Again to pray at St. Casimir before Our Lady of Częstochowa

Some people believe they see the Hand of God involved on earth, and call this a 'miracle'. Some people see something good succeeding over great difficulties, and call that a 'miracle'. In some cases both opinions exist in the same action.

Some of you may know, that, Cleveland Mass Mob first came to Saint Casimir's. There was more than one reason to come there first. Mary the Mother of God has several national representations. Many nations have a particularly loved vision of her. The Poles have Our Lady of Częstochowa. When the parish was evicted in November of 2009, Michael Klymiuk-Wieczerski had a dream the night thereafter. He saw her and she said, "Don't leave me". This began the prayer vigils of the street, for 139 consecutive Sundays, the Casimiri gathered outside the church, until the Sunday they could come inside the church.

 St. Casimir's sanctuary. 19 January 2014.

A parishioner, John Niedzialek, knew Veronica Dahlberg. She is an advocate for local Mexican émigrés, many whom worked in agriculture and horticulture. First, Ricardo Ramos and his family came to pray at St. Casimir. On one occasion eighty people walked a twenty mile pilgrimage to St. Casimir, and carried a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Since then there has been a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Casimir.

St. Casimir Cleveland: Luis Nicasio Padilla left, Ricardo Ramos center, Veronica Dahlberg right.

Then came Luis Nicasio Padilla and his family to pray for intercession. To-day, both families remain together here in Ohio. [click for several foto essays]

Now, Pedro Hernandez Ramirez and his family are coming to St. Casimir to pray for intercession. The field office in Detroit for Immigration and Customs Enforcement of  Department of Homeland Security has a history of overzealous policing, contrary to official policy which "prioritizes the removal of public safety and national security threats", and the 'Morton Memo' which reads "that immigrants in deportation proceedings can remain in the U.S. if they are good people with strong ties in the United States". 

The New York Times has seen this latest story as an example [click] of the inconsistency of the 'immigration' quandary. It is caught in electoral politics. The president is treading gingerly, and executive decision has not come forth.
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update from WKSU [click]

Another trial, another reprieve

From Caiaphas to Pilate and back again...

In a tumultuous few afternoon hours, one of the many police agencies (ICE--immigration) of the federal government terrorised, played with, and spat out a family. Only very instant and intense concerted action by friends, a legal eagle, and a public informed by the press prevented a tragedy.

ICE (immigration and customs enforcement within the dept. of Homeland Security) demanded Ricardo Ramos to appear in Cleveland's Federal Bldg. by 3 o'clock for immediate processing for deportation. Friends and supporters, led by Veronica Dahlberg, came to the most impromptu of rallies across the street from that building, near the Free Stamp sculpture on East Ninth and Lakeside. At 2.30, Ms. Dahlberg gave background to several press mediums on the situation. She spoke of the Ramos family, and the government. The figures for 2013's deportations were recently released, of the over 300 thousand, over 80% were of Mexicans and Guatemalans. This is far more than proportional. Why has the government gone after these particular nationals? The government is not concentrating its efforts on criminals, terrorists, and that sort. They are going after those people who are doing the most humble of jobs, for depressed wages. These undocumented foreign nationals, immigrants, gather the nation's food, and often prepare it. They labor so others can eat.

Yesterday, a stay of appeal was pending. Late this morning deportation was ordered. Mr. Ramos gathered his children from school, and friends accompanied him downtown. It looked as the only thing that mitigated was the weather, for a handful of minutes a brilliant backlighting shone upon the people, and no hawk wind off the lake blew on them. Later during the conference a falcon flew over. Later still, when people were to go home, a flurry of snow hit.

Friends carried signs, including those imploring Congressional Representative Marcia Fudge (D) to keep a promise for help. Representative Marcy Kaptur (D), and David Joyce (R) have intervened on the family's behalf. Mr. Joyce's staff received grief and negative feedback from his erstwhile supporters. But, this is an action of the executive branch of government; they have the option of leniency; they have instead been most capricious, and often dismissively insulting, and hard hitting. If not for so much intervention by others, Ricardo Ramos would be long gone.

