My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

This week I was in Dublin, Ireland, giving a presentation to the Irish Episcopal Commission for Emigrants on the occasion of their 50th Anniversary Conference. It was a great pleasure for me to accept the invitation of the Irish Bishops’ Conference to speak to them on the issue of immigration, as Ireland now has become a country of immigrants, whereas in the past it was a country of great emigration. I accepted the invitation with great gratitude for what the country of Ireland, and in particular its Irish-American descendants, have done for the Church in the United States. It was a favor I was happy to repay.

My own childhood was spent in a mostly Italian neighborhood in the City of Newark, N.J. But our priests and our Sisters were Irish-American. They gave generously of themselves for our spiritual welfare. I remember the priests with names like Moran, Doyle, O’Neill, McHugh and Ryan, among others, who inspired my vocation, as well as Sisters named Duffy, Joyce and many others. The Church in the United States owes much to the immigration from Ireland. Even more personally, as I look to my five nieces and nephews who belong to the Italian/Irish tribe, a new one being built in the United States, they are Colleen and James Fitzgerald, my sister’s children, as well as my brother’s children, Nicole, Christine and Frank, whose mother’s maiden name was Caille.

The event of the Great Famine began the mass emigration from Ireland. But now it is the unprecedented economic development of the “Celtic Tiger” which has begun the immigration to Ireland. Clearly, the necessity for labor in an era of unprecedented development has presented new issues for Ireland and for the Church. Perhaps the greatest question that is present today is “Will this immigration be permanent or temporary?” This is a phenomenon faced by many other countries in Europe, where the need for workers necessitated what were called “guest worker programs.”

The Swiss dramatist, Max Frisch, once said, “We asked for workers, and we got people.” How clearly this is a problem today not only in Ireland, but also in the United States. As I have said many times, the issue of migration today is basically one driven by the labor market. We have among us many undocumented workers, as there are in Ireland. It seems that the labor market has its own rules and regulations which do not always coincide with accepted immigration laws. Ireland, as does the United States, struggles with the issue of those who come to work but do not have the adequate documentation to support the efforts of their labor.

For Ireland and the United States, the issue is the same, how can new immigrants be included into a society that needs to be open to their presence? For almost a century and a half, Ireland has been a country of immigrants; perhaps the lessons learned elsewhere can help their own nation to address the problem.

The President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, in a recent speech warned against the ghettoization of immigrants and said newcomers must be given every chance to join society’s mainstream. In one sentence, she suggested that, “Ireland had no excuse for getting it wrong and every chance to get it right on immigration and diversity.”1 Certainly, the leadership of Ireland’s president is a welcomed voice in political leadership. Would that we had political leaders in our own country who had the courage to stand up against a new form of racism manifested in the fear of strangers.

My hope at this conference was to be able to share the experience of the Church in the United States in welcoming immigrants and including them, especially, in the life of the Church. I was able to apply some criteria of integration to the present situation in Ireland as has been experienced in the Church of the United States.

My experience as a Commissioner on the Global Commission on International Migration taught me that attitudes towards immigration today are as international as immigration is. Many native people around the world believe that an influx of immigrants is not good for their countries and that these immigrants take jobs and needed services away from the native-born. While all of these feelings and attitudes are rather universal, the reality is very different.

My trip to Ireland was one that I wanted to make for a long time to see the beautiful country that has given so much to our nation and especially to the Church in America. I traveled to Ireland two days before the conference began so that I might be able to see the beauty of the country and to meet some of her people. Father Kevin Sweeney, director of our Vocation Office and also a first-generation Irish-American, was my guide during these two days.

The experience of immigration is always like “putting out into the deep,” not only for those who migrate, but also for every country that accepts migrants. The possibility of opening ourselves to new cultures and new peoples is an experience that, as I mentioned in my talk to the bishops of Ireland, is like going from Babel to Pentecost. The Tower of Babel is the symbol of confusion and disunity, whereas Pentecost is the best example we have of the unity of language and culture, and most of all of faith and love.

P.S. I hope your Thanksgiving was a joyful celebration.

1 - Remarks by President McAleese to open the Immigrant Council of Ireland Discussion on Migration ‘The Richness of Change: Gaining from Migration in 21st Century Ireland,’ Royal Irish Academy, Dawson Street, Dublin 2, Wednesday, 4th October 2007.