Green Card Priest Returns Home

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Irish Voice News

Green Card Priest Returns Home

August 28, 2008

By Paddy Clancy

THE priest who won a deportation battle against U.S. authorities celebrated his first visit home since then by officiating at his niece’s wedding at the weekend.

Father Cathal Gallagher shared the altar with two brothers who are also priests at the marriage of TG4’s Belfast-based news reporter Aine Ni Ghallchoir and bus-driver Patrick Duffy.

Gallagher, 58, was based in a parish on the prairies of South Dakota when immigration authorities ordered his deportation because he didn’t have a green card after 12 years in the U,S.

But the decision to boot him out was reversed following a relentless campaign by parishioners in the diocese of Sioux Falls.

Immigration chiefs admitted the initial bungle was their fault and Gallagher, who was afraid to leave the U.S. for fear he wouldn’t be allowed return, was given his green card and the freedom to travel at will.

The first thing he did was purchase a ticket so he could be at Saturday’s wedding of his niece in their native Gortahork in Gweedore, Co. Donegal.

A jubilant Gallagher described the event as “nothing short of perfect.”

“I never even considered the possibility of being able to attend the wedding because of my status in the U.S. I had even made plans to meet the couple in Las Vegas on their honeymoon but when my world changed everything became possible and I thought, ‘I am a free man now so why not do it?’”

Because of the uncertainty over his position in South Dakota, his bishop appointed a new parish priest.

Gallagher accepts he cannot go back to the same parish, but meanwhile he has been helping other priests in the diocese during vacations.

“My bishop has told me to take as much time off as I like and I will take him at his word on that. I have no fears now about what the future holds,” he said.

Already, his services are being sought elsewhere in the U.S. Kerry native Pat Henry told the Irish Voice last week that a church in the Catskills region of New York had closed and parishioners were seeking a new priest. Henry issued an invitation to Gallagher to take the position.

Gallagher said, “I read that and I thought it was wonderful but I do not know yet what will happen for me.”

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