Then while the growing group of eighty individuals, many whom left work in Lorain, Painesville, and Akron to be there and wait for the the witching hour to tick off, David Leopold [center] came with the news of the new reprieve. He spoke for a quick couple of minutes to Ms. Dahlberg and Mr. Ramos, and told them of the latest peril averted. He then spoke to the press.

Immigration counsel, David Leopold explains that an Immigration reform bill is moving through the United States Senate. Its provisions would cover Ricardo Ramos's case. "It would be patently unfair for the government to remove Mr. Ramos at this time".

Ricardo Ramos spoke softly, while a noisy bus passed by. His emotional whirlwind affected him toward tears. His family has been tossed to and fro by a capricious prosecution.

 Michelle turned twelve yesterday, she was asked how was this birthday present.

 This is a warm, united, and loving family in danger of needless disruption.

And after the press left, they prayed in a language that God recognised. Many would attend Mass at Saint Casimir Sunday, and retrieve a statue of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe they brought with them at the end of a twenty mile peregrinación.

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addenda, Saturday 18 January: perhaps, in astronomy the word is conjunction

Yesterday, the thought occurred to me, while outside next to the Free Stamp of proximity and involvement. I was there with the press, and the friends and family of Ricardo Ramos. East Ninth and Lakeside is interesting. Across the street is the Federal Building, a 32 storey piece of Bauhaus Brutalism, with scaffolding and barricades, almost to resemble some alien bunker outpost from a science-fiction space flick. Across the street is a building with a sign "Jones, Day", which i hear, is the largest and most powerful law firm in the Middle West. I have heard they are, or were, the legal counsel of choice for the diocese.

I was wearing an oversize sweat jacket with Notre Dame letters and colors. Some of the campesinos from Lorain held a bandera with Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. One of the reporters mentioned to me, that the cathedral/chancery was very near by. Where was their representative?

To-morrow, there is to be an Immigrant's Mass at the Irish cathedral (Saint Colman's) with episcopal participation. Perhaps some notice can be given to these illustrious personages.

a petition for mercy

http://petitions.moveon.org/americasvoice/sign/ricardo-shouldnt-be-torn
[click]

Ricardo shouldn't be torn apart from his family!

Petition by Matt Hildreth

To be delivered to Rebecca Adducci, Director of the Detroit ICE Office

Please grant deferred action to Ricardo Ramos (A# 88-138-442). Ricardo is a loving father of three U.S. citizen children. He's been a hardworking American and deserves a chance to stay with his family. Please exercise prosecutorial discretion and stop Ricardo's deportation!

Petition Background

Michelle will be forced to spend her 12th birthday saying good-bye to her Dad, instead of spending it with him and the rest of her family like most kids her age.

That's because immigration officials in the Obama Administration have decided to deport Michelle's dad, Ricardo Ramos. He has until Thursday to leave, the very same day as her birthday. Ricardo has called Ohio his home for nearly two decades and has three U.S. citizen children, yet ICE officials want to tear his family apart by deporting him.

If ICE officials go through with Ricardo's deportation, Ricardo's family will be devastated. He's a loving dad and is the sole breadwinner in the family, recently taking on a second job in a restaurant in addition to the 16 years he's spent working in local nurseries.

When police pulled Ricardo over for driving without a license, they sent him to ICE officials. Friends and supporters got Ricardo's initial January 1, 2014 deportation date postponed, but now ICE officials have set a new date to deport him just a few days away. We need your help returning him to his family!

Ricardo would likely qualify for the path to citizenship in the Senate immigration bill and President Obama's Administration shouldn't be pushing hardworking, taxpaying Americans like Ricardo for Speaker John Boehner's inaction. In fact, because President Obama supports the Senate's bill, he shouldn't be deporting immigrants like Ricardo at all.

Please help Ricardo by asking ICE officials to exercise "prosecutorial discretion" and let Ricardo return home to his family where he belongs. They need you to act right now!

