Priest provides comfort for angry, frightened crowd

Rosa Ramirez, Rocky Mountain News

Published December 13, 2006 at midnight

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Making his way through the angry, frightened crowd, Father Bernie Schmitz worked hard to console people desperately looking for answers.

"Please stay calm - we don't want anybody get physically hurt," he told a women pushing a stroller.

A man stood next to him and patted his shoulder. Two women stopped to hear him speak.

"Come to church and pray," he said. "Come and pray for all the families who are going to be affected."

Schmitz, head priest at Our Lady of Peace in Greeley for the past 7 1/2 years, came to the meat packing plant Tuesday knowing that the hundreds gathered there would need someone to listen to them and reassure them.

Anxious, sometimes panicky, the crowd gravitated to Schmitz and his comforting manner.

"People come (to the church) when they are going through a family crisis, when they can't pay the rent or when they need to buy a one-way bus ticket," he said.

But on Tuesday, such concrete solutions weren't an option. Sometimes, the most he could offer was a few kind words - in Spanish and English.

"You feel helplessness that you can't do anything for them," he said. "They're getting frustrated because they don't know anything about their mothers, fathers and husbands."

Schmitz was interrupted several times by people who wanted to know what was going to happen to the detained workers' children.

A man who said he was with a local organization in Denver wanted to know if the church - which claims more than 2,000 parishioners, mostly immigrants - could serve as central location where people could call and get information.

"Tell people they can call the parish and leave a message for me if they have an emergency. The phone is on 24 hours a day. We want to make sure the children are OK," Schmitz responded.

"Until what time, will you be answering calls?" someone said.

" 'Til I fall asleep," Schmitz said.

"You don't expect this to happen on a day like this. Only this morning we had between 500 and 600 people for the early Mass for the Virgin of Guadalupe," he said.

That night, Schmitz and about a dozen Hispanic leaders met at his home to talk about how they could help those affected by Tuesday's raid.

"This clearly highlights the difficulties of a situation as far as the immigration issue is concerned. (Immigrants) want to come here to work," he said. "And they work hard."

Congressional quotes

Statements from Colorado's U.S. senators and two of the state's members of the House of Representatives:

"I'm glad that ICE is enforcing our immigration laws in light of the illegal immigration crisis we face across the country. I am grateful that ICE agents are appropriately targeting illegal aliens whose prior record of criminal behavior may present a risk to the citizens of Colorado."

Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Loveland

"ICE's action at multiple Swift plants today is a clarion call for the nation to complete its work on comprehensive immigration reform. We need to have laws in place to take us from today's chaos and lawlessness to law and order. That law-and-order system must include increased border security; strict enforcement of immigration laws, including a sound employer verification system; and a realistic method of dealing with the human and economic reality of millions of undoc- umented workers in America."

Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Denver

"I congratulate all law enforcement agencies involved in the successful raid. My hope at this point is that the U.S. government has the courage to prosecute the Swift & Co. executives who may have been complicit in their hiring."

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Littleton

"No matter how high up it goes in Swift, (anyone) that is culpable in this needs to be gone after to the fullest extent of the law. We need to know who knew what and when they knew it and what they did about it."

Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Fort Morgan

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