| Page 2 of 3 < > |
A True Believer In Immigrants
|
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
Hoyos said his position has elicited frequent e-mails, many from Catholics, telling him he should be ashamed and perhaps arrested. Some within the 67-parish Arlington Diocese grumbled that the flier he made for this month's rally -- which called support of illegal immigrants a "moral obligation" -- was overly histrionic, he said.
"Who will help the poorest of the poor?" Hoyos responded, referring to the Book of Isaiah. "The poorest of the poor are the immigrants."
The Hoyos Phenomenon
His charisma is legendary within the Hispanic community.
When a D.C. Latino Civil Rights Task Force picked board members in 1993, Hoyos received the most votes, without campaigning. When he was transferred from a Falls Church parish to Dale City in 2001, congregants in Falls Church collected 3,000 signatures in protest.
In Dale City, legions of Latinos quickly filled the pews, and a Latino home-buying boom nearby became known among some real estate agents as the "Father Hoyos phenomenon."
"When he walks in the room, he's got it," said Paul Kyle, president of a beer and wine distributor and board member of Marcelino Pan y Vino, the nonprofit organization Hoyos founded in 1992 to help sick immigrants pay for lifesaving treatments.
Hoyos greets everyone -- from reporters to distraught immigrants who stop by his office -- with the warmth of an old friend. He plays pickup soccer. He cracks jokes during sermons. On the eve of the recent rally, he watched "Maid in Manhattan," a Jennifer Lopez movie he enjoyed because it features an Anglo politician who falls for a poor Latina.
Mostly, immigrants adore him because he is a believer -- in their goodness, in their futures.
Hoyos's brother Francisco described the reaction he gets from patients at Providence Hospital in Northeast Washington, where he is a critical care physician: "People from Nicaragua, people from Mexico, people from Guatemala -- everybody is telling me, 'Oh, you are the brother of Father Hoyos. . . . He is the one that is working for us. He is the one that is looking out for us.' "
If Hoyos was undeterred at this month's rally, it was partly because many in attendance sought him out.
"We came for him," said Agustin Fuentes, 43, a Woodbridge truck driver who carried a Bible in his backpack.
In Hoyos's vision of immigration reform, the United States would send a mega-Peace Corps to build toilets and encourage investment in poor nations. All illegal immigrants would get green cards. Everyone who wanted to immigrate would be allowed, with the exception of criminals.
