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Soooo…. they’re not stealing ‘our’ jobs

In the no kidding department, a recent study published by the Immigration Policy Center finds Immigration Does Not Increase Unemployment:

There is little apparent relationship between recent immigration and unemployment rates among native-born workers, according to a pair of studies released May 19 by the Immigration Policy Center.

The reports analyze data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Census 2000 data . They are the first two installments of a three-part series, Untying the Knot, which seeks to —debunk the frequently misrepresented relationship between immigration and unemployment,— IPC said.

According to IPC, opponents of an immigration overhaul —frequently argue that immigrants ‘take’ jobs away from many native-born workers, especially during economic hard times.—

—We commissioned this report in order to take a serious look at whether or not immigration is in fact impacting unemployment among the native-born and what we have found is that scary rhetoric is not a substitute for good data,— said Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Law Foundation. IPC is the research arm of AILF.

—These findings are in line with other long-term studies conducted around the world which have shown that immigration has very little impact on native unemployment,— Johnson said. —In order to have a serious policy debate, we need good, honest numbers and that is what we believe we have provided in these reports.—

Unemployment Rates Similar in High-, Low-Immigration Areas

According to the reports, if immigrants took jobs away from native-born workers, one would expect to find a high unemployment rates in those parts of the country with large numbers of immigrants, particularly recent immigrants who are more willing to work for low wages and under worse conditions than long-term immigrants or native-born workers.

However, —analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau clearly reveals that this is not the case,— IPC said.

—The level of unemployment in the U.S. is painful, scary and difficult—”so we shouldn’t belittle it,— said Dan Siciliano, senior research fellow at IPC and executive director of the program in law, economics, and business at Stanford Law School. —However, the very notion that immigration has anything to do with unemployment does just that. It belittles the challenge of unemployment,— he said.

Siciliano said the idea that immigration is causally linked to unemployment among the native-born is a —red herring distracting from the real causes of unemployment.—

According to the report, there is —no correlation between the number of recent immigrant workers in a given state, county, or city and the unemployment rate among native-born workers.—

For example, recent immigrants make up 8.4 percent of the population in the Pacific region (including California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii) but only 2.8 percent of the population in the East North Central region (including Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin). However, both regions have nearly the same unemployment rate, 10.8 percent in the Pacific region, and 10.0 percent in the East North Central region.

Another example cited in the report is between New Jersey, a state where recent immigrants make up 7.3 percent of the population, and Maine, where recent immigrants make up 0.8 percent of the population. Both states have similar unemployment rates—”8.3 percent in New Jersey and 8.1 percent in Maine, according to the report.

—Locales with high unemployment rates do not necessarily have large numbers of recent immigrants, and locales with many recent immigrants do not necessarily have high unemployment rates,— according to the report.

IPC said that on average, recent immigrants comprise 3.1 percent of the population in counties with the highest unemployment rates, which average 13.4 percent. Recent immigrants account for a higher share of the population (4.6 percent) in counties with the lowest unemployment rates (below 4.8 percent), the report found.

Immigrants Don’t Impact Minority Unemployment

Additionally, the report found that there was no connection between immigration and unemployment rates of native-born minorities, such as African Americans.

—On the question of race we find that there’s just no connection between immigration and unemployment,— said Rob Paral, senior research fellow at IPC and the principal of Rob Paral and Associates, a research consulting firm.

—The culprit when it comes to unemployment is not immigration,— Paral said.

In the 10 states with the highest shares of recent immigrants in the labor force, the average unemployment rate for native-born blacks is about 4 percentage points less than in the 10 states with the lowest shares of recent immigrants, according to the report.

Similar findings were found for the 10 metropolitan areas with the highest number of recent immigrants compared with the 10 metropolitan areas with the lowest number of recent immigrants.

—The absence of any significant statistical correlation between recent immigration and unemployment rates among different native-born racial/ethnic groups points to deeper, structural causes for unemployment among the native-born, such as levels of educational attainment and work skills,— IPC said.

As I have oft repeated, the people who complain most loudly about immigrants have other, more central issues, an animus against people of slightly darker skin tones, or against Catholics, or for a thousand other less well-informed/reactionary reasons. They’re the first to enjoy cheaper meals, lower cost construction, and the time and energy they saved not having to mow the lawn, plant the garden, or clean the house, all because José, Janek, Engjí«ll, Sonja, or Agnieszka did the work. They rarely speak against wage theft or the abuses these workers are subject to. They close their eyes, pay 10-20% less, and complain — Why can’t they just speak English?

