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BISHOP TIMOTHY A. MCDONNELL SELECTED TALKS, LANTERN AWARD

LANTERN AWARD -April 16, 2007 (For full story click here)

“One if by land and two if by sea and l on the opposite shore shall be...”

Longfellow's poem on the midnight ride of Paul Revere encapsulates what we celebrate tonight: the lanterns that hung in the steeple of the old North Church that April evening in 1775 kindled the flame of liberty and the fire of patriotism that burns for us still.
The lanterns remind me of an old story - perhaps appropriate for Patriot's Day since it involves the British.
It was in the time between the two World Wars when the British Navy was a powerful force. One very foggy night, the lookout on a British destroyer called to the Captain that he could barely see a light in the distance - it appeared to be the topmost lantern on an approaching vessel. The Captain ordered the radioman to contact that vessel and order it out of their way. The radioman soon came back with the report that contact was made but that the man on the other end said he wouldn't move, and suggested the destroyer turn aside. The captain was furious; he got on the radio himself and announced: “Listen here, my good man, I am the Captain of a British destroyer - and Britain doesn't turn aside for anyone. Now move out of my way.” A very Irish voice came back, “I hear you, Captain, but now you hear me. You better turn aside, I'm the keeper of a lighthouse and Britain's heading straight for the rocks!”
As Paul Revere made clear: we need to know what the lanterns signal. Let me expand on that a little - about what things mean. This story is about a time when I was a brand new Bishop - in another state. A pastor had died six weeks before, the parish hadn't been filled; two retired priests were handling things, doing the best they could, but both were in their eighties and so some things were going by the board. l was in the neighborhood and decided to drop by. What I didn't know was that a hinge on the front door of the rectory had loosened causing the door to stick. The solution the two priests had come up with was a hatchet. Whenever they had to open the door, one of them would put the blade between the frame and the door, give the handle a slap and the door would pop open.
As I approached the front door, one of the elderly priests spotted me from an upstairs window and called down to the other: “Father, it's Bishop McDonnell coming - get the hatchet!” Until I knew what the words meant I had the feeling l was in the wrong place.
In the case of the Lantern Award, there's no question that I feel like I'm in the wrong place tonight when I look at the roll of those who have received this award in years past; I have to ask myself: “What am I doing in such outstanding company?”
It reminds me of one last story before I get serious, it's a story told about Abraham Lincoln. An old acquaintance visited the President in Washington to ask for a position in government. The man had little experience in business or public affairs, but wanted to be Superintendent of the Mint. Mentioning the request to another friend, Lincoln remarked: ''Why didn't he ask to be Secretary of the Treasury? He's just about as qualified for that.” He then went on: “You know, when we were young men together, I never thought he had more than average ability. But, then, he probably thought the same about me - and here I am.''
Well, I feel like that tonight - here I am, being enrolled in the long and illustrious roll call of those who have shown love of God and love of country that is inscribed on the 51 year listing of the Lantern Award. There's no adequate way to express my thanks to you, my brother Knights of Columbus, and to all to whom l owe so much.
One person in particular, I would like to mention - one who would be especially proud about the Lantern Award, my mother. All her life, she was proud to be an American, and that's ironic because she was once stripped of her American citizenship. Let me share some family history.
My grandmother, my mother's mother, was born in 1876; she was the oldest of eleven children whose home was a one-room thatched cottage in the back of beyond in West Cork.
At the age of 15, in 1891, like so many others, my grandmother emigrated from Ireland to the United States. She came here to Massachusetts, to the mills in Lawrence where neighbors from home had settled before. For more than a dozen years, she worked in those mills, saving all she could to send back to Ireland to help support the family and so that younger brothers and sisters might come to America as well. And they did - seven more all told, three sisters here to Massachusetts, two brothers and one sister to New York, another sister to New Jersey.
My grandmother became an American citizen while she was here - a very proud day for her. The tiny American flag she received at her swearing in she displayed proudly for the rest of her life. The flag had only 45 stars when she became a citizen 106 years ago.
The work she was doing, however, did not last. After a dozen years In the mills, she, along with many others, was let go as machinery took over from hand operations. Not finding other work, in 1904, along with two of her sisters, she returned to Ireland.
Now, for me that was lucky - because it was there that she met my grandfather. They married, settled down in the next parish over from where my grandmother grew up, and began to raise a family. My mother was the first born, just 100 years ago, in 1907.
She was born with dual citizenship: her father, an Irish national, was a citizen of Great Britain of which Ireland was then a part, and from him she inherited British citizenship; and because my grandmother was a citizen of the United States, my mother was born an American. It wasn't to last.
Between 1910 and 1920, here in the United States a strong anti- immigrant movement took hold. The Immigration Restriction League, founded, I'm sad to say right here in Massachusetts, persuaded John L. Burnett, a United States Congressman, to introduce legislation that would severely limit the right of immigration and do away with dual citizenship. Every citizen was to be 100% pure American. The bill passed Congress in 1914. It was vetoed by President Taft.
Burnett continued to lead a charge against immigrants and ultimately his bill, just modified slightly, was signed into law. My mother, her sister, and her two brothers were among the many who were stripped of their American citizenship. My grandmother too lost hers.
The irony is that some years later, like her mother before her, my mother came to the United States - not to Massachusetts, but to New York, and there ultimately became a naturalized American citizen.
So she was born an American citizen, lost her citizenship, and became an American citizen again through naturalization.
Now my mother's loss of citizenship took place more than 90 years ago, but still it rankles. It's like Irish Alzheimer's: we forget everything but the grudges.
What leads me to tell the story tonight is the recent incident in New Bedford where immigrant women working in factories. like my grandmother in the mills, were suddenly uprooted from their jobs, their homes, their families.
Mothers and children were separated. The women were arrested, transported overnight to sites far away from Massachusetts, and many have been or are being deported - because there was no way they could come to this country legally.
