His Holiness Pope Benedict XV1
c/o Peter's Pence
 
Most Holy Father, first of all please accept my apologies because I am not versed in the protocol governing an individual contacting someone like Your Holiness to plead the cause of a priest in your fold.
 
Your Holiness, according to the Philippine News dated December 11, 2009 Year 49 issue 18 page 1, Father Eusebio Pablito Maghari, a 59-year-old Filipino priest with six years of service at the St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church in Staten Island, New York became homeless after being dismissed from his job when he became ill.
 
Most Holy Father, I truly believe that a Diocese like New York and the Catholic Church with vast and abundant resources will not be destitute to take care of a priest like Fr. Maghari.  Allow me to appeal to Your Holiness sense of charity and compassion.
 
Sincerely,
Maria Elizabeth Embry
2101 Hamlin Court
Antioch Ca 94509
 

 

http://www.philippinenews.com/article.php?id=5996&catId=1

 

NY Archdiocese kicks ailing priest out of rectory, told to go back to the Philippines


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Published:  December 11, 2009 | Author:  Lenn Almadin-Thornhill
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FR. EUSEBIO Pablito Maghari, now a former assistant priest at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church in Staten Island , New York , is not only feeling sick lately but homeless.  The Archdiocese of New York recently told the 59-year-old Filipino priest, who suffers from acute kidney disease, that his services are no longer needed and that he must return back to the Philippines .  He has been ordered out of the rectory as of December 1.

“I’ve been staying with some people, passing from place to place,” Fr. Pablito told Philippine News.  “I don’t want to become a burden to one family.”

"We want what's best for Father Pablito," Joseph Zwilling told reporters. The spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York said that the archdiocese can no longer be responsible for the ailing priest.

According to reports, the assistant priest has not completed his incardination process to become part of the New York Archdiocese when he fell ill last September after suffering kidney failure as a result of diabetes.  Technically, church officials say, Fr. Pablito still belongs to the diocese of the Philippines , and so is his welfare.  

The Antique native said he feels abandoned.  After six years of service in New York , it seems un-Christian for the archdiocese to discard him like a rag, especially now that he is fighting for his life.

“It is in my contract with the archdiocese when they asked me to serve here that I would be given all I need as an adjunct priest,” Fr. Pablito said. “As long as I am not a liability to the parish.  And I am not. I can still work and my doctors can attest to that.” 

Fr. Pablito, who has lived with diabetes for 17 years, said not only is he fit to serve, but sending him back to the Philippines is like a death sentence. 

"I can't go home to the Philippines without a kidney transplant," he said. "Dialysis, as you know, is a lot of money, more than $1,000 a week."

Zwilling said St. Peter’s parish is not fit to care for Fr. Pablito anymore.

“We have made the determination having reviewed his medical records, having reviewed the parish situation,” Zwilling told NY1.

Meanwhile, parishioners at St. Peter’s Church are not only in shock but confused.

"It's crazy, it really is; you can't take the roof away from over his head," Sharon Mortenson, of New Brighton , told reporters last weekend.

Roberta Thompson told Staten Island Live, "It's shocking because we always felt as Catholics that the Archdiocese will take care of you no matter where you come from.”

"To be thrown out like kind of threw us for a loop,” she said. “They're not practicing what they're preaching."