Why? Because yes, they’re talking about you; your greed, laziness, and hypocrisy.

Huw gets it right in his I’m a bad Homosexual Activist and Californians and the Prop 8 thing… posts (thanks to the Young Fogey for the link). We stand to complain about high prices, high unemployment, unfairness from our comfort zone while the person working for us is getting squished. He says:

Making a —just for me society— instead of a Just Society is really rather sinful.

And I say Amen.

The PNCC, a Church founded by immigrants, understands the immigrant experience and honors people of all nations and cultures. The Lord asked us to go and preach to all nations because all are valuable in His sight. Human value is a totality and our call to value each person’s inherent dignity is absolute. That’s makes us, as Christians, as PNCC members, rather radical.

Perspective, PNCC, ,

A class on the cusp

From the Buffalo News: For Class of 1969, a priestly era fades

After 40 years of seismic shifts in Catholic Church,once-plentiful shepherds reflect on what they’ll leave

It took two Buffalo cathedrals and a basilica in Lackawanna to accommodate the ordination Class of 1969. On a bright spring morning 40 years ago this week, 25 young men made solemn vows to serve as Catholic priests in the Diocese of Buffalo.

Afterward, they stood for photos shoulder to shoulder in their pressed white vestments, looking with pious expressions at the camera, as if peering into the future.

Little did they know at the time what was in store.

Most of them ended up as respected pastors and are now approaching retirement. A few left the priesthood and got married. One of them was elevated to bishop and Tuesday will be installed in the Diocese of Syracuse.

The Class of 1969 was one of the largest ever in the Buffalo diocese —” and a stark contrast to the state of priestly vocations now. In many ways, it was a class on the cusp.

Its members were called into a whole different priesthood than the one they ended up learning and practicing. Not that they minded.

—We really did think there was going to be a major change in the direction of the church,— said the Rev. George L. Reger, pastor of Blessed Trinity Church.

The country was in upheaval over the Vietnam War, inner-city riots and campus protests, and the Catholic Church in the United States was in the midst of its own drama, adjusting to a new Mass in English, along with other liturgical and philosophical changes brought about by the Second Vatican Council.

—The sands were shifting under our feet in the institution we were committing ourselves to,— said the Rev. John J. Leising, senior associate pastor of Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Clarence.

…

The Rev. Patrick H. Elis, pastor of St. Rose of Lima, even remembers talk of more dormitories being built when he was a theology student at the East Aurora seminary, now known as Christ the King.

—We were unaware of the future dissolution of numbers. We just thought it was going to continue on,— he said…

The sad fact is that most of this class still fails to acknowledge the downside of Vatican II. They expected that they would turn the Church on its head, and that everything would change. It was pure naivete. Things did change and the change was on balance negative because the core elements that had fostered their vocations were thrown out like the proverbial baby with the bath water. The good that came out of Vatican II remains overshadowed by the destruction its purveyors wrought.

1969 R C Ordination in BuffaloThe picture (click on it for a larger version) that accompanies the article, of the portion of the class ordained by the Rt. Rev. Pius Benincasa, was likely the last of its kind, with the new ordinands in Roman chasubles. Those chasubles were thrown out as easily as were the foundations of their vocations.

I know many of these men. Many are personable, kind, and hard working. They are great administrators, great with the people, but attend one of their liturgies — well at least the lectors read what’s in Lectionary. The rest is dodgy.

Thankfully the PNCC offers the tradition that fosters vocations as well as the advances many of these men sought — which we instituted in the early twentieth century. The PNCC made necessary changes, like the abolition of mandatory celibacy, the Holy Mass in the vernacular, and enshrining the democratic rights of each member, in a natural, unforced way. It is why I can call the PNCC home as opposed to the R.C. Church in the United States. The R.C. Church is still trying to gain its footing, something likely to take generations, and not all that certain to occur.

Christian Witness, PNCC, ,

In Rememberance

Memorial Day

The photo is from a photo essay by Danel J. Wood.

Heavenly Father, Whose care and guidance brought our forefathers to this great land, and led them through faith, courage and self-sacrifice to build the foundations of a great democratic nation, dedicated to Thy service and the rights of man, lead us, O God, in our day, as Thou didst lead our forefathers, and help us to be faithful stewards of the heritage which Thou hast entrusted to us.

Reverently, on this Memorial Day, in Thy holy presence, we pay our tribute of respect to the memory of those who gave their lives in the service of our country. We pray, that the souls of these, our heroic dead may have found perfect rest in Thee, and received the crown of an unfading life. O Thou, Eternal Lover of souls, cherish and bless them, we entreat Thee, and give unto us, the living, peace and hope as we think of them in this solemn hour.

