Publications and Media Coverage

An article by CMS Executive Director Donald Kerwin in the March-April 2014 edition of Health Progress, the journal of the Catholic Health Association, describes the Catholic Immigrant Integration Project and discusses the Church’s collective response to immigrants.

The article, “US Catholic Institutions: Are They Living Up to Their History and Promise as Immigrant Integration Agencies?” is available at: http://www.chausa.org/publications/health-progress/article/march-april-2014/u.s.-catholic-institutions-are-they-living-up-to-their-history-and-promise-as-immigrant-integration-agencies.

Publications

US Catholic Institutions and Immigrant Integration: Will the Church Rise to the Challenge?
by Donald Kerwin, with Breana George

US Catholic Institutions and Immigrant Integration: Will The Church Rise To The Challenge? arises from a multi-year process led by the Center for Migration Studies (CMS) and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), to engage the leaders of diverse US Catholic agencies, academics and others on immigrant integration as a potentially unifying Catholic priority. The publication documents the work of diverse Catholic institutions throughout the nation based in charities, health, labor, legal services, education, ethnic and community ministries and organizations. It also profiles these models and places the Church’s work with immigrants into a broader, theological, historic and academic context. In addition, it examines how these institutions—many of which were originally founded to address the needs of past waves of immigrants—have adapted to meet the needs and incorporate the contributions of today’s immigrants. The publication proposes a distinctly Catholic definition which incorporates elements of Catholic social teaching that can guide the Church’s work, and offers recommendations to increase its collective response to immigrants.