Priest Active in Alien Aid Programs Leaving

Father Luis Olivares, the activist priest who is best known for his work on behalf of the city’s illegal immigrants and refugees, confirmed Thursday that he is leaving his church next summer.

Olivares said he is not leaving the downtown Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church because of his controversial--some charge illegal--stances on behalf of immigrants and refugees but because it is time for him to rotate elsewhere. The priest’s term at the church known as La Placita--the city’s best known sanctuary for illegal immigrants and refugees--had already been extended twice, and there is no precedent for a further extension, he explained Thursday.

“I have no complaints. I knew very clearly this was coming, given our policy,” said Olivares, a member of the Claretian order and pastor at La Placita for the last eight years. “My only concern is what’s going to happen to the ministry for undocumented immigrants and refugees who have come to see La Placita as sometimes their only recourse.”

Homeless, desperate men gather daily in the courtyard of the historic church that Olivares declared a sanctuary for illegal immigrants and refugees last year. The men find food there, shelter and sometimes work, services that immigration authorities have labeled potentially illegal.

Despite threats of criminal investigations from Immigration and Naturalization Service officials and even through times when his own church superiors distanced themselves from his controversial positions, Olivares stood fast in his defense of the immigrant poor.

Noting that Olivares’ reassignment is being handled through his religious order and not through the archdiocese, a spokesman for Los Angeles Catholic Archbishop Roger M. Mahony said Thursday that the archbishop has supported Olivares’ efforts to respond to the needs of immigrants and has “never criticized him publicly.”

Mahony’s support has been guarded, however. When Olivares declared La Placita a sanctuary for Central American refugees in 1985--the first Catholic church to do so in the region--the archbishop would not publicly endorse the declaration. But he did not try to stop it, either.

The longtime activist priest, who also was instrumental in the formation of the United Neighborhoods Organization (UNO), the grass-roots East Los Angeles community group, said he hopes that his successor at La Placita will continue his activist tradition. He plans to spend the remainder of his term working “energetically at institutionalizing the ministry so that it does not depend on whether an Olivares” or someone else is in charge, he said.

Olivares said his superiors have assured him the Claretian order plans to continue to minister to immigrants at La Placita.

“The only question is, at what level of commitment,” he said.

Olivares said he will not know what his new assignment will be until possibly next spring, when the Claretian order will announce assignments for its western region. Olivares said he is considering asking to remain in Los Angeles to continue his ministry among immigrants and refugees, perhaps establishing a service center in the immigrant community.

“The fight is not over,” he said. “I don’t want to run out on the people whose expectations we have raised.”

If that is not possible, Olivares said he may request to serve in Central America.