Before Thee, O Lord God, we humbly acknowledge our debt to them, and beseech Thee to give us the strength, to go on towards the ideals for which they fought and died. Take, O Lord, the veil from their hearts, and join us in one communion with all Thy saints on earth, and in the life beyond.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. — From Memorial Day Prayers according to the Ritual of the Polish National Catholic Church

Christian Witness, PNCC, , ,

Actions Speak Louder Than Words! 

From the Rt. Rev. Thaddeus Peplowski from the May – June – July 2009 Issue of ACTS, a publication of the Buffalo-Pittsburgh Diocese of the Polish National Catholic Church:

We are all familiar with the saying: “Actions speak louder than words!” It reminds us that when positive things are being done, then the words that introduced the actions need not be repeated, since they are being manifested.

When Jesus spoke of His death and resurrection, they were mere words to the Apostles who did not even want to hear them; but when Christ died on the cross, that action stung the hearts of these men, who seemed to be completely lost in their sorrow. The resurrection from the dead of our Savior and His multiple appearances to His disciples, made them reassess everything that Jesus said during His three-year ministry in a new light of faith and truth. Before the resurrection, they were just ordinary men with ordinary fears, but after He rose from the dead and breathed upon them the gift of the Holy Spirit, they were transformed into superheroes, men who feared nothing, even death itself. The kind of faith that they professed as missionaries caused the fledging Church to grow by leaps and bounds – nothing could restrain the power of the Word that caused the spontaneous growth of the Church.

That is the kind of faith and spirit that needs to be revived in the Church today. The Holy Spirit is guiding us to a variety of groups of people, not only here in our country, but even in far-off Italy, who are seeking to create parishes modeled after the example of the Polish National Catholic Church. The so-called “hidden treasure” of our ecclesial structure is being sought after as the ideal form of establishing National Catholic Parishes that resemble early Christian communities. Yes, just speaking about our faith is not enough, we need to share it in outward form of helping others to establish congregations regardless of their ethnic, national or racial background, so that our words may produce actions.

Recently, we have been responding to the pleading of Catholic people who are desperately seeking to establish parishes within the PNCC. We are accepting their challenge and going forth to help them. Just like St. Paul accepted the call of the Macedonians, so we too must reach out and assist those who are seeking to become one with us in faith and service. If we fail to answer their call, we are also failing our Lord Jesus Christ who in the Great Commission delegated His Apostles to “Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

We too, like the Apostles, are commissioned to continue the same missionary call of bringing those who are abandoned and lost back into the fold of the Church. It is wrong to proselytize members of other churches, but it is good to respond to the call of people who are seeking to become members of our Church, and come to us on their own. On Pentecost, when Peter converted over 3,000 Jewish men, he did so because they came to him, seeking the Word of Life and seeking conversion and baptism on their own. We need to do more than speak about the blessings that God has bestowed upon the National Catholic Movement; we need to open our hearts and minds to welcoming into our fold those who wish to be brothers and sisters with us in the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church that the Polish National Catholic Church professes to be in doctrine and practice.

…Opportunities are always being presented to us, all we need to do is respond to the plea of people who are seeking to become National Catholics. We need to embrace them with the same welcoming love that each one of our parishes received when they were accepted into the Polish National Catholic Church.

Pray for the continued success of our Mission and Evangelism Program … that it may bring new members to our existing parishes, as well as inspiring groups of believers who are seeking to establish new PNCC congregations. It is only through the Words of encouragement that our Prayers and Words of faith precipitate the Actions of organizing new Parishes, proving that Actions do speak louder than Words.

Christian Witness, PNCC,

Year of the Laid-Off Workers Support Group

From the Toledo Blade: Optimist works to nix negativity

The first week, Chris Cremean sat all by himself. The second week, two people showed up and yesterday – week three – both returned.

With the local jobless rate hitting 12.6 percent in March, Mr. Cremean is pretty confident his new support group for the unemployed will expand soon enough.

Yesterday morning, at Resurrection Polish National Catholic Church in Temperance, he was joined by the same two middle-aged women from last week’s session.

“First they came and said, ‘Do you have answers?’ Of course, everybody’s looking for answers. And I said, ‘No, we’re going to talk about your questions.’ Sometimes, that’s all you need, to talk it out.”

Should we just go ahead now and designate 2009 as the Year of the Laid-Off Workers Support Group?

Or does that sound too negative?

Mr. Cremean may be a college-educated, 57-year-old man enduring the second layoff of his lifetime, but one thing this Toledo man is not is negative.