Michelle shouldn't spend her birthday being torn away from her dad. Help Ricardo stay where he belongs, at home! 

http://petitions.moveon.org/americasvoice/sign/ricardo-shouldnt-be-torn
__________________________________
postscriptum: 10.09 p.m. 15 January 2014--the petition at this moment has 1,183 signatures.
postscriptum: 08.56 a.m. 16 January 2014--the petition at this moment has 1,223 signatures.
I don't know when the document will be delivered, but office hours must be approaching.
postscriptum: 3 p.m. 16 January 2014--"ICE [immigration police] has informed David [Leopold, attorney] that they will not be picking up Ricardo, as the decision is pending. We don't know how long it will take. It could be tomorrow, or next week."
postscriptum: 12.01 a.m. 18 January 2014--the petition at this moment has 2,290 signatures.

A Thought for Kevin O'Brien

January 15 2014's  A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way. -Martin Luther King Jr., civil-rights leader (1929-1968) 


I subscribe to  A.Word.A.Day by Anu Garg. Wordsmith.org [click, and].  He presents a word, and at the end, often, his "thought for today" is a humanitarian one.

The last few posts, that i have presented, were on Ricardo Ramos. This thought for today should be sent to Kevin O'Brien of the management of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Some few years ago he vented his spleen on protestors of the 2006 Air Show, and people responded with a small book containing some of the letters that were sent to O'Brien's paper. He has been a guest on the Feagler show several times, and he looks like a mild-mannered, soft-spoken fellow. Appearances are sometimes deceiving.

And Kevin O'Brien [click] continues to be a contemptible jerk, and hypocritical fascist. He quotes from the News-Herald because his paper's management (which he is a member of) did not write an article on the pilgrimage; although Gus Chan did photograph, and well, the pilgrimage. It is very common in the United States to see a glaring discontinuity between reporters, and photographers compared to the editorialists of management. The Cleveland Plain Dealer often publishes good reporting in articles and pictures, and then a brake is applied to those journalists, so that the editorial writers can present a Fox-like "balance" of contradiction as authoritative consideration.

It is time for a new book that has been inspired by Kevin O'Brien.

pilgrims and friends

Elizabeth Wood Perez is a wife and mother. She is wearing camouflage pants, because she is a veteran of ten years of the United States Marine Corps. She is a daughter of St. Margaret Mary's of South Euclid. This was one of the fifty-eight parishes that Bishop Lennon closed, and its appeal mysteriously vanished, and there has been no answer given.

In many ways Mrs. Perez is remarkable. She has been apportioned grief, bother, and sorrow; and yet she is of a most fervently cheery and approachable demeanor. At the time of the parish's eviction, and suppression, her husband was arrested. She turned to the pastor of the open St. Gregory's and was rudely, and insulting rebuffed. She quoted Catholic theology of mercy to the priest, and this caused him to snap at her. This is mirrored in the lives of many Catholics, officious priests called on their neglect of pastoral duties and contradiction of teaching whom instead of correcting their errors reply in snide umbrage. Sometimes people do not lose faith, and leave the church, but are actively pushed away. Asking a priest of St. Clare's parish for help for her jailed husband, she was told, that "we don't do that anymore". Her husband is a deportee.

She attends St. Ann's now. A priest from there gave her the crucifix to carry during the pilgrimage.

When the word came that the pilgrims had made the turn from Euclid Ave, people gathered to greet them. A retired attorney, Joseph Meissner (rear right with pocket phone), called the bishop of Cleveland, and the mayor of Cleveland to ask them to be at St. Casimir's to also welcome the pilgrims. To do so would show that the Church welcomed the émigrés, and to remind the public that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were strangers and immigrants in Egypt; and to do so would show that elected leaders cared about residents; and both would make a political statement of forthrightness to expose the onerous, unjust, and unfair policy that is inflicted on humble people. Joseph did not get through to the men, although he did speak to female subordinates. No one would come from the chancery, nor from City Hall.

One block away from Saint Casimir, on Kosciuszko, they rest and listen to the last directions before arrival and entry.

John approachs the open doors of St. Casimir's and a cadre of welcome.

 

Arrival, and a joyous profound piety

Llegada, y una profunda piedad gozoso

The two adults (foreground), David Leopold and Lynn Tramonte, are immigration advocates and arrived as a vanguard of the pilgrims. They arrived before the estimated finish of 4 p.m.

