A patron saint for migrants in the rural Midwest

There is no issue that tends to rank higher in importance to rural Midwesterners than immigration. This might confuse some folks on the coast, given that states like Iowa are so far from any border. We used to think of Ellis Island when we thought of immigrants. Now perhaps we think of Tijuana. But many who migrate to the United States end up as agricultural or factory workers in the countryside.

My grandmother’s family came to East Chicago, Ind., from Czechoslovakia in the 1920s. At first they settled in a very poor part of the city; but eventually they achieved their dream, moving to a farm in rural Wisconsin.

Here in Iowa, where I now live, we once collected the poor from all over Europe and gave them a chance. You can still point out where German, Irish, Czech or Italian peasants came to seek a better living off the land.

We were a landing spot for Calabrians, Italians from the Calabria region of southern Italy, neighboring Sicily. The Calabrese brought many gifts along with them—pizza, for instance—but they also brought the presence of the Mafia. American society generally perceived Italians as a whole as dirty, lazy and shiftless or, paradoxically, cunning and criminal. As a result, Italians often felt embattled and condescended to. Even though the vast majority of Italian migrants were just ordinary folks, it took a long time and much concerted effort to shake off the negative image that Anglo-Americans had of them.

In Iowa, an immigrant priest, Msgr. Luigi Ligutti, played a major role in this process. Monsignor Ligutti was born in the tiny village of Romans, Udine, Italy. He came to Des Moines at age 17 in 1912, and went on to become a priest and the pastor of Assumption Parish in the small town of Granger, just outside the capital. He was deeply involved with the social movements that supported farmers and migrants, eventually coming to lead an organization called Catholic Rural Life during the Great Depression. In that role he served as an advocate for the rural poor, for the natural environment and for farmers. At the same time, he sought to encourage a spirituality and a connection to God that was unique to the experience of the farmer.

Like the Rev. Michael McGivney, the founder of the Knights of Columbus, Monsignor Ligutti had a special heart for migrants. Both organizations made an effort to educate and provide for the wellbeing of newcomers. But rural life, then as now, often came with great difficulties. The agricultural crisis of the 1920s and the Depression hit farmers especially hard. Debts mounted, and with no relief in sight, depression and suicide rates spiked. This risk is typical of countryside living, where farmers and others often face heavy burdens in isolation.

I’ve written before in these pages about the challenges rural communities face. They are more likely than the urban population to die an early death, to suffer from mental illness or addiction, or to fall to suicide, and they have poor access to medical care and, ironically, healthy food. It is hard to watch a place you love shrink, to see churches, factories, schools and hospitals close. It is not easy to see shops on main street empty, boarded up or with smashed windows.

Not all rural towns are like this, but a good number are. Rural people sometimes feel the government is more interested in taking care of those who come to the country illegally than those who already live here.

But rural Midwesterners are not, as a whole, simply nativists. They are often trying, however well or poorly, to reckon with colossal changes in their own lives. Every rural town has unique dynamics. In some, migrants have integrated remarkably well with the community and are respected for the new life they have brought to shrinking places. In others, the migrants and older residents stay separate, and resentment and distrust can develop.

In rural Iowa I have met Americans of Laotian and Latin American extraction who are among the proudest, most patriotic Iowans you can find. Coming from hard circumstances in their place of origin has made them grateful for the liberty, mobility and resources we have here. They love driving their trucks, hunting, fishing, hiking, barbecuing and just doing the things that rural Americans do. At the same time, I have known rural Iowans who go out of their way to make new arrivals feel welcome, inviting them into the church community or making friendly chitchat on the sidelines of baseball or soccer games as their children play together. This reality, too, rarely gets told amid all the political bluster. Our discussions should be attentive to the problems but also to what successful integration into American life looks like.

I don’t know which policies will best care for rural people and migrants alike, and I do not mean to comment on any specific border policy. Rural America is facing economic and technological trends that are leaving a great deal of suffering in their wake. In some ways, migration is helping these problems, but in some ways, in some places, it makes them more difficult. We have to look toward these places, their old residents and new arrivals alike, with sympathetic eyes first.

Monsignor Ligutti can be a kind of patron saint for these issues. We have to look at rural America and its challenges with compassion, solidarity and brotherhood. The countryside makes life possible for all of us, and those within it should not be left behind. At the same time, Catholic social teaching emphasizes hospitality and the welcoming of migrants in recognition of our universal human dignity.

Catholic social teaching may not give us all the answers, but it does give us guiding principles. Monsignor Ligutti sought to embody these in his work with migrants, which included public advocacy, settling World War II refugees in rural Iowa and deep involvement with organizations that sought to combat anti-Italian racism.

Another Italian priest, the Rev. Luigi Giussani, said that hospitality is the most difficult and radical act of love we can make outside of giving up our life for another. Hospitality means inviting someone into our heart, which makes us very vulnerable. It is a risk but also a virtue. Hospitality should always remain the watchword when we talk of migrants and the rural people who live near them.

It is easy for anger to become the driving emotion: anger at migrants, anger at rural Americans. But good work will not come from there. It will come, as it did for Monsignor Ligutti, from affection for all. It is harder to be hospitable than to be resentful, but we are called to nothing less.