“A Hundred Thousand Welcomes?”

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I’ve often written about my personal connection to Ireland, undoubtedly because all of my great grandparents were Irish immigrants and I’ve always been interested in them and their homeland.

In fact, I find immigration itself fascinating. It requires people to tear themselves from their families, culture, food and often faith, to plant themselves in foreign soil. My beloved wife, Amparo, is an immigrant from Colombia, and that adds to my interest.

So, I was understandably attentive to an article in a recent issue of America magazine (I hope none of you are asking, “What’s a magazine?”) entitled, “We All Belong to Each Other: Rethinking Immigration and Irish Identity.”

Devastating Famines, Chronic Poverty

As you may know, Ireland was for several hundred years an exporter of its people. Because of devastating famines and chronic poverty, its citizens scattered to all parts of the globe, but principally to England, the U.S. and Canada. In the U.S., at least, the Irish were greeted by many with hostility. “No Irish Need Apply” could be seen in shop and factory windows.

But all that has changed. Ireland is now a destination for people from Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa and the Irish, formerly the target of bigotry and hostility in their adopted countries, are themselves struggling to be welcoming to newcomers.

“What alarms me,” says Sister Lena Deevy, a nun and native of Ireland who has worked with Irish immigrants in Ireland and Boston, “is that in many ways we are more and more seeing migrants as a threat, missing out on the rich opportunities and gifts that they bring us.”

Sr. Lena Deevy
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That may mirror the situation in the U.S. where many people want immigrants gone, unwilling to recognize their contributions to society and the economy and ignoring the fact that immigrants are fellow human beings and children of God who deserve respect and empathy.

For many such immigration opponents, in the U.S. and Ireland, such language may be viewed as soft-headed poppycock, something that should be confined to churches and university halls. That’s what makes me wonder whether this view reflects the evident decrease in religious belief and practice in both countries.     

The 2022 Irish Census – evidently the latest data available - indicated that Ireland “remains a Roman Catholic country, with around 7 in 10 of the population identifying as such. (But) in comparison to the 2016 census, the total number of Catholics fell 9.5 percent since the 2016 Census and 19.5% over a 20-year period since the 2002 Census.

And a significant rise in the number with no religion also occurred over the same 20-year period, growing from 3.5% to 14.7% of the total Irish population.” Apart from the census, statistics on weekly Mass attendance have also revealed an overall decline over the last 30 years, which is most marked in urban areas. These data are similar to the decline in church attendance in the U.S.

Secularization?

I’m guessing here, but I believe reasons for the declines include the COVID pandemic – during which people stopped going to church and failed to return - the revelations on clergy abuse of minors, and the secularization that has affected church attendance and interest in religion among western countries since at least the turn of the century.

I believe there may be a relationship between lack of religious faith and antipathy toward immigrants, at least among Catholics, partially because both the American bishops – together with American church leaders of many faiths – and the Irish bishops have urged people to welcome immigrants as fellow children of God. Are people simply ignoring the teaching of their religious leaders?  

Ironically, the Irish bishops used a slogan, often used by the robust Irish tourist industry, to name their 2024 pastoral letter on immigration: “A Hundred Thousand Welcomes?”