The Catholic Church?s Institutional Models of Welcoming Immigrants in the United States, Canada and France.

In this paper, I explore the historical role of the Catholic Church in integrating waves of immigrants in Canada, the United States and France in the 20th century. In my dissertation, I argue that examining how the Catholic Church responds to a particular conjuncture, such as large-scale immigration, can lead to new institutional forms within the Catholic Church that then disseminate into other areas of political and social life of civil society. This paper explores how, in the 20th century, the Catholic Church?s response to waves of immigrants led to different types of social, political and pastoral institutions in the United States, Canada and France. For each country I study, I examine how the National Catholic Bishops? Conferences have attempted to present guidelines about the issues immigration presents for the Catholic Church and for society as a whole. I also explore how the Catholic Church has set national guidelines for ministry to immigrants, and how these guidelines demonstrate particular views about how immigrant integration should take place. When migrating across national borders, an individual is required to change his citizenship. However, the Catholic Church is a universal institution, and so its members are automatically part of the church in the new place where they migrate. Although immigrants? membership in the Catholic Church cannot be questioned, how they exercise this membership is likely to differ after migrating. Are immigrants expected to assimilate, adopting the culture of the host society Catholics? How has ethnic plurality in the Catholic Church been conceptualized? How have policies been developed by the Catholic Church to implement concepts of assimilation or pluralism in its own institutions? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]