Prayers for immigrant community fitting on Pentecost

By Msgr. Anthony S. Czarnecki

Recently, Bishop McManus asked the priests and laity of the diocese to pray for the immigrant community on Pentecost weekend. It is very fitting because on Pentecost we celebrate the birthday of the Church. It is not race, color of skin, or place of origin that makes the Church, but it is the Holy Spirit – the source of unity and human solidarity.
The Church in the United States credits its growth to the immigrant communities who entered our country at different times. Some of the groups were Christianized a long time ago in their countries of origin, where their faith was accepted, enculturated with various traditions, symbols, external expressions, dressed up in many attractive cultural features, and eventually became a way of life.  
Taking a brief glimpse of the history of immigrant communities would help us to better understand the present. American society, especially in the 19th century, was not always friendly to the new immigrants and sadly gave rise to nativists, such as the Know-Nothing Party. Widespread xenophobia was not limited to the roughhouses on the street but also pervaded academia.  Scholars of the 19th and much of the 20th century generally presupposed that religious and ethnic groups would all inevitably become similar in orientation. This is  quintessentially expressed in I. Zangwill’s play the “Melting Pot” (1908).  Industrialists valued the toilsome labor of foreigners and were eager to employ them in various mills, but did not respect the cultural cloth from which they were cut. They were not only deprived of social support but there were also active efforts to strip immigrants of their unique cultural inheritance and forcibly assimilate them into America’s melting pot.
The Catholic Church in the United States, marked by universality, understood the equal dignity and common destiny of all people. The Church has been in the forefront of championing the rights of immigrants and helping integrate those who were sometimes considered to be on the margins of our society. In past generations, the American ideal has been one of welcoming and turning each person into a valuable contributing member of society. However, now many have found that the welcome mat is sometimes slippery and pulled out from under their feet.
In the 21st century, we find ourselves in need of a new evangelization. The Pew Research Report on religion estimates that 12% of adults and 24% of youth claim to have no religion (pewresearch.org/topics/religion). The participation in Sunday liturgy is scarce and the Church suffers from lack of attendance. Even though participation in Divine Worship in ethnic communities also suffers, it is still well above the national average.
An ongoing secularization, coupled with the newest technological social communication and ease of travel, turned the world into a global village, proving that a homogeneous culture is unattainable and woefully misguided. The United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, for the last several decades, promoted the mission of the Church and its new evangelization in light of the prevailing culture. The predominate image of a cultural melting pot was replaced by a cultural mosaic paradigm in which particular groups maintain some aspects of their unique cultural heritage while harmoniously coexisting and collaborating for the common good. The success of the Church’s universal call for a new evangelization of already baptized people depends on the response of catechists, teachers, preachers, and priests, to the pervasive reality of a secular culture. This will not be an easy task since the majority of the younger generation are unfortunately deficient in their ability to articulate their faith.
Although the Catholic Church in the United States makes up the largest religious body (approximately 24%), the pervading culture is still hostile to Christianity. One of the implications of the Church’s missionary challenge is the central role of internalized knowledge, skills, and attitude that makes the Gospel message acceptable to all nations.        
Therefore, the Church is charged with evangelizing the cultures, which means interacting with people’s rituals, symbols, myths, narratives, in view of the Gospel, with the utmost sensitivity, leading to the transformation of cultures. Thoughtfulness to cultural expressions of faith, in which human emotions are enshrined, is the center of successful evangelization efforts in today’s world and this is the true meaning of cultural competence.
In summary, the Church offers to all the cultural groups service not servitude, partnership not coexistence, solidarity not mere tolerance, which leads to a communion. The Church seeks the communion of Divine Persons modeled by the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Whenever the Church seeks to mirror that communion, it becomes “the home and school of communion.” (St. John Paul II, Novo Millennial Ineunte, No. 43.)  
– Msgr. Czarnecki is rector of St. Joseph Basilica, Webster.