Seeing Christ in everyone
By Susan Brinkmann
CS&T Correspondent
Finding Christ in everyone is something Jim King was taught to do from
the earliest days of his life and it turned out to be the best possible
training he could have had for his new position with the Archdiocese.
“Regardless of where they met people, through their jobs or social
events, my parents always treated people as if they were talking to Christ
Himself,” said King, who is the new coordinator for the Office of
Pastoral Care for Migrants and Refugees.
“They always gave them that respect. Sometimes it wasn’t given
back to them, but they always persevered in trying to show me that all
people should be treated fairly, equally, and be respected and loved as
Christ would love them.”
The 28-year-old former seminarian and a volunteer fireman lives in Lawrenceville,
N. J. with his wife, Sarah. He will lend full-time support to the Office’s
director, Father Joseph G. Watson and will assist him in serving the various
needs of the Archdiocese’s immigrant populations as well as the
extern priests who serve them.
“Father Watson and I share the same passion for service to not only
the foreign priests who come here to minister to the various ethnic groups
in the Archdiocese, but to help serve the people as well.”
Born James Jude King on Dec. 7, 1978, he credits his parents, James Jay
King and Anne Marie (Keister) King, as being his first teachers, and the
people who planted the seeds of a strong Catholic faith while raising
him in Holy Trinity parish in Morrisville, Pa.
“As a family we went to Mass together and were strengthened through
the Eucharist. My parents were always very prayerful around the house.
Faith was always an open discussion in my house and it wasn’t uncomfortable,”
he said. “It could be talked about very naturally at the dinner
table the way you would talk about sports or daily activities, and then
it would just roll into faith discussions at times.”
He went to elementary school at Holy Trinity and attended Conwell-Egan
Catholic High School in Fairless Hills before entering St. Charles Borromeo
Seminary, where he spent six years and received a bachelor’s degree
in philosophy. In 2003, he went to work for the Robert Wood Johnson Hospital
in Hamilton, New Jersey where he met his wife, Sarah Faherty, who holds
a doctorate in physical therapy. The two married in December 2006.
Also during his employment at the hospital, he met the district director
for the office of New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) who offered
him a job on the Congressman’s staff as a district case worker.
“About 80 percent of my casework was immigration related, helping
people with issues like application problems, or applications being denied,”
King said. “There was no training, just on the job. As the cases
presented themselves, a number of times I had to do my own research and
teach myself what was going on. I had to learn how to help people cut
through the red tape that's sometimes present when working with a federal
agency.”
He worked with a variety of ethnic groups, the largest of which was the
African community, as well as people with a Middle Eastern and Hispanic
backgrounds.
“My heart goes out to these people, many of whom are coming from
situations that people here in America have no idea of what it’s
like — the war-torn countries, the hellish situations, the poverty,”
he said. “I see my role as one of helping to serve them and offer
them some sort of relief from whatever they’re coming from to seek
a better life for their families.”
He has learned much from the people he serves. “When you read about
these situations, you just thank God for how blessed we are here in America.
I thank God everyday for that and I see this job as my opportunity to
offer something in return for the freedoms and blessings I’ve been
given throughout my life,” King added.
He considers it an honor to serve the Secretariat for Evangelization of
the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. “Regardless of what else we do,
our primary focus is always to assist Cardinal Rigali in the spreading
and strengthening of the faith of the people of the Archdiocese,”
he said.
He’ll be relying on the good example of his parents, his background
in the seminary, and his strong Catholic faith to serve the way Christ
would want.
“We have to find Christ in everyone,” he said. “That’s
our role as Catholics to spread His gospel through our actions and how
we treat other people.”
Contact Susan Brinkmann at fiat723@aol.com or (215) 965-4615.