congress in Albany, lobbying our assembly members for the New York for All Act, which would prohibit state and local collusion with federal immigration enforcement; as well as the Access to Representation Act, which would establish a right to universal representation, meaning anyone at risk of deportation who cannot afford a lawyer will be provided one; and finally, demanding that the budget for immigration legal services be increased to at least $175 million.

We also paid our respects at the vigil for Alex Pretti, who was murdered by ICE officers in Minnesota, as well as attended the ICE Out of NYC rally on the designated nationwide shutdown against ICE.

At our office on Friday, January 30th, our Social Services team hosted a Nutrition Workshop for clients, where they learned how to incorporate more vegetables and fruits into their meals. The participants also completed ten minutes of exercise and prepared a healthy recipe—a salad. We hope to continue our work serving the immigrant community whether it be in our office, in the state capital, or in the streets!

Elders Push for Immigrant Rights

Throughout this year, retirees and senior citizens in their 60s, 70s, and 80s have teamed up with consecrated religious of many congregations to rally for the rights and dignity of immigrants. They have conducted rallies and prayer vigils outside ICE offices as well as the offices of elected congressional representatives. This is particularly so in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love.

Journalist Meir Rinde of Billy Penn at WHYY, the local news outlet for National Public Radio (NPR), recently did a feature on these social justice-minded senior individuals.

The activists included Jerry Zurek, PhD, a retired Cabrini University Communications Professor who co-leads a regional chapter of the NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice. Zurek said, “I believe we should welcome all people of good will. They enrich our country. I’m a former teacher, and I had so many students who were immigrants themselves, some of them undocumented. I want to do whatever I can to help them.”

Zurek, who is in his 80s, was one of many older people at [a recent] protest. He said he wanted to be there, despite the cold.

“I’m trying to do everything I can to support our immigrant community to make America better,” her said. “We just had twin granddaughters born, and we want to make the world OK for our grandchildren.”

Dr. Zurek was joined by alumni of Cabrini College/University who share his deep concern about the current treatment of immigrants.

To read the entire account, please click here
To learn about a prayer vigil for immigrants, please click here

 

Multi-day Celebrations Mark the Feast Day at NY Shrine

What a week! St. Frances Cabrini Shrine in New York hosted seven Feast celebrations over four days.

On November 13th we greeted youth from four Catholic schools and in the evening held the Canonization Concert, a re-creation of the Gregorian chant and other music used at Mother Cabrini’s canonization ceremony.

Saturday included Mass in Italian (with a surprise marriage proposal afterwards!) and a Mass for the Filipino community. Sunday dawned with beautiful weather and a full chapel for the English Mass. Msgr. Roger Landry, the National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States, celebrated. His tremendously inspiring homily can be heard here.

As the English Mass ended a busload of Ugandans arrived from Massachusetts. Warm smiles, beautiful harmonies, and huge pots of food lit up the afternoon. While they were finishing their meal in the retreat room a joyous Mass in Spanish began in the chapel, celebrated by Bishop Edmund Whalen.

All in all it was a spectacular few days.

Blessings to all!

Ice Should Allow Pastoral Workers to Bring Communion to Detainees

In remarks made on November 4th, Pope Leo XIV told reporters that he “would certainly invite the authorities to allow pastoral workers to attend to the needs” of detained migrants.

recent days in the Chicago area, specifically, at the Broadview Processing Center, for the second time in three weeks, ICE agents barred a group of clergy, religious sisters, and lay people from entering the facility to offer Holy Communion to migrants being detained there.

To read more about Pope Leo’s remarks please click here 

Cabrini U. Unites with One Church, One Family

~ a reflection by Jerry Zurek, PhD, former Chair, Communications Department, Cabrini University

Cabrini University alumni and friends joined 100-plus faithful in raising their voices in song and prayer in front of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Philadelphia field office

This public witness was a part of the nationwide Catholic campaign to call people of faith to publicly demonstrate solidarity with migrant families, asylum seekers, and refugees. The campaign is called One Church, One Family. Information may be found at 1family.us.

The speakers reflected the spirit of Pope Leo’s recent message on the World Day of Migrants and Refugees: “Migrants and refugees stand as messengers of hope. Their courage and tenacity bear heroic testimony to a faith that sees beyond what our eyes can see and gives them the strength to defy death on the various contemporary migration routes.”

“We reject the culture of fear that dehumanizes,” said Sr. Michelle Cimaroli, of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

A second day of prayer is planned for Nov. 13, timed to coincide with the feast of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini.

Personally, I was inspired by the many women religious present. As I mingled with everyone, each person spoke from their rich lives, often of decades of service. One, an IHM Sister from Peru, spoke of how the image of the United States has changed for many in other countries.

I hope that public events like this reveal the true spirit of many Americans and Catholics who understand that we truly are one family and must care for those seeking hope as best we can. Participating in a prayer vigil or a public action gives me greater courage to stand up for what we believe.