They were not terrorists. Ironically, they were helping our troops overseas by sewing protective vests for men and women in uniform. For many of them their children are American citizens, born In the United States, even if the mothers were not. Immediately afterwards, even if they have died down right now, there were rumblings in some quarters that the children of undocumented immigrant should lose their American citizenship. My mother's story is a reminder that citizenship can be taken away; it has happened before; it can happen again.
Few, if any, of us in this room tonight are not the children of immigrants - one generation, two or ten removed, our forebears came in hopes of freedom and a better life for their children. We're proof tonight that they found it. Can we be surprised that the same hopes exist today?
I know the whole question of immigration is complex and convoluted. And I'm no expert. But there are some thoughts that should be part of the debate. So, tonight, I'd like to share with you some proposals on immigration gleaned from Catholic teaching.
Cardinal O'Malley mentioned some of them in his recent Op-ed piece in the Globe. They've appeared in the Pilot, the Register, most diocesan papers, America magazine, and were even picked up by the secular media.
In 2003, in a teaching document called Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope, the Bishops of the United States made the following six points about immigration:
1. A way should be found for undocumented people In the United States to “earn” legal status The vast majority of the undocumented are workers, in low-paying jobs - like those who were sewing in the factory in New Bedford, or those cleaning tourist rooms in the Berkshires, or taking care of lawns throughout the Commonwealth. A recent Chamber of Commerce statement in western Massachusetts highlighted the fact that without the undocumented workers the economy of the region would decline even more.
The proposal for ''earned'' legal status would set forth a path to citizenship for approximately 12 million undocumented people in our country. Some bills presently before Congress specify steps along that path that would have to be met; but the idea itself is a sign of hope for many. To provide a step-by-step process by which people can aspire to citizenship would take immigrants out of the shadows, alleviate security concerns about undocumented persons because they would be able to make themselves known, and allow them and their families to live in dignity, free from fear, contributing openly to the community.
2. A guest worker program should me implemented: such a program would permit foreign-born workers to enter the country and work here legally with safeguards protecting the rights and dignity of both American and guest workers. It would provide for workers especially in areas where the work force has been declining and, so help local economies. Again, there are various bills in Congress to specify safeguards for American workers, to prevent sweat-shop conditions for immigrants, and to answer security concerns.
3. A change in immigration law and practice is necessary so that families will not be separated as happened in New Bedford; humane ways of keeping families united need to be implemented, There's the need to provide visas for family members much more quickly than the years that now pass before families can be reunited. As we all know, not every law is necessarily a good law. Sometimes laws need to be changed. Laws that tear families apart have to be re-examined.
4. There's a need to look at attitudes toward immigrants. Undocumented immigrants are overwhelmingly people seeking work to support their families. They aren't criminals, but sometimes they have been dehumanized to look like criminals, labeled as ''illegals”, looked at with suspicion, branded unfairly. The vast majority are people who like generations of immigrants before them - some our own forebears - take the lowest-paying jobs, work excessive hours, look for a better life for their children, dream the American dream.
It wasn't too long ago, that what’s bandied about concerning today's immigrants was being voiced about immigrant Irish and immigrant Germans, about immigrant French-Canadians, about immigrant Italians and immigrant Poles and immigrants of whatever nationality with the possible exception of those from England. Discrimination against newcomers is an easy pattern to fall into. It’s one, I wouldn't be surprised, that somewhere along the line has scarred someone in the family of every one here tonight We have to be careful we don't fall into such a pattern,
5. Security is an important issue. Since 9/11 the country has had to be more careful. But we betray our own ideals when we deny rights and liberties in security's name. It's been said that to restrict unjustly another's liberty in the name of one's own security is ultimately to leave no one free or safe. I think we turned a corner on that when we witnessed the New Bedford raid. Our guts told us something was very wrong in the way those women and their families were treated. I know that, because of my grandmother's work in the mills of Lawrence, I identified with them - l'm sure many of you did as well.
6. On a wider scale, people everywhere need to become aware of what would be involved in overcoming economic inequities world-wide. When nations with strong economies help to build up the economies of developing countries, new markets are opened and jobs are created thereby lessening the need for people to emigrate elsewhere.
There's no question that immigration is a complex economic, social and legal issue. There's also no question that it is a human issue as well - with moral implications. And where there are moral implications, the Church has to grapple with the issue, Since the earliest days in our nation's history the Church has been involved with immigration. Time and time again, it has been the Church's voice that spoke on behalf of the immigrants who arrived on our shores. Time after time the Church has had to deal with an anti-immigrant bias in society. There's nothing new in what I've said tonight. The only difference is in the native lands of immigrants who are here today.
The six points are simple justice issues:
1. A way to earn legal status.
2. A guest-worker program.
3. Protection for families.
4. Recognition of the immigrant's common humanity.
5. Security and justice for everyone.
6. Action toward overcoming economic inequalities.

There's much more detailed information on the Bishops' website; just google either ''Justice for Immigrants'' or USCCB (for United States Conference of Catholic Bishops). The sites are well worth a visit.
As the premier Catholic men's organization in the United States, the Knights of Columbus can make a difference in the debate that is going on right now. As sons and grandsons and great-grandsons of immigrants yourselves, you can speak for immigrants today -- on behalf of their just treatment, their access to opportunity, the rights of their families. I hope on this Patriot's Day. we might all remember that we are a nation of immigrants and commit ourselves to just treatment of new immigrants.
So, on behalf of my grandmother and my mother, and all immigrants,
past and present, and for myself: thank you and God bless you all.

(For full story click here)