Faith

On Oct. 4-5, Pope Leo will celebrate a Jubilee for Migrants in Rome as part of the Holy Year observation. Here in Boston, I will unite myself with the Holy Father in prayer, interceding for our immigrant and refugee communities.

Friday, October 3, 2025Faith

As a newly ordained priest, I served in a suburban parish on Long Island with a large elementary school. I arrived there as one of three priests assigned to the parish, and I replaced a priest who worked with the Spanish-speaking community. While I had studied Spanish in school, I had never actually functioned in the language and now found myself charged with the celebration of the sacraments and the pastoral care of several hundred immigrant families. It was one of those moments when you feel like you have been thrown into the deep end of the pool.
In that first year, I attended as many gatherings as possible to listen to the conversations. At the same time, four women from the parish began tutoring me for several afternoons of instruction and practice each week. They were not professional educators. Each worked long hours as domestics in nearby estates. It was very generous of them to give me precious free time during that first year, and by the end of the year, I felt like I could understand and function. I have worked pastorally in Spanish ever since, and I frequently pray for those generous women.

Something else happened along my journey of learning the language. As I came to know the community, I learned their stories, and I began to be affected by their wisdom, joy, and faith. Many of the folks in the parish were from El Salvador, including my four tutors. In the previous decade, El Salvador had suffered a violent civil war, and many of the parishioners had lost family members or been driven from their homes by the violence. Others witnessed traumatic events such as armed attacks on churches and villages. Still others knew St. Oscar Romero and other priests and religious murdered by the death squads. The folks in the parish were grateful to the United States for receiving them during their time of need, and many benefitted from a special provision for such refugees called Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
Living and working in that parish, I came to know many of those families, and they had a tremendous effect on my young priesthood as they gave such a powerful witness of faith and joy even in the midst of loss and suffering. And I rejoiced to see their families find new lives and new possibilities in the U.S. Most worked more than one job with the dream of giving their young children an education and opportunity. My life and my faith are richer for the opportunity to know and work with them.
Recently, I celebrated a feast for the Venezuelan community here in Boston. There are a large number of immigrants in Boston who hold that same TPS status and have been given refuge from violence and oppression. Venezuelan and Haitian immigrants particularly come from nations that remain mired in conflict and injustice, and many of our neighbors here in Boston have that protected status. There has been deep fear among these communities, and so I am hoping and praying that the Federal Government will continue to extend this status for refugees. I also pray that our national leaders will do the difficult and necessary work of comprehensive immigration reform. It has been more than a generation since any serious attempt to repair our broken system.
On Oct. 4-5, Pope Leo will celebrate a Jubilee for Migrants in Rome as part of the Holy Year observation. Here in Boston, I will unite myself with the Holy Father in prayer, interceding for our immigrant and refugee communities. The U.S. has been a place of refuge from its very inception. That truth has helped people arriving in this land, and it has blessed and shaped this nation. May the Lord inspire our elected officials to have compassion and preserve that refuge among us.

- Archbishop Richard G. Henning is the Archbishop of Boston