WELCOME THE STRANGERS
‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me.’ (Matthew 25:35).
Rosie Hoban reports on a growing movement among our parishes.
Fr Mick Casey threw convention out the window during his time as parish priest at St Joseph’s Parish in the Melbourne suburb of Collingwood several years ago. The big austere-looking building once called a presbytery became known as the parish house. The door was rarely locked; instead it was left open to welcome the homeless and the lonely. It was slightly chaotic, but it was an open house. Fr Casey says his living arrangements were more about the Gospel than defying convention. And so it is today.
The parish house at St Ambrose in nearby Brunswick, where Mick is today, has become a safe harbour. Mick shares the house with an asylum seeker from Ethiopia, a man from India who is studying to be an Anglican priest and others who need support while struggling with health and social problems.
Since Fr Casey’s arrival at the Brunswick parish a few years ago, a second house owned by the parish has also become a place of refuge for asylum seekers. A local female parishioner and her adult daughter run the house, which has accommodated three women who are at different stages in their pursuit of refugee status. They are also supported by Mick, by a housing group from the parish and by a range of Melbourne welfare services including the Red Cross, the Foundation for the Survivors of Torture, the Hotham Mission and the Asylum Seeker’s Welcome Centre.
‘When I came to St Ambrose’s’, Mick says, ‘the house was rented out to raise money for the parish, but I and others could see that it could have great pastoral use. We talked about this at parish meetings and recognised that it would mean a drop in income, but we also knew we could manage that.
‘The issue was fairly clear to most people in the parish. We had a house we were renting out. And in the community there was, and still is, an extraordinary need for a compassionate response to what is happening to people who come to this country to make a new life. We saw it as a great pastoral opportunity.’
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So in October 2001 two women moved in, one from Somalia and another from Sri Lanka. One has left and now an Iranian woman is also living there. The house provides accommodation and support for six months and longer if necessary. Mick says the asylum seeker’s house and the parish house arrangements work well, and the problems that have arisen fairly regularly have all been overcome. He finds his own living arrangements often take a toll, but it is a choice he made a long time ago. ‘I live what I believe. It is part of my life as a priest, but at the same time I respect those who recognise that they could not do it.’
Mick believes setting up the asylum seeker’s house has been valuable for the people needing support, as well as an enriching experience for the parishioners. It is an opportunity to look outwards and respond to the reality of what is happening in the world. It has also been a chance to put a face and a truth to the people so often demonised in the media.
‘Jesus responded to the needs of the people, and this is a way our parish can live out the Gospel and respond to a need. The treatment of asylum seekers in this country shows how selfish we have become and how obsessed we are with what we are told by politicians is in the "national interest". But there is anguish and there is suffering and we must respond to that’, Mick says.
Certainly, another Melbourne priest, Fr Peter Carrucan, and his parishioners at the Holy Eucharist Parish in St Albans are firm in their response to the issues facing asylum seekers. Two years ago the parish convent, no longer used by religious sisters, was opened up to provide emergency accommodation for asylum seekers coming out of detention. An Iraqi family of five is now living in the house after spending almost a year in detention on Christmas Island and then in New Guinea.
Despite the former convent being in constant use, the demand in St Albans increased. A year ago the parish purchased a second house in the same street, which is used for families in similar circumstances. A man from Angola and his two sons are living there while they await the outcome of their visa appeal, now before the Minister for Immigration.
The accommodation is part of an extensive service the parish offers asylum seekers. Christian Brother Chris Meehl helps Peter run the parish’s refugee services, along with a refugee group and an army of volunteers willing to support the people living in the two houses. They offer financial and emotional support, teach English, assist with visa applications, negotiate hospital and medical services, and help with TAFE enrolments, public transport, accessing long-term accommodation and developing links into community networks.
Remarkably, the parish’s refugee group comprises people who have
come to Australia from countries such as Malta, the Philippines, Chile,
Russia and Croatia. The woman from Chile helps teach the asylum seekers
English. The children of the families are also offered free enrolment
in the Holy Eucharist Primary School.
Peter says one of the benefits to the parish and the wider community is
that most of the families who have used the houses for emergency accommodation
have stayed in the area once they are on their feet. The parish has also
set up a no-interest loans scheme whereby families, once they are able
to work or receive a benefit, can borrow money for domestic goods and
pay back their loan without any interest.
St Albans received $10,000 from St Vincent De Paul to go towards a refugee fund but it relies largely on $10 monthly pledges from families in the area to help meet costs. Peter and Chris realise that more money needs to be sourced from outside the already-stretched parish community. It is this wider community that Peter and his parishioners have come to know so well in the past two years.
‘Offering a home to people has helped open the hearts of our parishioners because they they get to know the people themselves and hear the stories from them—and they are different from the stories told in the media. One of the great outcomes is that we have gone right into the local community by linking in with health and welfare services. We are looking outward and that is where our parish ought to be’, Peter says.
‘Our Prime Minister tried to tell Australian people that he did not want to allow these asylum seekers in because they were the sort of people who tried to throw their children overboard. We know these people and we hear a different story. They are no different to you and me.’
Holy Eucharist and St Ambrose parishes are part of a growing movement throughout Australia. In country towns and cities, Catholic communities, and others, are using their resources to support asylum seekers. Many have set up monthly pledge systems or seek donations from the community to rent houses for asylum seekers to live in while they are in Australia.
Many asylum seekers, depending on their stage of visa application, have lost access to any benefits, including Medicare, and they are not allowed to work. Peter Carrucan and Mick Casey believe Jesus would offer such people a bed, food and -support.
If you wish to help Fr Peter Carrucan and the Holy Eucharist Parish in their work, please send any donations to: Holy Eucharist Parish Refugee Group, 1A Oleander Drive, St Albans, Vic 3021.
The first family to arrive at the house in St Albans in December 2000 stayed until the end of February 2001. They now live nearby and are very often in contact with Fr Carrucan, Chris and parishioners. The mother Azmaa is pictured with her three daughters (from left) Iman, Manol, Maha, and her son Jousef. Her husband, Muhammed, and another son, Ayman, are not pictured. Manol is married and her first child is due on 31 March. Her husband has lost his appeal for staying in Australia but supporters hope he can at least stay until the child is born. The whole family comes from Iraq.