“What I find exciting is that old saying about how when one door closes, another one opens. But if you don’t take the lessons you learned, you’re gonna get depressed. You’re gonna withdraw, you’re gonna retire.”

Mr. Cremean dislikes the word.

“It should be [struck] from the language,” he insisted.

If he’s learned anything from his 34-year career working with older people – as a social worker, and a long-term and home-care administrator – it’s how to age successfully.

“I’ve watched how people get to be 100, and they were involved and active their whole life.

“They may have had a job for 20 or 30 years, but they were always involved and engaged in something else. ‘Retire,’ the word itself, means to detach, to give up. It’s all negative.”

Like many unemployed folks, Mr. Cremean (jobless since October) feels he has nothing to lose by launching his own business.

The company’s name – Caregiver Resources Group – is self-explanatory.

“I always read there’s a need for support of the caregivers, so … I’m going to go out on my own, take the bull by the horns and see if I can make this work.”

See? Nothing negative about him. If anything, he’s a man for our times.

Losing a job these days is “so widespread there’s less of the stigma. It’s almost like, ‘Oh, I lost mine, too! Join the club!'”

Sure, he said, there are already some support groups around Toledo for the newly jobless.

“But I’d encourage every church or organization to think about [starting one] – the more the merrier!”

Well, maybe not merrier.

Christian Witness, PNCC,

The Hispanic market and the Church

Friend, Dr. Felipe Korzenny, Director of the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University, and Senior Strategy Consultant for the Captura Group, and Lee Vann, Founder and CEO of the Captura Group have several new articles out examining different ethnic/cultural groups in the United States and their use of social media.

In The Multicultural World of Social Media Marketing social media usage patterns are explored. The study notes:

We aggregated information to find out what ethnic/cultural groups are more likely to visit social networking sites. We found broad diversity in social media behaviors among different ethnic/cultural groups and that emerging minorities visit social networking sites more frequently than non-Hispanic whites.

We then broke out the data for leading social networks, MySpace and Facebook, to see if there are any groups leading usage of the most popular social networking sites—”again, minorities lead the way, with English Preferring Hispanics being twice as likely to visit MySpace regularly than Non-Hispanic Whites. The relative importance of emerging minorities as compared with the traditional majority points to a major shift in social influence…

The study goes on to state:

Culturally, ethnic minorities tend to be drawn to collectivistic values and often look to one another to help guide decisions and opinions. In addition, ethnic minorities are more likely to leverage social networks to communicate with groups of family and friends who are geographically dispersed. Social media facilitates such collective sharing of information and communication.

We can take this information and juxtapose it to the role of the faith as a key expression of these “collectivistic values” and as a centering point for leveraging social networks essential to communication and collaboration in the Hispanic community.

In Reaching Spanish Preferring Hispanics on Facebook the authors reiterate the cultural ethic — ethnic minorities tend to be more collectivistic and go on to note that there is a dearth of culturally relevant content online.. While a certain type of relevancy — that which is considered current and trendy — is not important in the faith context, the other type of relevancy — that which begins with understanding, and speaks the language of the heart — is important.

Bishop Hodur’s National model continues to be an effective means of communicating with those in need of God’s power and healing. God is best communicated, is most clearly understood, in a cultural, national, and linguistic context that relates.

PNCC,

Welcoming St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish, Lucca, Italy

Welcome to the PNCC. I wish you every blessing in your mission, ministry, and witness.

sc0071b4dfThe parish was formed by former members of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe (TEC) who had worshiped at St. James Parish in Florence and who subsequently left TEC to become members of the Episcopal Orthodox Mission in Italy under the Diocese of Ruvuma, Anglican Church of Tanzania.

On January 25, 2009 the Rt. Rev. Thaddeus Peplowski of the Buffalo-Pittsburgh Diocese of the PNCC, who has oversight of the churches in Europe, conditionally ordained Fr. Claudio BoccaFr. Bocca was the first native Italian to be ordained in TEC. When he joined the Tanzanian Church he was inhibited (July 19, 2004), and was later deposed by the Rt. Rev. Pierre W. Whalon, Bishop in Charge, Convocation of American Churches in Europe. and Deacons Gastone Bernacchi, and Paolo Leone. Fr. Bocca was appointed pastor of St. Stainislaus Kostka and Deacons Bernacchi and Leone were assigned to the parish.

The parish serves Americans, Poles, and Italians amongst the beauty of Tuscany. Fr. Bocca’s wife Alicia is originally from Poland.

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