John Niedzialek lidera el pelotón y el tren de los peregrinos

John Niedzialek leads the peloton and train of the pilgrims through his old boyhood streets to his family's parish of St. Casimir. The marchers left at 8 a.m. (an half hour late) and arrived just on the other side of 4 o'clock. Twenty miles in eight hours, this is a special episode in the history of the parish, and of the entire diocese. Such pilgrimages are not uncommon in the old country, whether in Europe or Latin America; but this is in Cleveland's cold.

They sang three songs, including Pescador de Hombres (which the Casimiri often sang on the streets in the Polish version, Barka, which was John Paul II's favorite hymn. The Poles were surprised that it was not originally Polish. I mentioned this to Wojciech, one of the prayer leaders. He gave me an odd puzzling look, and was shocked). They recited a decade of the rosary, and Father Eric Orzech, pastor of St. Casimir led the Benediction. The Host was displayed in a monstrance, and a pleasant fragrant cloud of incense hung in the air.

The feeling of warm spirituality flooded the physical space of the nave of St. Casimir's parish church to-day upon the arrival of the pilgrims. They had walked twenty miles in eight hours. An initial group of sixty-five left Mentor, and along the way they were joined by others, and welcomed by people waiting outside the church. Some two hundred souls sang, prayed and celebrated Benediction. They marched with an intention for Mary, the Mother of God, to intervene on behalf of Ricardo Ramos. But not only for Ricardo, but his family, and many individuals and their many families. Some people have had their families forcibly torn apart already, and others fear that their family will be so ripped. Too many hundreds of thousands have to live in shadow and fear. Currently the United States has aggressively executed a deportation policy that is cruel, and by very little is interrupted by mercy.

They had the good fortune, and the gift of benevolent providence to have their pilgrimage of supplication on, perhaps, the most hospitable day that this January has to offer. A week before, the temperature was sixty degrees colder, and snow drifted about.

Thursday is another day of demarcation, that will burden a family's nerves, and hearts, to breaking. The government is functionary in a thoughtless manner. Most of the public is ignorant, and uncaring. The last hope is a belief in the Goodness of God. It is a sad comfort, but true: the Crucifixion of Jesus was legal, his Resurrection was prohibited and illegal.

  por favor salvar a nuestras familias, please save our families

________________________________

postscriptum: 15 January. for another presentation with audio-visual clips and fotos [click]

Inicio del Camino de San Casimiro

The start of the Pilgrimage to Saint Casimir

(pictures first, words later) (imágenes primero, las palabras más adelante)

 before dawn in the parking lot of a shopping center in Mentor Ohio
  Rosario Chavez, Juana Sanchez, Veronica Dahlberg, San Juana Montes, Ivonne Pinera

 dawn begins, the 7.30 a.m. start will be a few minutes late

 the leaders of the pilgrimage Marisela, Veronica, and Elizabeth stand before the HOLA banner
(HOLA, defines itself as a "small, grassroots Latino organization based in NE Ohio focusing on Latino Outreach, Advocacy and Community Organizing")

 part of the local press corps, with members of the Ramos family and friends

The patroness of all Mexico, and all her children is Our Lady of Guadeloupe, Mary, the Mother of God. A statue of her accompanies the pilgrims. La patrona de todo México, y todos sus hijos es la Virgen de Guadalupe, María, la Madre de Dios. Una estatua de ella acompaña a los peregrinos.

Route 20, Mentor Avenue (which becomes Euclid Avenue) is not completely bordered by sidewalks. Originally, the pilgrimage route was to be along the freeway, and therefore longer. This would have made for some more problems. The path they chose is of some local historical note. Just a wee bit east before the start, in Mentor, is the home of James Garfield, who had been president for a few days in 1881. The road becomes Euclid Avenue, at that time Euclid was Millionaire's Row. Catholics and the poor were forbidden there, unless they were servants or other workmen. The Cleveland city limits had been at E.79th at one time. That is where the turn north of the pilgrimage route would be. Back in the Robber Baron/Gilded Age their churches were on Euclid, and no Catholic churches were built there. St. Agnes later was built on E.80th, and now after a fire, only the campanile remains. A little later still, St. Philomena[extant] was built in East Cleveland. While, on a parallel street closer to the Lake, Superior Avenue, there were several Catholic churches (SS. John[extant], Peter[extant], Columbkille, Andrew Svorad, Francis, George, Thomas Aquinas). People were expected to know their place.

