A fascinating new program airing this month on PBS offers a noteworthy perspective on one of our Church's and our American society's most challenging issues.

"Pride & Passion: Italians in America" is a 90-minute-long study of the Italian people's entrance into, and influence on, life in the United States. Beginning with a warm, nostalgic "home movie" sequence of family life, richly narrated by Robert Loggia, the program offers the words and thoughts of some of several noted Italian-Americans (entertainers, athletes, politicians) on what it means to be part of this colorful, vibrant, relentlessly optimistic culture --- a culture intertwined for centuries with the Catholic Church.

Personal aside: By the grace of God, who gave me an appreciation for all things pasta, I married into an Italian family 32 years ago, and have heard, and re-heard, stories of "the old days" of my mother-in-law's Sicilian relatives as they struggled to make their way in Depression-era Los Angeles --- specifically, the Lincoln Heights neighborhood off of North Broadway once known as Little Italy. That opening sequence of "Pride and Passion," and its focus on food, family and fun, brought repeated smiles and nods from my wife.

But before they could enjoy food, fun and family, the parents, grandparents and great-grandparents of today's Italian-Americans had to get to America. It was no simple feat. Many --- like Joseph, my late grandfather-in-law from Caltagirone --- scraped together barely enough money to get on a ship, and once here worked any job they could find --- often dirty, dangerous work that few others would do (in Joseph's case, the coal mines of Alabama). Then, living on bare minimums, they would send home money over a period of months or years, so that other family members (like Joseph's mother and two younger sisters) could someday join them in this new country.

It is an experience shared by numerous other cultures whose people have come to America --- and have come here legally, as some of The Tidings' most ardent letter-writers point out repeatedly, in contrast to what some immigrants coming into this country do today. ("We're not against legal immigration," the writers write. "We're against illegal immigration.")

Setting aside the legal/illegal issue for a moment, one of "Pride and Passion's" most poignant messages addresses the attitudes that the Italian immigrants of the early 20th century faced when they arrived --- scorn, ridicule, resentment, hostility. You are not only different from us, you are less than us. Your ways are not just strange, they are uncivilized. You do not belong near us; stay with your own kind. Go back to your own country. That hardly sounds like welcome.

How many other ethnic and national groups who have entered this country --- "the land of freedom and opportunity" --- have faced that kind of response when they first arrived, and for a generation or more afterwards? What does that say about our ability to accept and respect, let alone love, our brothers and sisters? What difference does it make if they get here legally or illegally, if we are going to shun them for being different?

We may bemoan ethnic conclaves that, throughout American history, have sprouted up in some big city neighborhoods, believing that as the world's great melting pot, we should all live together as one loving, happy American family. And yet when people feel disrespected, scorned and/or threatened simply on the basis of culture or ethnicity or custom, how can we blame them for banding together? Why should they have to prove to the rest of the society that, yes, they not only have a right to be here and call this place home, they have as much to offer as anyone else? That human qualities, assets and shortcomings alike, are not restricted to any single group?

In the past few years the U.S. Catholic bishops, in addressing the issue of immigration reform, have stated clearly that the United States cannot, as a matter of practicality and security, open its doors to any and all comers. But once individuals are here, we --- as disciples of Jesus Christ, who welcomed, ate with, cared for and stood with "strangers" of many cultures --- are obligated to treat newcomers, legally arrived or not, with decency and respect.

Like other cultural groups who immigrated to the U.S., the Italians worked hard to earn the respect of Americans who were already here, and are in most cases descendants themselves of immigrants. (In my own family tree are Norwegian, German, English, Irish, Scotch, Dutch, French and, I have recently learned, Lakota Indian ancestors.) It is respect that any immigrant should be afforded simply as a fellow human being, a fellow child and creation of God.

Language, food, clothing, customs, music and tradition are all secondary to the heart and the soul of the individual human being. When we allow ourselves, we are enriched by the marvelous, unending diversity of humanity God has shared with us, a diversity that Jesus welcomed. Let us thank God for this diversity by welcoming, respecting and celebrating with those who Holy Hands have made.

---Mike Nelson