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Newton church had quietly been housing up to 30 migrant families, went public yesterday after rumors began spreading
By adamg on Wed, 02/14/2024 - 10:14am
Our Lady Help of Christians Parish on Washington Street in Nonantum had been providing emergency shelter for up to 30 migrant families since November, but only went public with the news yesterday, after rumors began spreading about violence at its campus - rumors the parish says are completely wrong.
In a statement forwarded around the city last night by Mayor Ruthanne Fuller, the parish explained why it was breaking its silence on the SafetyNet shelter Catholic Charities has run since November, in a building previously used as a shelter, and plans to keep open through May:
Catholic Charities has a policy to not disclose the locations of emergency shelter sites to protect clients and staff. Just this past fall, Catholic Charities USA warned member agencies they are being targeted by those who want to harm to our volunteers, residents, and staff across the country for helping migrants with basic needs. You may notice we have private security on site, and they are there for the safety of our staff and residents - not for any perceived risk to our parish community or neighbors. We do regret that some of the young children staying at this site tested our fire alarms a few times which caused unnecessary response and disturbance. However, other reports of violence at this site are not accurate and we caution those who don't know the facts from sharing rumors that could cause an unfortunate portrayal of the families we are caring for in our community. The families here are in need of our help, not condemnation. We consider these families people not problems.
We hope that during this time of reflection and while you consider your Lenten commitments you may open your hearts to help those here who are seeking refuge and comfort. The archdiocese has designated the Ash Wednesday collection for Catholic Charities so please offer any support you can and keep these families, especially the small children, in your prayers.
The parish explains how it and Catholic Charities came to work with the state to open space for migrant families:
Catholic Charities has been a longtime provider of emergency family shelters for the state, stabilizing families and empowering their upward growth and mobility. They have been a tenant here on the campus for over 30 years doing God's work. They approached the parish and asked if they could use the spaces for overflow temporary stays for the most vulnerable families. The SafetyNet program is administered through the United Way and is available to families who are struggling including those here legally seeking refuge from persecution, war and deadly environmental conditions. There is no doubt the need is great - and Cardinal Séan O'Malley has urged parishes to respond "generously and effectively" and I am proud to say, we have.
The children of these families are not enrolled in local schools as this is a temporary shelter for them as they await placement in more permanent housing. The children range from 10 months up to 8 years old.
Fuller added that city officials learned of the shelter after it opened shortly before Thanksgiving, and that they respected the wishes of Catholic Charities and the state to keep its location quiet for fear of attracting "the protests and threats" at hotels known to be used as shelters for migrant families:
Please be assured that we have been in close contact with Catholic Charities and Our Lady's on the ongoing operation of the shelter. Our Police, Fire, Inspectional Services and Health & Human Services teams continue to be in communication with the shelter staff.
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Comments
WATCH OUT!
For all those fleeing middle class Venezuelans trying to get by stabbing you right in your cul-de-sac in Westborough because, you know, immigrants = crime. Watch Out people, You might get SUV jacked coming from hockey practice. Violence against refugees. Pathetic.
Fair play to this church for doing this. It shows true heart and compassion. Donation going to CC today from me.
Incidentally this gives people in Wellesley, Dover, and Weston a few more days to hide the silver before the governor succumbs to rightful political pressure and places some families in the towns where "No Place For Hate / All Are Welcome Here Signs" and "Black Lives Matter" signs outnumber actual non-white / Non Asian people 100 to 1.
Also, for those of you who want to help people and have Amazon points. Rather than buy those shoes you actually won't wear, the East Boston Food Bank and other charities have wishlists. Winter sucks. Help some people out rather than buy a $27 drink tonight.
Sometimes
You are 100% spot on John.
I don't have much love for the Catholic Church or Catholic Charities, but I will hat tip at them for doing this. This is Christ's mantra. Help people, without wondering what's in it for you.
The Nuns get it. Why doesn't anyone else?
Shame on these towns for even being upset over this. Gosh for bid we help people over politics or NIMBY or whatever nonsense the general public tries to throw.
Thanks Chris
Folks I mistyped up there.
Look up the East Boston Community Soup Kitchen for Amazon wishlist ideas.
See below
East Boston Community Soup Kitchen
I'm glad you draw the distinction, Cybah.
Catholic Charities is everything the Catholic Church -- or any church -- should be.
Have Catholic Charities changed their anti-gay tune?
If not, it doesn't warrant a blanket endorsement.
Kudos to CC for housing asylum seekers. I appreciate their efforts and hope others follow their lead.
But they shut down their local adoption operations because they weren't allowed to discriminate against same-sex parents. Hopefully, churches looking to CC as an example skip the bigotry.
IIRC the anti-gay adoption policy came down from the bishops.
Many of the Catholic Charities folks resigned in protest. I'm not Catholic, I am gay, and I can't vouch for everyone involved in the organization, but in my experience they are sincere, committed, generous, and as non-political as they can be.
Baby + Bathwater
Yeah I get this. Its a fine line.
