{"id":54378,"date":"2025-11-27T23:30:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T23:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/54378\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T23:30:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T23:30:24","slug":"chicago-heights-priest-nears-end-of-walk-to-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/54378\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Heights priest nears end of walk to New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rev. Gary Graf set out walking<\/a> Oct. 6, from Pope Leo XIV\u2019s childhood home in Dolton. On Dec. 2, he expects to mark his successful arrival at the Statue of Liberty in New York City.<\/p>\n

In between has been nearly two months of often lonesome walking through rural America in the name of justice for immigrant children.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, they\u2019ve grown up in a very different world,\u201d Graf said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a time to attack one another, but a time to kind of have a conversation with one another, and that\u2019s what the walk for me has been all about, having those kinds of conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a Chicago area native, Graf said traveling on foot through small town America made him confront how different the world is for people who live much smaller and less diverse communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think when we share together, somehow we come up with a larger truth,\u201d Graf said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just my view, or your view, but if you listen to me, I listen to you, and hopefully in hearing one other, we kind of, as a faith leader, we hear God\u2019s voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graf is the head pastor at Our Lady of the Heights parish in Chicago Heights, a town that has experienced immigration arrests<\/a>. Dozens of supporters came out to see him off when he set out on his journey.<\/p>\n

Most of his walk has been alone, though friends and supporters came out to join him on the road at various times, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA high school classmate and his wife, and my brother-in-law, actually, and a friend of his, and then a college friend and his wife. And then one day, a group from the Archdiocese of Chicago,\u201d Graf said. \u201cIt was a nice break, just being able to walk with someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graf has been documenting his pilgrimage on social media, and online at stepupspeakout.org.<\/p>\n

The journey hasn\u2019t been without problems. Graf recounted that while visiting a priest\u2019s home in Indiana, the second he had visited in the town that evening, he was offered the chance to ride a horse.<\/p>\n

The horse broke into a gallop and he was thrown from its back, injuring his shoulder and breaking two ribs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThinking back now, I remember Jesus\u2019 words when he said if you go to a town, stay in one home and don\u2019t move from house to house,\u201d Graf said, chuckling. \u201cI never understood what that Scripture meant until that Sunday, when I went to a second home.\u201d<\/p>\n

His spokesperson and a helper traveling along with him walked 20 miles in his stead, a day\u2019s worth of walking, to give him a break.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Rev. Gary Graf on Nov. 11, 2025. (Step Up, Speak Out)<\/p>\n

Misfortunes aside, though, Graf said the core of the journey was the conversations he had with people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people we\u2019ve met along the way, church groups and some community groups that have heard about the walk and wanted to meet, we\u2019ve had some wonderful conversations,\u201d Graf said. \u201cVery good-hearted people from many different traditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said one particular meeting in Pennsylvania, where residents were worried increased immigration enforcement might come to their communities, particularly struck him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a gathering where there was an Evangelical pastor, a Lutheran pastor, myself as a Catholic priest, a number of members of their communities and a number of people, there were at least five, that identified themselves as nonbelievers,\u201d Graf said. \u201cWe had this wonderful conversation where what we all had in common was a feeling, a love of neighbor and to be compassionate, and what was happening, what they heard was happening in Chicago very much disturbed them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheGraf on Oct. 10. (Step Up, Speak Out)<\/p>\n

In the time Graf has been away from Chicago, there have been major developments regarding the immigration crackdown. The activity of federal agents in Chicago and the suburbs has cycled down, moving on to other cities, leaving the region and its immigrant communities reeling<\/a> in the aftermath.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just hearing and hoping and praying that it\u2019s been diminishing somewhat,\u201d Graf said. \u201cBut then, the pain of Chicago, then, is starting to be released in other places.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graf said that his trip has led him to reflect on the history of the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing though Ohio and Pennsylvania particularly, I\u2019ll go through small towns and I see hometown heroes. And there\u2019s pictures of, particularly men, but some women, obviously, that were in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, when my dad was in the Navy,\u201d Graf said. \u201cAnd going through towns, also, they\u2019re dated back to 1801, and 1777, I mean, they\u2019re dated back to Revolutionary War.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Graf, that history is a history of immigrants. When he set off on his journey, he talked about how his own great-grandparents\u2019 experience immigrating through Ellis Island from Ireland and Germany had shaped his view of immigration justice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"TheGraf and others Nov. 15 during his walk. (Courtesy of Step Up, Speak Out)<\/p>\n

Graf plans to mark his successful arrival at the Statue of Liberty with an interfaith prayer service at 2 p.m. Tuesday, at Robert Wagner Park in Battery Park City. There will be remarks from Muslim, Jewish and Christian faith leaders, as well as the sharing of personal stories of immigrant children.<\/p>\n

He said that while he doesn\u2019t know where his advocacy will take him next, the conclusion of his journey feels like a beginning, not an end.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore and more as I get toward the end, I\u2019m thinking that it just seems like it\u2019s just the beginning,\u201d Graf said. \u201cBecause this obviously is part of our lives and it\u2019s not going away, the whole issue of immigration and the immigrants among us, and the conversation\u2019s going to continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faith leaders have a responsibility to maintain humanity in that conversation, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust reminding the powers that be in terms of the authorities, civil authorities, what is God\u2019s mind and heart in all of this?\u201d Graf said. \u201cWe are children of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

elewis@chicagotribune.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rev. Gary Graf set out walking Oct. 6, from Pope Leo XIV\u2019s childhood home in Dolton. On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[29863,29864,29865,29866,29867,9222,29868,29869,29870,29871,5350,2301,267,29872,29873,29874,9,24,55,54,12,56,29875,29876,29877,29878,29879,7057],"class_list":["post-54378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-blue-island","tag-calumet-city","tag-chicago-heights","tag-cook-county","tag-country-club-hills","tag-daily-southtown","tag-dolton","tag-frankfort","tag-harvey","tag-homer-glen","tag-illinois","tag-immigration","tag-local-news","tag-lockport","tag-markham","tag-mokena","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-news","tag-ny","tag-oak-lawn","tag-orland-park","tag-palos-heights","tag-palos-hills","tag-tinley-park","tag-will-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}