Dora Acosta, Laura Mendez, Rosy Ramirez

Laura holds a picture of Saint Toribio Romo González [click, click, and click], a Cristero martyr, and a patron of immigrants. Rosy is carrying a picture of Fr. Nicolás Aguilar Copado of Guadalajara, Jalisco, 2004†.

Pilgrimage for Ricardo/Peregrinación por Ricardo

see earlier post [click]

 There has been a facebook page set [click].

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Pilgrimage for Ricardo (información en español a continuación)
Monday, January 13th.
Help us save a family! Our friend and colleague Ricardo Ramos, of Painesville, Ohio, is facing deportation on January 16th, his daughter's 12th birthday. Ricardo is the married father of three US Citizen children, the main breadwinner of his family, having worked 16 years in the fields of NE Ohio. Join us as we walk 20 miles from Great Lakes Mall in Mentor to St. Casimir's Church, 8223 Sowinski Ave., in Cleveland, where we will pray for the intercession of Our Lady of Czestochowa, the Polish Madonna. Help us raise awareness of this terrible injustice, the separation of our families!

Travel Route will begin at Great Lakes Mall, in Mentor, at 7:30 AM, and continue all along Route 20/Euclid Ave. until we reach E. 79th Street. From there, we'll turn north and continue on to the church. Join us at any point to show your solidarity.

Peregrinación por Ricardo
Lunes, 13 de enero.
Ayúdanos a salvar una familia! Nuestro amigo y colega Ricardo Ramos, de Painesville, Ohio, enfrenta deportación el 16 de enero, cumpleaños de su hija. Ricardo es hombre casado y padre de tres hijos ciudadanos de los EE.UU., el principal sostén de su familia, después de haber trabajado 16 años en el campo de NE Ohio. Únase a nosotros mientras caminamos desde Great Lakes Mall en Mentor hasta la Iglesia de San Casimiro, 8223 Sowinski Ave., en Cleveland, donde vamos a orar por la intercesión de Nuestra Señora de Czestochowa.

Ruta de viaje comenzará en el Great Lakes Mall, en Mentor, a las 7:30 AM, y continuar a lo largo de la Ruta 20/Euclid Avenida. hasta llegar a E. 79th Street. A partir de ahí, vamos a convertir al norte y continuar en la E. 79th hasta la iglesia. Únase a nosotros en cualquier punto para mostrar su solidaridad.

 _________________________
postscriptum: 11p.m. 10 January 2014; 3 additional stories:
Marisela, Immigrant Mother and Widow, to Lead Next Week’s 20-Mile Pilgrimage in Ohio [click]
On Monday, Ohio Advocates to Hold 20-Mile Pilgrimage for Father in Danger of Deportation [click]
Cleveland Plain Dealer article: 20-mile 'pilgrimage' on Monday will support immigrant dad facing deportation [click]

Miracle Requested

La gente con la bandera, Patrona y Protectora de los Inmigrantes

"We need a miracle to help Ricardo Ramos and his family". — Veronica Isabel Dahlberg, Executive Director of HOLA, a small, grassroots Latino organization based in NE Ohio focusing on Latino Outreach, Advocacy and Community Organizing. Painesville, Ohio.

Before 1890, there was no federal immigration entity. Immigration was transferred from one federal department to another from 1890 onward. The last transfer was to this terror induced creation called "Homeland Security". Immigration Act of 1891 gave the Treasury Department a Commission of Immigration, it went through several departments: Commerce and Labor 1903, Labor 1913, and Justice 1940. From 1933 the constituent agency in those departments was the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). For years, resident aliens went to the post office to pick up an alien address card, fill it out, and mail it in; so that addresses were on file. Often, people had their child (often born in this new country) go to the post office and get the card. The child growing up in an English speaking world, would be familiar with the term "alien" from the picture show, and later television, and wonder why in his every other encounter with that word, it would be in the context "Killer Aliens from Mars Attack Earth", or something else similarly stupid. Then one year it was no longer necessary.

