It is good news that the Migrant Ministry has found a new home at St. Bernardine’s old school in Forest Park. This passion filled project rose up two years ago out of the Catholic parishes of Oak Park. And significantly it has been actively supported by faith communities in Forest Park, River Forest and the West Side (and not to ignore the atheists and agnostics who have joined in this work).
So the news last fall that the ministry would need to leave its space at the former St. Edmund School on Oak Park Avenue was a worry. The Archdiocese of Chicago decided the school building needed to be sold as the costs of investing in the building were too steep.
This is a good resolution and brings new and vital purpose to St. Bernardine’s School. Six large classrooms have now been cleared for the ministry’s use.
We are in a complicated, unnecessarily complicated, moment regarding immigration in America. Here’s a slice of the local reality. Most of the migrants who found their way to Oak Park two years ago are from Venezuela. They fled the corrupt administration of Nicolas Maduro for the promise of America. Now America, under the Trump administration, has invaded Venezuela and brought Maduro to the states for trial.
Donald Trump’s motives for this action are highly suspect and what happens now in Venezuela is unknowable. What is clear is that these good people deserve the support and the opportunity they are being offered through the Migrant Ministry. A ministry now in a location that should be open to them for as long as is necessary.
