Fr. Nathan Reesman, now Vicar for Clergy for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, served in parishes for many years like the 24 foreign-born priests he is assisting as they face difficult visa issues. (File photo)
Ordained in 2020 at Saint Francis de Sales Seminary in St. Francis, Fr. Carlos Londoño was ready to become a pastor in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee earlier this year.
A change in the process to get a new visa not only dashed those hopes, but also means that he will have to leave the United States for a year starting next September.
Fr. Londoño, who is from Columbia, is one of 24 priests affected by the visa program change who are now serving at the archdiocese’s 184 parishes.
“For the priests, it is personally disruptive — painfully so if they are not missionaries who are accustomed to picking up and moving on as part of their charism,” said Fr. Nathan Reesman, archdiocesan Vicar of Clergy.
“For the parish communities and our assignment process, it is a nightmare because it creates holes all across our assignment map, and we usually do not have people to put in their place because our clergy are stretched so thin,” Fr. Reesman added.
Foreign-born priests have a five-year religious worker’s visa. For many years before 2023, it did not take long for them to convert that visa to a work immigration one that offered a long-term stay, a path to citizenship and no need to leave the country.
“This flies in the face of Congress’ intent when creating the Religious Worker Visa Program: to ensure religious organizations in the United States have access to needed workers to carry out their wide-ranging religious and charitable activities, consistent with the First Amendment and the freedom of religion,” Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki said.
Archbishop Listecki has asked federal lawmakers from the archdiocese’s 10-county area to address this issue. At minimum, he and other bishops have indicated, if the one-year time away could be reduced to 30 days for religious workers, it would help, he said.
Fr. Londoño, who for now continues to happily serve as an associate pastor with the Family of Five Parishes located in downtown Milwaukee and the East Side, is not the first priest serving archdiocese parishes to plan a departure due to the new visa situation. Two left the United States for one year and returned earlier this year to new assignments, Fr. Reesman said. Another is leaving now who will not return.
The archdiocese is reviewing the circumstances for each of the other 23 foreign-born priests now serving parishes who could eventually be impacted if the visa process does not change.
“We have to create options for them to go to outside of America for an entire year in some cases because their home nations are not safe or are without sufficient support systems,” Fr. Reesman said.
Fr. Londoño, who had hoped to eventually do further studies, received permission from Archbishop Listecki to study at the Angelicum in Rome during his year away.
Pastor assignments are typically done for six-year terms, and Fr. Londoño does not know what his assignment will be when returns. In addition to his sacramental responsibilities as an associate pastor, he accompanies the group of parishioners that attend Mass in Spanish every Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Cathedral, leads adult Confirmation classes at the Family of Five Parishes and is very involved with Catholic East School, especially regarding Catholic identity.
“Without a change in the law, it will be difficult for us to assign any priests here on temporary visas in placements that require long-term stability of office. More burdens will fall to our U.S.-born or naturalized priests,” Fr. Reesman said. “We may need to explore rotating different priests in and out of the country on temporary visas, which does not allow them to truly settle here and grow to be at home in our communities, which is not healthy either for the priests or the communities they serve.”
“It is an enormously complicated legal and logistical situation in its origins that results in a very simple outcome: a priest shortage created by the federal government. Difficult to explain, but unmistakable in its effects that we are all feeling across the Church in the United States. It is also one that is within the power of our federal government to solve, and we as Catholic constituents need to make our lawmakers aware of this fact,” Fr. Reesman said.