I like to see the good in people.. in this case the Catholic Charities.
I am well aware about the religion and gays. (and even that has soften some with Pope Francis).
Remember, as hard as it to believe sometimes.. the good always trumps evil. And I like to think that phrase applies here.
You do you
That's fine. My perspective is that religious charity almost always has strings attached -- and in recent decades, the strings have gotten much worse.
I'm not going to argue with you if this "soften" is meaningful to you. I will point out that it is a begrudging, conditional, much contested gesture that offers gay people a sort of second class (at best) status, and that nobody, including Pope Francis, is doing dickall to stop the antigay hate that comes from some members of the organization. If that's good enough for you, ok, you do you. It wouldn't be good enough for me.
The phrase is categorically false.
This on the whole makes me
This on the whole makes me consider softening my strong Anti-clericalism views. When I read the Mayors email I was glad to hear it. I do suspect that there are other organizations with similar situations.
Also, given that the space was previously used for people fleeing domestic violence the past of keeping it secret likely kept it going.
For the sake of ecumenism
I am careful when using the term Christ. Christ is a specifically Christian term. Without going into a lot of historical detail the term is far from referring to the man Jesus of the canonical Christian gospels.
Why would that matter? Christ does not exist for a Jew, Muslim, Hindu or any other religion or spirituality that is not specifically Christian. Jesus probably existed roughly 2,024 years ago (give or take a few years). At least that is the consensus among historians who study that time and place. The saying and teachings attributed to Jesus (whether they were or not, no one will ever conclusively know) are attributed to Jesus the human being, not Jesus the Son of God, co-equal with God, etc.
The business of Christ, messiah, anointed one, son of David, etc. is all after the fact of Jesus' life.
In a where Christianity has been the dominant religion (in claim, if not in fact) it makes sense that the terms are used interchangably. But there is a fly in that oitment. The people want to distort and pervert law to what they want the law to be spread the falsehood that the US was and is a Christian nation. Using the term Christ to refer to Jesus subtly adds to the weight and implies validity to their claim that the US is a Christian nation (and all the bigotry and hate that comes with that claim).
I like the play on this idea of Jesus as Divine: "Jesus is coming back and boy is he pissed." For the sake of discussion, and to really make things interesting, let's assume that reincarnation is real. In that case if Jesus is reincarnated, and comes back as a human being, well, as the saying goes, "Jesus is coming back and boy is he pissed." He would probably tell everybody to drop the entire Christian crap and start acting like people who deserve a place in Heaven, instead of praying to Christ everyday but doing things that will land them in Hell.
FWIW
For all the crap people give organized religion, people who actually go to church/temple/etc tend to be pretty caring and trying to do good. There are some huge exceptions, but it's a pretty good rule of thumb.
The people to watch out for are those who claim religious justification for being a jackass but don't actually participate in anything related to the religion.
I want to believe
I want to believe that the majority of folks who gather for religious practice are fundamentally good hearted. The problem is that many folks are (pardon the value judgement) lazy when it comes to understanding the world they live in. They rely upon tradition too much. They live in bubbles that are made of history, choices of self-limiting intellectual and social imagination and exposure, willingness to live in fear and anxiety without the ability or support to escape the prison of fear and anxiety.
Add the problem of clerics who smell opportunities for demagoguery.
Add the tension between clerics who choose the easy way to lead a congregation; easy way meaning to just go along with whichever way the wind blows.
Evangelicals, Hasidic Jews, conservative Muslims and Hindus, have far more in common with liberal religious siblings. The forcefulness, stridency, hysteria and just ugly attacks represent poisonous atmospheres. When there is emotional violence - which culture wars cannot exist without - there is poison. Poison that sickens, hurts and even kills everyone.
Second that
There are some people who do these wonderful things without fanfare or publicity and then there are others who think their virtue/support is satisfied with a slogan and/or a lawn sign, and when told to do more, they show their true colors (and almost always not in a good way).
I put the link for the East Boston Community Soup Kitchen above.
Thank you
I'm amazed at how many assertive Christian identity types in my city are losing their minds over a shelter opening in an industrial area. One EVERYBODY SEE ME BEING CHRISTIAN person was very upset when I pointed out all the stuff about taking care of those in crisis that she called "woke BS" could be found by reading the Gospel (and others pointed her the the chapters and verses).
I think these people would put up a creche surrounded by razor wire, with Mary, Joseph, and the donkey shot dead outside of it to prevent an "anchor baby".
I am similarly annoyed by the "Black Lives Matter so long as they aren't building two bedroom apartments in my neighborhood for their lives to matter in" crowd. Ditto for the Lorax Racists and their misguided tree-hugging nimbyism.
If you have seen the data and/or supposedly read the book, it is time to walk the talk - and many of the religious and nonreligious have stepped up, including the recently established mosque.
