Beginnings of the Migrant Ministry
After these initial dialogues, there were other coordination meetings and various encounters, especially with Father Carlos Quebedeaux, CMF; Father Michael Boehm; Father Guillermo Campuzano, C.M; Father Antonio B. Pizzo, O.S.A.; and committed laypeople from Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish. Together, they shaped and developed the initial ideas, eventually leading to the proposal of Pastoral Migratoria, a MINISTRY OF LEADERSHIP, ACCOMPANIMENT, SERVICE, JUSTICE with immigrants. Accompaniment is understood not just as a word but as life. It involves not only accompanying those who are detained/deported but also their family members, whose civil and labor rights should be defended. An intense campaign of education for prevention in case of raids was initiated. With coordination meetings, all the needs and possibilities requiring Pastoral Migratoria emerged.
It was with this team of priests and committed laypeople that the initial reflections began, which would form the basis of what would later become the Training Units.
Migrants should be pastorally accompanied by their sending Churches and encouraged to become disciples and missionaries in the lands and communities that receive them, sharing with them the riches of their faith and religious traditions. Migrants leaving our communities can offer a valuable missionary contribution to the communities that welcome them.
Thus, the awareness was growing that immigrants should support immigrants; that the task or mission should be from immigrant to immigrant. No one better than an immigrant to understand what another immigrant feels, needs, and longs for. This conviction also arose from several events that happened throughout the city: on the streets, in schools, and workplaces.
So, in Chicago, the Priests for Justice for Immigrants, Bishop John Manz, and Bishop Gustavo García-Siller, along with Mrs. Elena Segura, began meetings with Cardinal Francis George to firmly express their desire to continue working on the third objective of the Catholic Campaign for Immigration Reform: SERVICE. This way, the needs of the immigrant community would be addressed.
The main question was about what the Archdiocese should do for the immigrant community. There was now a better understanding of the number of undocumented immigrants in the parishes. After several meetings, with the Cardinal's presence, the Catholic Center for Immigrants Toribio Romo was created in Pilsen, Little Village.
However, knowing that immigrants were not only in this area, the question was: How to support undocumented immigrants dispersed throughout the Archdiocese? In this context, in 2008, after discernment, reflection, and considering people's vision, what would become the Pastoral Migratoria began to take shape.