A friend of mine saw this in the St. Gregory Barbarigo bulletin this week and thought it deserved a wider audience and asked me to repost this. Fr. Juventus, the visiting priest who was with the parish this summer, nearly had his stay cut short by a month. When he landed at JFK, customs stamped his passport saying he had to leave by July 27 because of a new federal limit on certain visas from Nigeria that went into effect in January. Nobody knew what to do, so a couple of parishioners called Congressman Mike Lawler’s office. His staff worked on it for weeks, and on July 17 word came through that Fr. Juventus was granted an extension. He got to stay through September 2 like originally planned, and the office even sent a letter he could show on his way out so there’d be no penalty. He flew home to Nigeria last Wednesday after a full summer with the parish. Say what you want about politics, this is what a congressman’s office is supposed to do. Kudos to Rep. Lawler and his team.
