New Catechetical Center in Newton

Bishop blesses diocesan Migrant Ministry’s
new Catechetical Center in Newton

NEWTON  Bishop Serratelli blessed the new headquarters for diocesan Migrant Ministry’s Catechetical Center here May 2, which provides outreach to the local immigrant community and more space to conduct a broad spectrum of activities related to religious formation, education, training and spirituality.

Located on the second floor of a building at 18 Church St., the Catechetical Center includes a large room that accommodates English-as-a-Second Language classes; sessions for Bible study and Marian prayer groups; training for lectors, ushers, altar servers and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion; and Mass for extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, lectors and ushers on Thursdays at 6 p.m. This 30-person room has tables and chairs and regularly welcomes a group of Newton High School students, who help children with their math work, said Father Raimundo Rivera, appointed Migrant Ministry director by Bishop Serratelli last year.

The Catechetical Center also contains a separate office for Father Rivera, who works at the new location, although he still lives at and maintains a Migrant Ministry office at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish, Sparta.

“The immigrant community feels so close to Bishop Serratelli. We were so excited that he came to bless the Catechetical Center,” said Father Rivera, who noted that Migrant Ministry moved into the new location after renting the basement of a local Episcopalian church. “The new office is very comfortable,” he said.

Father Rivera became the first diocesan priest to assume leadership of Migrant Ministry a few months after the Trinitarian religious order, who had cared for migrant workers and their families, since the outreach’s inception 17 years ago, handed spiritual and social leadership of the ministry to the Paterson Diocese.

Migrant Ministry serves the migrant community through its pastoral work and its social work. Priests, who serve the outreach, celebrate Spanish-language Masses on alternate Monday evenings at 7 p.m. at St. Joseph’s, Newton, and St. Kateri and every Sunday at 7 p.m. at St. Joseph’s, Lincoln Park. Bus transportation is offered to and from liturgies. Also, the outreach conducts Bible studies, religious education and prayer groups. The ministry also offers preparation for Baptism, marriage, lectors and altar servers, as well as spiritual direction and counseling, Father Rivera said.

As part of their social work, the bilingual priests and brothers and volunteers of Migrant Ministry have been discerning the needs of migrants and their families. These people usually work as day laborers, eking out a meager living, and some are exploited by their employers. Not yet fluent in English, these newcomers, mostly in their 20s and 30s, feel isolated from the rest of society and from their Catholic Church, said Luis Arias, associate director, who also works with two other Migrant Ministry volunteer staffers, Pam Matzy and her husband, Ed.

The outreach operates a helpline in Sussex County and sometimes advocates in court for immigrants, although it usually refers them to Father Michael Burke, an attorney and director of legal services at diocesan Catholic Charities. The outreach mainly helps smooth out labor issues. Often, contractors hire immigrants as day labors and fail to pay them at the end of the workday. Migrant Ministry helps to track down those employers to get justice for the workers. The outreach also deliberately seeks out these migrants, who often come from agricultural backgrounds in their native countries and work, hidden away in the shadows on local farms, Arias said.

Today, Father Rivera builds on Migrant Ministry’s openhearted legacy with his own dreams of expanding the outreach.

“I want to put Migrant Ministry on a special level in the diocese. I want people, especially those people, who feel isolated, to know that we have someone in the diocese to represent them and that we have a special ministry to help them,” Father Rivera said.