Father Gary Graf, a Catholic priest from Chicago, who is crossing Pennsylvania while walking from the Pope's childhood home in Illinois to Ellis Island, New York, to protest immigration enforcement, is seen here near the City of Parker, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 3.
Courtesy of Step Up, Speak Out
Courtesy of Step Up, Speak Out
Father Gary Graf, a Catholic priest from Chicago, who is crossing Pennsylvania while walking from the Pope's childhood home in Illinois to Ellis Island, New York, to protest immigration enforcement, is seen here near the City of Parker, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 3.
Gary Graf — or Father Gary, as he calls himself — started walking in Dolton, Illinois, at Pope Leo XIV’s childhood home. Over the last five weeks, Graf, a Catholic priest from Chicago, has crossed Indiana and Ohio on foot, and is now halfway through the Keystone state.
He refers to his long walk as a pilgrimage. Really, it’s a way to protest, he said. He was in his home in Chicago and was watching immigration raids there. He felt called to take action, but didn’t know what.
“I felt for a period of time so impotent,” he said.
But then Graf, 67, was connected to a public relations firm and started a media messaging campaign. Graf’s 800-mile walk is now called Step Up, Speak Out, and comes with its own website. Ordained in 1984, Graf spent his first years in ministry in Mexico and is an advocate for immigration reform through the group Priests for Immigrants for Justice.
During his journey, Graf is meeting with immigrants and immigrant advocates along the way and collecting their stories, especially from people who are afraid to speak publicly for themselves.
“I just see the indiscriminate way in which people are being mistreated and they’re my family and they’re my children as a spiritual father,” Graf said. “I had to stand up and speak out on their behalf.”
The United States is a country of laws, he said, and described what he saw as indiscriminate immigration enforcement as un-American, unjust, unconstitutional and also an affront to his religion.
“It wounds the heart of God. It wounds my heart,” Graf said.
While Graf has been walking, prominent American Catholics have also expressed concern about the use of violence in immigration operations in President Donald Trump’s second term.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops put out a statement on Nov. 12 opposing the immigration enforcement strategies under Trump.
“We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people,” the statement reads. “We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.”
Pope Leo backed that statement and said there should be ways to treat people humanely.
“If people are in the United States illegally, there are ways to treat that. There are courts, there’s a system of justice,” Leo said.
Mira Miranda, an immigrant from El Salvador and the lead Pennsylvania organizer for immigrant advocacy organization CASA, welcomes the Catholic church speaking on behalf of immigrants.
“It means hope,” she said. “It means care. It means that we are somebody.”
Miranda met Graf on Sunday at Messiah Lutheran Church, along with 35 other CASA representatives and immigrant advocates from the 10th Congressional District covering Dauphin and large sections of Cumberland and York. Miranda said that the biggest change between immigration operations under presidents Joe Biden or Barack Obama and now, in Trump’s second term, is that people are afraid, regardless of their immigration status.
“It doesn’t matter if we are naturalized citizens, what matters is the way we look because that’s what they are looking out for,” Miranda said.
The Department of Homeland Security, the federal agency that oversees immigration enforcement through two agencies – Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection – was blocked by a California court from using race and other factors like speaking Spanish in justifying detentions. But the U.S. Supreme Court allowed that practice to go forward, at least for now as the main legal case winds its way through the federal court system.
For now, Graf is still walking. He plans to arrive at Ellis Island on Dec. 2, where his own great grandparents entered the country. Walking through the rural parts of three states has given him insight into America’s rural past, he said, and also opportunity for its future.
“There’s lots of space still for more people to come and stake claim to a brighter future for themselves as past generations have done,” Graf said.
The Associated Press contributed reporting to this story.
A collection of interviews, photos, and music videos, featuring local musicians who have stopped by the WITF performance studio to share a little discussion and sound. Produced by WITF’s Joe Ulrich.