Refugees and Migrants in Our Common Home

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From October 1 to 3, Villanova University, through the Mother Cabrini Institute on Immigration, and the Refugees and Migrants in Our Common Home project, held three days of conferences and working groups at the Patristic Institute Augustinianum in Rome, with the aim of “shaping the first drafts of action plans that will guide our collective response to migration in higher education and beyond.”

The invitation came from attorney Michele Pistone of Villanova University, which enabled Javier Ramirez Baron, Executive Director, Sister Pietrina Raccuglia, MSC, and Sister Yolanda Flores, MSC of Cabrini Immigrant Services – New York City (CIS_NYC) to participate, along with our Superior General, Sister Eliane Azevedo da Silva, MSC; General Councilor Sister Patricia Godoy, MSC, Sister Joseane Cabral, MSC and Sister Tatiana Avdokushina, MSC.

An integral part of the program was an audience with Pope Leo XIV, who encouraged us to strive to seek new ideas and forms of service “by placing the dignity of each person at the center of any solution.” When we encounter difficulties, he said, we should not fall into the trap of “globalization of indifference,” but rather nurture a “culture of reconciliation.” The Pope, recognizing that this work is not easy, encouraged us to formulate action plans without forgetting that “it is also important to remember that migrants and refugees can be privileged witnesses of hope through their resilience and trust in God.”

During the conference, Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz created a sculpture of Frances X. Cabrini, incorporating figures of migrants considered—in his own words – “angels unawares.” His work reflects what we can offer through our service, hope, and support for each person we serve. This piece of art was blessed on the last day by Fr. Joseph Farrell, OSA, the Prior General of the Augustinian Friars, in the presence of all the participants.

On the 4th and 5th, we actively participated in the Jubilee of Migrants and the Mission.

On the 6th, a group of MSCs, along with a lay person, Javier Ramirez, held a meeting to evaluate our participation in the jubilee and share our different types of services related to migration. This was an opportunity to present to the General Council a proposal to organize a small committee of sisters and lay people (two to three people) to help us find resources, creative ways, and support for the work we do on behalf of migrants and refugees. It can be a small drop into a huge ocean of needs, but a helpful drop maybe needed to complete the ocean.

At Washington Conference, Attorneys Address an Unsettling New Era on Immigration

At Washington Conference, Attorneys Address an Unsettling New Era on Immigration
~ by Rhina Guidos for National Catholic Reporter/Global Sisters Report
Reprinted with permission from Global Sisters Report

“We gather today in unprecedented times,” Anna Gallagher, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., told the crowd. Her organization, known as CLINIC, along with the Migration Policy Institute and Georgetown Law organized the 22nd Annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference. That’s where immigration attorneys, paralegals, community advocates, as well as some priests and least one Franciscan sister, gathered on October 9 to hear a range of legal experts, historians and journalists speak. Panelists painted a picture of migrants consumed by fear and a legal community seeking to defend them, but lacking the resources to do so.

Conferences of the past provided a legal bird’s-eye view of policy in the country’s immigration realm, but scholars and experts like Doris Meissner agreed that this year, it’s different.

“We have entered a new era,” said Meissner, senior fellow and director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at Migration Policy Institute, as she moderated one of the panels.

No one exactly knows how this era will evolve.From the president’s public call to end birthright citizenship for children whose parents aren’t in the country legally, using information from the Internal Revenue Service to seek out migrants for deportation, and employing military and other law enforcement resources in that effort — those actions raise “profound questions about our society,” Meissner added.

A lawyer at the conference addressed the obstacles the government is putting in place to make it difficult for attorneys to contact their clients. An economist voiced worries about the impact of ICE raids at work and said the actions are at odds with economic strategy. A reporter said he had seen the negative impact of immigration enforcement on communities of faith.Immigration, after all, said CLINIC’s Gallagher, touches “every aspect of our country.”

New Mural Dedicated in St. Patrick’s Cathedral

The mural, created by Adam Cvijanovic, pays tribute to generations of immigrants who came to New York in search of faith and hope. It is the first major work of art commissioned for the Cathedral since the installation of its bronze doors in 1949.  The mural prominently features Mother Cabrini among the immigrants.  To watch a video from the Good News Room about the creation and dedication of the mural please click here

CIS-NYC Staff Attends Center for Migration Studies Conference

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Last week, members of our CIS-NYC team attended the Center for Migration Studies Conference on Immigration Integration. On Sunday, we were honored to welcome a group of conference participants to our office. Visitors toured the St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Shrine, joined us for a presentation on our work, and participated in a thoughtful Q&A.

Attendees came from across the country, including as far away as Seattle, Washington. It was an opportunity to connect in a small group, share strategies, and discuss how to move forward together in support of immigrant communities.

On Monday and Tuesday, we joined the rest of the conference at Fordham University, where we listened to compelling panels on immigration, integration, and Catholic teachings, and engaged in regional discussions. Especially in times like these, knowing we are unified in our work and faith brings hope for a way forward where everyone in this country can live with dignity, care, and respect.

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