Then later, Osama bin Laden, a foreign assassin well outside the country attacked America in a co-ordinated, and dramatically choreographed assault. This gave a new and extremist régime, which had usurped the government, the opportunity to re-organise the government and create a new apparatus as a response to 'terror'. INS as of March 1, 2003 was in this new cabinet department, and was divided into three new structures:  U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Yes, immigrant labor is to be filed with the attacks of assassins. This particular case, which has come to my knowledge, falls under the survey of ICE. 

Years before, a DC-3, contracted with the United States Immigration & Naturalization Service (INS), on the morning of 28 January 1948, ignited over the hills east of Coalinga, California. It was overloaded by weight, and by passengers, and past time for a required, safety inspection. Woody Guthrie read the accounts in the papers, and was disturbed that the Mexicans were listed only as deportees. To him, it was as if, it was a parting final insult. Guthrie composed a poem, that later became a song [click]. Two full generations later, how far have we advanced?

Immigrant labor is not respected in this country. Romney said, "corporations are people". He lied, labor is people; people that are taken advantage of, and discarded. Now we have a legal Democratic government, and they are deporting even more people. Politics, and the force of bureaucracy overrules people. This new power was created by fear. 

No Próspero Año Nuevo.

 Ricardo Ramos [center] with family and friends at St. Casimir Cleveland

Ricardo Ramos has been a resident nurseryman in Lake County. He, and his wife, and their three children live in a mobile home park in Perry. He is been in the US for some 16 years. He was stopped while driving, and his papers were not in order. Since coming to Ohio, he has become a father to three children whom were born citizens, or as some would say "anchor babies". The pay he exchanged for his labor, is not great. He and his family have given more to the economy than they have received, but that is the system. The government wants him out of the United States before the crystal ball hits Times Square, and the calendar turns.

The family has asked for the intercession of Our Lady of Czestochowa, and Cleveland's St. Casimir community. They became aware of the Miracle that the parishioners of St. Casimir believed happened. On the day of eviction, the parish was dedicated to Our Lady of Czestochowa. A parishioner had a dream that Our Lady asked him (and them) not to leave. After 139 Sundays praying outside the church, as a parish community, they again got to go back inside. The right to return.

In this time of the year, the days of Christmas, many are guided by emotion and introspective conscience to be charitable to those caught by misfortune. This season beckons to men and women of good will to intervene. This is the lesson that the great novelist, Charles Dickens, wished to convey to the disinterested whom would have the powers of the establishment deal cold-heartedly and perfunctory for those in misery. A Christmas Carol is always with us, in Dickens' tale the Ghost of Christmas Present told Ebenezer, that he had over 1800 brothers; now he has over 2,000.

This family is part of our community, and has been for years. This is a cry for mercy, and justice, so that a family may stay united. This benefits not only one family, but our society as a whole.  Perhaps, a quick television spotlight and investigation can stir some human response for mercy and justice. The power of a presentation on television focuses attention, and interest on a subject. Those at Saint Casimir's were aided by the occasional audio, video, and print story. This story of the Ramos family can also benefit by media coverage. We know the powers of the establishment sometimes change course if they are shown the light (or are embarrassed).

WEWS TV-5 has run three recent stories, one on Sunday, December 22nd at 6 pm; another on Christmas Day at 11 pm; and a third yesterday at 11 pm [click]. If anyone can appeal to a Representative, or a Senator, or the President, or someone who can intervene, please do so. If Ricardo Ramos leaves, ask for intervention so that he can return.
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postscriptum 2 January 2014:  "Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, with help from Rep. David Joyce have secured another two-week stay for Ricardo".
postscriptum 3 p.m. 16 January 2014:  "ICE [immigration police] has informed David [Leopold, attorney] that they will not be picking up Ricardo, as the decision is pending. We don't know how long it will take. It could be tomorrow, or next week."