BROOKLINE -- St. Joseph Parish in Beirut, Lebanon, was thriving.

The parish, entrusted to the Jesuits by the Apostolic Vicariate of Beirut in a country where Latin Rite Catholics are a small minority, serves a diverse community of migrant workers seeking a better life. Most are from the Philippines, while more recent arrivals have come from African countries at war. Workers lucky enough to get a day off go to St. Joseph's for Mass and recreation. Activities there would last from dawn to dusk. The parish offered choir practice, Bible study, faith formation, and OCIA classes. A Buddhist prayer group met at the parish. So did a predominantly Hindu and Buddhist cricket league, led by a parishioner from Sri Lanka. For Father Doug Jones, a Boston College-educated Jesuit and self-described introvert, it could be a little much.

"It's overwhelming in a way, because it's people everywhere doing a whole lot of different things, but it's an energy and a vibrancy that I found very inspiring," he said.

Father Jones, 37, has years of experience serving refugees in Lebanon. His most recent and longest assignment there began in August 2025 and ended this month. He was there when St. Joseph was forced to put its activities on hold due to the intensified conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

Spaces once used for ministry now serve as an emergency shelter for about 200 migrants displaced by war. Father Jones has interviewed many migrants about their lives before and after coming to Lebanon, stories made heavier by wartime.

When The Pilot met him on June 7, Father Jones was at the rectory of St. Mary of the Assumption Parish in Brookline, where he had served as a transitional deacon while studying at BC's Clough School of Theology and Ministry. He had returned to celebrate Masses there that weekend.

St. Mary's stately Victorian rectory is a world away from St. Joseph, where families fleeing the destruction of their homes now sleep on mattresses in close quarters.

"Daily life is not luxurious," Father Jones said.

Food comes from NGOs when resources allow. Men live in the basement and women on the upper floors. The women, about two-thirds of the shelter's population, share four bathrooms; the men share three. The parish has also installed additional showers.

"We try to provide people as much dignity as possible," Father Jones said. "They don't have a lot of privacy."

Most of the migrants are Muslim and come from Sudan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Eritrea, Sierra Leone, and other countries. Father Jones is especially struck by how well the children get along.

"They don't care where somebody's family is from, or who their family is, they just play together," he said.

Despite losing their homes, some migrants still go to work. In Lebanon, many migrant workers labor 12 hours a day, seven days a week, while trying to pursue education and citizenship. Many face discrimination because of their nationality. Educated professionals from African countries such as Sudan are often relegated to menial labor. Almost all of the women are maids, cooks, or nannies, and Father Jones estimates about two-thirds have been sexually abused. Because they live with their employers, they have little respite. Some employers withhold passports, while others fire workers just before payday to avoid paying them.

"It's some situations that really amount to human trafficking, or near slavery," Father Jones said.

Under the kafala system, migrants require employer sponsorship that gives bosses broad control over their lives. Workers who flee abusive sponsors lose their legal rights, and those who report crimes against them risk arrest.

Africans have it worst of all, he said. Many are from Sudan and South Sudan, countries ravaged by war. Some fled first to Syria, then to Lebanon when the Syrian Civil War began.

"So you're talking about people who are maybe in their 30s or 40s, and they've spent their entire lives, and now they have kids, being displaced from one place to another, fleeing violence," he said.

St. Joseph's is in a Christian neighborhood with no Hezbollah activity. Father Jones described Beirut and its surroundings as a religious patchwork. While the parish's neighborhood was spared, the adjacent Shia Muslim area was heavily bombed, including one strike a quarter-mile away.

He grew up in Scranton and studied at the city's Jesuit university. Seeing his biology professor, Jesuit Father Timothy Cadigan, wearing a lab coat over a Roman collar inspired him: he realized he could be both priest and academic.

After entering the Jesuits in 2016, he made multiple trips to Lebanon, where he worked with Syrian refugees. Ordained in 2025 and assigned to teach in St. Louis, he asked to spend a year in Lebanon doing pastoral work and researching Middle Eastern politics, his specialty.

Drug addiction, alcoholism, and suicidal thoughts are common among the migrants. They all tell Father Jones they keep going for their children.

"The grace of God" has kept Father Jones hopeful in his ministry. When he professed his vows, he, like every other Jesuit, said, "as you have given me the grace to make this offering, so also give me the abundant grace to fulfill it."

"I think we can't do these things alone," he said. "We need deep connection with God and with others. I think for me, I rely on God and rely on Jesuit community life and friendship."

Father Jones will begin teaching at St. Louis University this fall and return to Lebanon in the summers to research the country's political situation, politics, and the plight of migrants and refugees.

"I think about them constantly, and the difficulty they're living in now," he said.

The shelter's residents live in uncertainty. Ceasefires have failed to stop the violence for long, and when the war ends, many migrants will return to destroyed homes.

"People can't go back to their homes, they can't reestablish their lives, they are forced to wait," he said.

As a priest, he prays for a lasting solution and that leaders "have the courage to be peacemakers." As a political scientist, he is not optimistic about a lasting peace.

"It's easy to have people pick up guns," he said. "It's easy to shoot our problems, but you can't bomb these kinds of problems away, and so the difficult work of sitting down and reconciling and talking about what we've done to each other, what we've done to ourselves, and also what the different groups need to live securely and in peace with each other. I don't see that happening, which is unfortunate."