This whole panic over "property values" and "crime" reminded me of some of the reactions when congregations have set up this "controversial" installation on a park bench: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeless_Jesus
Catholic Charities isn't my thing, but I have been supporting local efforts on the same front. (UPDATE - bulk pack of socks headed to EBSK)
Opens with calling out people
Opens with calling out people who virtue-signal.
Closes with virtue-signaling.
You are a piece of work.
I'll pray for you
I merely pointed out how simple it was to do what John had suggested without even involving religion. We had a few socks worth of cash in the Amazon kickback points. Simple enough to turn that into warm feet.
Buying socks ain't virtue signaling unless you believe that any act of basic human decency is purely performative. Such a sad world that you live in.
Perhaps I'll use the rent that I don't pay for living in your insecure head to buy some beans or dishes.
I live in Norwood currently
I live in Norwood currently and the angst and alarmism over possibly having migrant families living in Norwood and is horrible.
Tell Them
Three out of Four Costello brothers came to Norwood from Ros A Mhil in Connemara as economic refugees in 1898 and worked their asses off just like someone is coming from Haiti today who will work their ass off for the good of themselves and their family.
I only wish …
That more Americans understood that their families have a similar story (with a couple of huge asterisks, namely those who walked over 10,000 years ago and were here before most of us and those who came over and worked hard because they were forced to).
My great and great-greats came over. They didn’t have visas or approval, they just showed up. They lived in abject poverty and worked hard to get into the middle class. Lots of stories from my parents about this; my mother was forbidden to reuse tea bags because my grandfather had been forced to do this in malden in the depression. All were discriminated against to some degree.
No one went to college until my parents’ generation (with the exception of my grandmother; both of my grandmothers were offered admission to Barnard, one turned it down because she had a good paying job, the other because she couldn’t afford it and went to Hunter instead). My grandfather ran a small fabric and hosiery store in Wilkes-Barre, working 6 days a week for decades (my grandmother kept the books). Both my parents have advanced degrees. My grandfather visited my dad who was given an office when he was writing his thesis at MIT in building 16 with a panoramic view of the skyline. He looked out the window and muttered to himself “and I sell schmatas.”
We should all be pro-immigrant. And we should give people who want to come here the ability to get a job, get housing (we need more of that) and build their own family story. That is our republic, if we can keep it.
But Americans need to know who is the evil One!
American culture has always included a fear and loathing of immigrants. When there is no other group to condemn as bad, evil, violent or in any other way to be rejected, immigrants have always been a go to for that animus.
Today it's really hard(er) for a person to get away with past forms of bigotry, at least in Massachusetts. Anti-Catholicism (KKKers hated Catholics), anti Irish, anti Italian, German, etc. Mysogyny, hatred of gays and lesbians. Even bigotry against people who look different is harder to get away with in Massachusetts. Not impossible; just harder.
Even today folks who identify with a minority group that has always been dumped on with bigotry will send the same animus back. Even "old white men" wind up being the target of animus - although without the history, pattern and institutionalization of bigotry.
Perhaps it is a human failing that so many folks need other groups to hate.
I don’t know if it’s the same priest…
…. that was there a few years ago. But he was what they would call a good mush.
The number of people
Who fully understand this post is small.
Nick Collins is right
Mt. Ida campus is owned by the Commonwealth. Send them over there.
BC should pitch in
Their endowment is well over $3 Billion. They just broke the hearts of the girls over at Mt. Alvernia in a land grab which could have easily accommodated their continued existence. Instead, they enriched a handful of pampered nuns holed up in Italy. How about doing some penance for Lent. If you can't take care of the young Catholics already here, then how about doing some virtue signaling by moving a couple of hundred families into the Mods?
Then What About The JCC? They Should Pitch In, Right?
Perhaps put a few there too?
Has space, showers, day care. Running track, indoor pool. Lots of good stuff.
Great place for refugees.
They have their own mission, and it is not our place to judge.
But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Pedro Arrupe would drive the money changers out of Gasson Hall if he visited BC today.
No places to sleep,
There's a big difference between the JCC and a college that has dorms. Or are you also suggesting that the YMCAs should also house refugees.
OTOH, the JCC campus does help the community by including Coleman House on their campus, apartments for seniors who qualify for subsidized housing.
very rarely
Very rarely do I agree with the Catholic Church but when I do its on refugees being people not problems.
Having churches open to
Having churches open to refugees is not new. I remember families living in my congregational church in Brockton when I was growing up. They were either Cambodian refugees or Vietnamese refugees, but the kindness really stuck in my head.
Bravo to Catholic Charities for stepping up. I wish some of the pearl clutching idiots would understand this…
Peace/out
Thank you!
Adam, thank you for sharing this story. It’s refreshing compared to the news and commentary I’ve seen lately. And the comments actually provided some ideas of how I can help physically and financially.
I am grateful
My immigrant parents were able to come to the United States with two small kids (my oldest brothers) only because of the selfless charity and generosity of church sponsorship.
I will always be profoundly if inadequately grateful, even while I myself am areligious.
Enormous good for others happens invisibly in houses of worship every day.