Time Running Out for Illegal Priest

Advertise • Help • Contact Us • Permissions

Discussions Groups Events Blogs Photos Premium Irish Circle

Edit Profile Friends Requests Messages Updates

Discussions Groups Events Photos Blogs Irish Pubs Local Networks Expat Info GAA Clubs Rugby Clubs Dating Worldwide

Working in Ireland Working Abroad Currency Converter Jobs Ireland Banking Ireland Irish Sites

Info Ireland Vacation Packages Hotels Car Rental Golf Ferries Hostels Day Tours

Irish Name Register Passenger Lists Advice & Resources

Irish News Music & Songs Recipes Proverbs e-Postcards History & Archaeology Heritage & Culture Mythology Irish Studies Literature Gaelic

Jewellery Books Food Heraldry Crystal Food baskets USA Seasonal Items Clothing

Irish Voice

Columnists

WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Read newsletters

Enter your e-mail address to receive our weekly e-Newsletter:

Irish Voice News

Time Running Out for Illegal Priest

June 26, 2008

By April Drew

TIME is running out for the Donegal Priest who has been told he must leave the country by July 1 because he has been out of status in South Dakota for the past number of years.

Fr. Cathal Gallagher, 58, is to leave the United States next Tuesday if the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t re-open his case in time. Gallagher, who has served three parishes in South Dakota for the past ten years is upset that he is to leave the place he fondly calls “home.”

Bishop Paul J. Swain has already found a replacement for Gallagher. Swain has reassigned a 34-year-old Sioux Falls priest, Shane Stephens who was ordained in 2007, to take over the Irish man’s parishes in De Smet, Arlington and Iroquois. Stephens officially take over on July 1.

Swain, who described Gallagher – a native of Gweedore in Donegal, in a recent letter as a “fine pastor” said if the De-partment of Homeland Security reverses their decision concerning Gallaghers residence status then the Bishop will consider what options are available to him at that time but he continued, “In fairness to the new pastor and the people of the three parishes who need the current uncertainty to end and therefore be able to move on, reappointment to these parishes would not be among those options.”

Gallagher, who trained as a Columban priest in Dalgan Park Seminary in County Meath, came to the Unites States on a religious visa in 1996 to partake in an alcohol treatment program in Rochester, Minnesota “I had a two way ticket for Tokyo,” said Gallagher who was based in Japan for 22 years. “And I had every intention of using it.”

During this time, Gallagher became friendly with then Bishop of Sioux Falls, Robert J. Carlson who was undergoing cancer treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. After spending some time in Sioux Falls with Carlson, Gallagher quickly realized it is where he wanted to lay down roots. At the request of Carlson, whose mother hailed from Donegal, Gallagher accepted a parish priest’s position and spent the next decade in the town of De Smet.

In the late 1990’s Gallagher renewed his religious visa for a second time and Carlson began proceedings to help his friend obtain permanent residency in the United States.

The years weren’t long passing by and as far as Gallagher knew, his green card application was being taken care of. In January 2003 he received word that his permanent residency petition had been approved but somewhere along the way something went wrong and it didn’t come to light until very recently that Gallagher was in fact living in South Dakota illegally and he never knew it.

In January 2007 Gallagher received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security informing him that his request for permanent residency was denied. A “technical error” they said prevented him from obtaining a green card. However his lawyer at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc (CLINIC) informed him that the denial notice was a “slip up” and it could be rectified easily.

Another year of hope passed by and when Gallagher checked up on his case again this past April he found out that nothing had changed. Gallagher and the newly appointed Bishop of Sioux Falls, Paul J. Swain, had a meeting with the diocese’s lawyer.

The lawyer, upon realizing that Gallagher has been out of status for some time, informed Swain that he was harboring an illegal alien.

This, the lawyer said was the same scale of crime as being an illegal alien.

Hearing this news, according to Gallagher, made the bishop nervous, and despite their friendship, Swain, informed Gallagher that he could no longer employ him and told him he would be required to leave the country by July 1.

South Dakota Senators John Thune and Tim Johnson and Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin have heard of Gallagher’s situation and have gotten involved. They recently presented his file to the Governor and are awaiting an answer as to whether the Governor will assist them in trying to have Gallagher’s case re-opened by the Department of Homeland Security. Directors of each immigration office have the right to reopen and revisit any case irrespective of time elapsed.

Gallagher’s parishioners are not taking the Bishop’s decision lightly. They don’t want their current parish priest to leave and they hope it’s still not too late to change the Bishop’s mind.

Patti Ward, a close friend and lifelong parishioner of St. Thomas Aquinas told the Irish Voice on Monday “If all goes well with the Governor we will go straight to Bishop Swain,” she said in an effort to plead with him to allow Gallagher to remain as the parish priest in Sioux Falls. Ward and other parishioners have set up a website www.helpfather.com to support Gallagher.

Gallagher, who wasn’t available for comment at time of print, told the Irish Voice in a recent interview that he is unsure where he will go if he has to leave the U.S.

“I really don’t know. Japan thinks I’d go back there but Ireland calls too but then again it’s not the Ireland I knew years ago,” plus he ads,” I have two brothers who are priests in the home diocese and I think two Gallagher brothers in the one parish is enough,” he laughs.

In the larger scale of things, Gallagher said what is meant to be will be. “I’ve seen so much tragedy in this life that it’s not the end of the world if I have to move.”

Share this story: digg this | Add to del.icio.us

Print Save Discussions

Discuss

Email a friend