Former Waukegan priest walks the walk for immigrants

If all goes well, the Rev. Gary Graf will soon accomplish his mission of walking from Illinois to the Statue of Liberty in New York City. Some talk the talk. This priest walks the walk.

For Waukeganites, the name Gary Graf may ring a church bell. The 67-year-old priest served for years as pastor at Most Blessed Trinity Parish on Keller Avenue, just north of Belvidere Street.

He was the popular pastor in Waukegan for 14 years before moving on to other pastoral assignments in the Chicago Archdiocese beginning in 2009, mainly in Cook County’s south suburbs. His current journey continues his platform of support for immigrants.

Graf expects to join a multifaith prayer service at Robert F. Wagner Park in Battery Park City at 2 p.m. (EDT) on Tuesday, after first stopping at Ellis Island, which welcomed millions of immigrants to the U.S., including his great-grandparents, when this country fostered immigration.

He began his pilgrimage on Oct. 6, leaving from the childhood home of Pope Leo XIV in Dolton, walking an average of 17 miles a day through rural areas of Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania on his way to New York City. The distance to the Big Apple is some 712 miles, as the crow flies, from Dolton.

Much like the immigration path, his walk hasn’t been a straight line as he marched through mainly the farmlands of the heartland. Even two broken ribs, suffered after a fall from a horse during a visit to an Indiana parish, haven’t slowed him down much.

The walk aims to bring attention to the treatment of immigrants by the administration of President Donald Trump, especially during recent enforcement actions in Chicagoland, including a number in Lake County communities.

“They said they were going after the ‘worst of the worst’ criminals, but this isn’t the case, at least in Chicago,” he told Catholic News Service. “They’re grabbing people first and asking questions later. The violent way many of these people are being treated is amoral and un-American.”

Graf is committed to helping immigrants. During his stint in Waukegan, he was known for fighting for immigrant rights and the downtrodden. He is a longtime member of Priests for Justice for Immigrants.

Ordained in 1984, he spent five years as a priest in Mexico serving a people “with whom I fell deeply in love,” according to the news service. In early 2018, he fasted to protest Trump’s attempt to end the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program begun during the administration of President Barack Obama. Before that, Graf climbed a fence at the southern border in 2013 to call attention to dangers faced by immigrants seeking to illegally enter the U.S.

While in Waukegan, Graf also urged city officials in 2007 not to apprehend law-abiding undocumented immigrants. As pastor of Holy Family Parish on the city’s South Side in 2002, Graf donated half of his liver to a critically ill parishioner.

His current parish, Our Lady of the Heights in south suburban Chicago Heights, where he is head pastor, has seen immigration arrests recently as part of the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz.” He has documented his trek on social media and online at stepupspeakout.org.

His walk, in a way, may remind some of St. Patrick’s Way in Northern Ireland, an 82-mile walking trail connecting key sites related to St. Patrick’s proselytizing during the early beginnings of Christianity in Ireland. It starts in the island’s religious center, Armagh, and winds through pastoral landscapes to Down Cathedral in Downpatrick, where the saint’s simple grave, with the name “Patric” etched into his stone tomb, rests.

Graf’s crusade began because he “felt a call that was directly from above” after watching immigration raids taking place in the Chicago region. “I look to help people who get up every single morning to work and raise their families,” he said. “If I can do this small gesture on their behalf, what a blessing it is, what a privilege.”

Faith leaders have a responsibility to maintain humanity, he told  Evy Lewis of The Daily Southtown in a Nov. 27 report. “Just reminding the powers that be in terms of the authorities, civil authorities; what is God’s mind and heart in all of this?” Graf said. “We are children of God.”

Apparently, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops agrees with that assessment, calling last month for “a meaningful reform of our nation’s immigration laws and procedures”. They argued, “human dignity and national security are not in conflict.”

At the same time, the pope chastised the Trump administration for treating immigrants with disrespect when they have been taken into custody. There’s been nothing humane in the way those apprehended, including U.S. citizens, have been treated by immigration authorities.

Some believe the roundups by federal agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with the Border Patrol, are on hiatus until the new year begins. If so, Rev. Graf may need to get a new pair of walking shoes to take on the next immigration offensive.

Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor. 

sellenews@gmail.com

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