MILWAUKEE – The Catholic community in Southeast Wisconsin is in the midst of a crucial moment in its history.
Church membership has been in a steady decline for years; the Archdiocese of Milwaukee estimates it serves just under 600,000 Catholics in 10 counties across Southeast Wisconsin, down 18 percent from its peak of 731,516 in 2003. Additionally, parish numbers are dropping, from 204 to 184 in that same timeframe.
For those reasons, as well as aging church infrastructure, more and more parishes are merging or shutting down across the region. This past September, St. William, St. Mary, St. Joseph, and St. John Neumann churches in Waukesha announced plans to merge by the summer of 2025. That followed similar mergers in West Allis last May and in Wauwatosa last March.
There’s also the lingering ramifications of the sexual abuse scandal that led to the Archdiocese filing for bankruptcy in 2011 due to unresolved claims by abuse survivors. Earlier this month, Judge Michael Halfenger denied Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul’s request to review the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s sealed bankruptcy records as part of his investigation into clergy sex abuse.
READ MORE: Judge rules the Archdiocese’s bankruptcy case will stay closed
Now, Archbishop Jerome Listecki is warning of another challenge to the church: a possible priest shortage.
The crux of the issue centers around a change to the Religious Worker Visa Program made in April of 2023. That’s when the archdiocese says the U.S. Department of State implemented a change to its interpretation of a federal immigration law. As a result, the employment-based, fourth preference (EB-4) visa that used to take one year to receive now could take more than five years to get. According to the State Department, the EB-4 is not just issued to religious workers, but also to special immigrant juveniles, certain U.S. government employees, certain international organization retirees, and certain international broadcasting employees, among others.
In a letter sent Tuesday to Wisconsin U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson, and Representatives Scott Fitzgerald, Glenn Grothman, Gwen Moore and Bryan Steil, the Archbishop says that the change now means foreign-born priests would have to return to their home country for more than a year waiting for it.
“We urgently seek your help addressing these issues, not only for the sake of religious workers and their employers, but for the many American communities that rely upon them for a wide range of religious and social services,” wrote Listecki.
A representative from Senator Baldwin’s office said Wednesday they had not received the letter from the Archbishop; requests for comment from the other legislators mentioned in the Archdiocese’s press release Tuesday were not returned at the time of this writing.
“The ministry of the remaining parish priests will be stretched thinner,” said Archbishop Listecki. “This flies in the face of Congress’s intent when creating the Religious Worker Visa Program: to ensure religious organizations in the United States have access to needed workers to carry out their wide-ranging religious and charitable activities, consistent with the First Amendment and the freedom of religion.”
According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), as of April there were around 150,000 applicants waiting to receive their EB-4 visa. In the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, there are 24 priests currently serving that fall under this classification and are impacted by the program change last year.
“We are trying to see if there are any other possible visa scenarios we can explore, other dioceses are trying other categories that are a little more difficult to obtain,” Father Nathan Reesman, Vicar for Clergy of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee told WTMJ Wednesday. “Short of that, most of us across the country are saying ‘We don’t have any other solutions’.”
Fr. Reesman says the Archdiocese was caught off guard by the change in 2023, and grasped the scope of the situation when their lawyers explained that the legal work status of their foreign priests was in question.
“There has been a growing wave of awareness across all the U.S. dioceses about why this is a major problem. I would say we are joining the group at this point which has taken a bit of time to assemble our own voice on the topic. It’s a big country and there’s lots of voices; sometimes things take a while to organize.”
The short-term impact, according to the Archdiocese, is the constant danger of foreign priests needing to leave the country and then experiencing a backlog as they attempt to re-enter the U.S. This also adds extra strain on their priest assignment office given the uncertainty over when foreign priests of leave the county might return. The long-term ramifications of a backlog stretching further into the future are still unclear.
A possible solution floated by the USCCB in May of 2023 would be shortening the length of time a religious worker is required to be outside of the United States before being able to return on a subsequent R-1 visa to a recommended 30 days. “Though this is not a solution to the EB-4 backlog itself, it would provide meaningful relief to organizations such as the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, our workers, and the communities relying on them,” says Listecki.
Movement on any potential legislation on the matter will be on hold until at least November 12th, when Congress returns to session.
TOP STORIES FROM THE WTMJ NEWSROOM:
