By Gretchen Keiser

Eight church workers, including two Catholic priests and a nun, are facing possible jail terms of at least five years and perhaps as much as 25 years, for work with Central American refugees they consider a mandate of the Gospel.

The U.S. government, after a nine-month undercover investigation and a trial in federal court in Tucson, Arizona, which lasted six months, says that their work is a conspiracy to evade the country’s immigration laws, bringing Central Americans into the U.S. and hiding and transporting them illegally.

In the background of the struggle are the troubled nations of El Salvador, and Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, some of which the U.S. government considers friends and some foes, and there tens of thousands of people have died in the last six years in civil violence.

It is a background which the defendants say has everything to do with the case at hand, but which they were unable to bring up during the trial. In fact, according to one defendant, the Reverend John Fife, a Presbyterian pastor in Tucson, more was left out of the trial than was admitted.

“Nothing about motives” for doing what they did was allowed to be raised in testimony, said Rev. Fife in an interview May 8 in Atlanta. “Nothing about conditions in Central America.”

“We were prohibited from using words like ‘torture’ or ‘killed’,” he said. “(Federal Judge Earl Carroll) ruled those words were inflammatory and prejudicial. We were not allowed to present any evidence of abuse of Central Americans by the Immigration and Naturalization Service or about international law regarding the treatment of refugees.”

“The denial of reality in the courtroom was all in place from the beginning,” he said of the trial which focused on the work of churches giving sanctuary, or safe haven, to Central American refugees.

Rev. Fife was in Atlanta May 8 and 9, a week after a federal jury convicted him on three of four charges against him, including conspiracy, leaving him facing a possible sentence of five to 15 years in prison and/or possible fines of up to $14,000.

Sister Darleen Nicgorski, a School Sister of St. Francis who was a missionary in Guatemala and then worked with Guatemalan refugees in Mexico, was convicted of five counts, including conspiracy, aiding in bringing illegal aliens to the U.S. and harboring them. She faces up to 25 years in jail and/or up to $18,000 in fines.

Father Ramon Dagoberto Quinones, a pastor in Nogales, Mexico was convicted of conspiracy and unlawful entry into the U.S. and faces up to five and a half years in prison and/or $10,500 in fines.

Father Anthony Clark, of Sacred Heart Church in Nogales, Arizona, just across the Mexican border, was convicted of one count of harboring illegal aliens and may be sentenced to five years in prison and/or a $2,000 fine. He was acquitted on the conspiracy charge.

Four lay people, three women and a man, were also convicted and three others, including James Corbett, credited with being the founder of the four-year-old sanctuary movement, were acquitted on all counts.

While all the charges could lead to fines and not jail terms, Rev. Fife said, “I really think the question is how much prison time (Judge Carroll) is going to dole out.” Sentencing will be July 1, and the defendants are expected to appeal the verdict.”

In the meantime, the defendants are free to travel and speak, he said. Asked whether the verdict was painful, he said it was “very disappointing.” But later he acknowledged that “there was a lot of pain in terms of what that means for families, especially for those of us who have kids, marriage relationships” and relationships with parishes and congregations.

Married and the father of two sons, 17 and 21 years old, he said his congregation, Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, has already chosen a pastor to succeed him should he go to jail, and put in her contract that she, too, is likely to be indicted and convicted as part of her new job as pastor of a congregation which is a public sanctuary.

After the convictions, the congregation had an evening worship service and then a dance with a mariachi band, he said, “a celebration to affirm that they are not only in this seriously, but joyfully.”

The formal charges and the possible severity of the sentences suggest serious crimes. Yet, Rev. Fife said that some of the actions amounted to the church’s normal business of helping those in need – in this case refugees from El Salvador or Guatemala who did not have legal status to be in or remain in the United States.

For example, he said, Father Clark’s conviction on a charge of harboring an illegal alien came because he put up a Salvadoran refugee in a St. Vincent de Paul shelter in his parish one night.

Because of the nature of the work – giving shelter to those in need, even if they are not legally in the United States – some denominations have publicly endorsed and supported the sanctuary movement. Rev. Fife’s denomination, the Presbyterian Church, has supported the movement as have the Quakers, Disciples of Christ, the United Church of Christ and others.

However, the National Conference of Catholic bishops has not taken a public stand on the sanctuary movement. Individual bishops have spoken out, but the bishops’ conference as a whole has not commented.

Asked about the reaction of Father Quinones and Father Clark and Sister Nicgorski, Rev. Fife said, “Father Quinones has had more support from his bishops (in Mexico) publicly than Father Clark and Darlene. I think they have been painfully aware of that from time to time in light of the support given by other denominations.”

A balancing factor, he said, has been the support of individual bishops, including Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee, Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle and Bishop John Fitzpatrick of Brownsville, Texas. “All of us have been grateful for that” support, he said. “It was something they went out of their way to do and that was very gratifying.”

NCCB-USCC secretary for public affairs in Washington, Russell Shaw, said the bishops “haven’t arrived at a consensus” on the sanctuary movement, although he said that the conference “said publicly we regretted the prosecution” of church workers in Arizona and also regretted the convictions.

He said the bishops are “in basic agreement with the sanctuary movement that there is a serious human problem here that cries out for a humane, compassionate solution.” But he said they were not unified on the means of resolution, except to press for a legislative remedy that would provide extended voluntary departure status to those whose homelands are in turmoil. A bill sponsored by Rep. Joe Moakley (D-Mass.) and Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.), for example, would temporarily halt the deportation of Salvadorans to their homeland, and this legislation has been supported by the bishops’ conference.

Father Silvio Tomasi, who is responsible for pastoral care of migrants and refugees at the U.S. Catholic Conference, said that while the bishops have not endorsed the sanctuary movement as yet, they “are encouraging everybody to do the best they can to minister to and help those who need help.”

“It is not the role of the Church to ask for a passport,” he said, referring to those who may turn up on a church doorstep for help, but not have legal standing in the United States.

In addition, he said, “there is admiration and respect for people who are putting themselves in a difficult position” in the sanctuary movement, risking prosecution and jail for helping Central American refugees to stay in the United States rather than being deported back to their homelands.

“Some people have interpreted the lack of public endorsement as almost an opposition or lack of respect (for the sanctuary movement), but I don’t think personally it can be interpreted that way,” Father Tomasi said.

While some in connection with the trial have questioned whether or not the defendants’ motives were political rather than religious or humanitarian, he said, “The intentions and motives of people in the sanctuary trial obviously are religious, humanitarian motives.”

The plight of those entering the United States illegally from Central America has drawn greater attention since the churches involved in the sanctuary movement came under government scrutiny.

In May 1985 about 200 churches has said publicly that they were sanctuary churches which would shelter refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and other countries in defiance of current policy by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, which is only granting political asylum to a handful of refugees and calling the rest economic refugees who are seeking jobs in the U.S. and are subject to deportation.

As of this May, Rev. Fife said, about 300 churches and synagogues are part of the sanctuary network and 16 cities, 11 universities and the state of New Mexico have declared themselves sanctuaries.

Last December Archbishop Arturo Rivera Damas of San Salvador, El Salvador, wrote to the U.S. Congress begging for haven in the U.S. for Salvadorans fleeing violence in their country.

“I…ask each and every one of you…that you open your arms, your hearts, and your Christian charity to my suffering people and that you double your efforts against the deportation of Salvadoran refugees,” he wrote.

“…The war is part of the daily life of our population throughout the country and the deepening of the military conflict offers a future of greater pain, uncertainty and suffering for the grand majority of Salvadorans.”

“During this time of war,” he continued, “deportation is an act which is contrary to the law of our Father, who asked that we ‘clothe the naked, feed the hungry, give refuge to the persecuted…’ To return the persecuted to the source, the origin, the cause of his suffering, is an act of injustice in the eyes of Christian love.”

This is the position that has been taken by the defendants in the sanctuary case, who say that they are acting out of a Gospel mandate to help the refugees and deny that they are breaking the law.

Speaking at a worship service at North Decatur Presbyterian Church in Decatur May 8 and at the Presbyterian Center in Atlanta May 9, Rev. Fife repeated the words of a nun in Dallas, Texas, which summed up the moment for him. She called the convictions and possible jail terms for the defendants “a reality check,” Rev. Fife said, “a time when we decide if we take the faith seriously or not.”

They view the convictions in light of the suffering taking place among Christians in Central American, where church persecution has meant torture and death. “We cannot hold a candle to the church in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras,” Rev. Fife said at the worship service, saying that given the persecution of Christians there “what we’re facing still resembles a Sunday school picnic.”

While some may look upon receiving refugees as an act of Christian charity, his view is much more radical, saying that those who come from Central America “convert North Americans to the Christian faith. They teach us how to read the Bible again.”

At the worship service he read from the Book of Daniel in which three young men were ordered to bow down to a graven image or be thrown in the fiery furnace. “Now the government has made it very clear that they are serious, that we bow down to the graven image, the golden image they have set up,” he told those gathered.

Asked afterward if he believed that the U.S. government was the “idol,” he said the idol was “the assertion of government officials that we should abandon human rights and submit both to lawless authority in the U.S. and to the subjugation of the people of Central America.”

Asked about the importance of submitting to legitimate government authority, he said, “we always have responsibility to authorities if they are being responsible in their positions.”

He said the Nuremberg trials after World War II established the legal position that “there is responsibility that goes beyond obedience to authority” when human rights are being violated. The sanctuary defendants believe that Central Americans are being deported back to their homelands and to possible persecution and death although U.S. refugee laws and international law say those with “a well-founded fear of persecution” should not be deported back to their homeland.

In analyzing the reality of the situation in Central America, he asked rhetorically, “Do we believe (U.S. Attorney General) Ed Meese or do we believe Archbishop Rivera Damas?”

For Christians, he said, the decision ought to be obvious, “but for some reason it’s not.”