Priests: Out of Limbo Soon?

Limbo of the Infants: destination of unbaptized infants.
Pope Benedict abandoned the doctrine in 2007.

It is inexcusable that the legal immigration system is so broken that it takes years to process an application. Whatever one's views on immigration, it can't be right or fair to a petitioner, his prospective employer, or his family to keep him in limbo seemingly interminably.

Speaking of limbo ("the border place between heaven and hell where those souls who died without being baptised"), the term's Roman Catholic origins have an ironic contemporary meaning due to the plight of immigrant priests, without whom the American Catholic church would not be able to function.

The Catholic Church in the U.S. doesn’t have sufficient vocations and increasingly relies on immigrants. “We used to send missionaries to other parts of the world,” Bishop Edmund Whalen of New York says. “Now, in a sense, we’re becoming the mission country.” Of the 356 active archdiocesan and extern priests in New York, the bishop says 183 are foreign nationals. The U.S. bishops’ conference recently took stock: With responses from 70% of dioceses and eparchies, it learned that 90% rely on foreign-born religious workers.

Solving the problems specific to Catholic priests is more manageable than fixing the entire immigration system:

Practical relief to the logjam could come in two ways. David Spicer, a lawyer with the U.S. bishops’ conference, says Homeland Security could modify or scrap its regulation—which isn’t mandated by statute—that foreign-born priests have to exit the U.S. for a year once their R-1 visas lapse. The Biden administration informed the conference that it contemplated doing so last fall but failed to follow through. The Trump administration has indicated it may propose a rule in September to offer religious workers more flexibility.

A more durable fix could come through Congress. Sens. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) and Susan Collins (R., Maine) plan to introduce a bill allowing religious workers with pending green-card applications to stay on their R-1s beyond five years. Both Catholic, the senators learned of the issue as it began to affect priests in their states’ parishes. The senators believe their colleagues would overwhelmingly support the measure, but passing any immigration bill has become difficult. They may try fitting the provision into a larger vehicle, say on border security or appropriations.

Presidential Executive Orders being the exception, change in Washington is never instantaneous. However, resolving this issue appears to have bipartisan agreement. Immigrant priests aren't displacing anyone. Let them in. It is abundantly clear that not enough Americans are willing and able to do the job.