WASHINGTON — In a rare formal appearance before Congress by an LDS leader, the church endorsed Thursday a bill it says is needed to allow foreigners to serve as missionaries in the United States.

Elder Ralph W. Hardy of the LDS Church's Quorums of the Seventy joined Catholic and Jewish leaders appearing before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration.

They want to make permanent what is now a temporary program that allows up to 10,000 "religious workers" to enter the United States each year — but does not allow them to immigrate permanently. Half of those visas are for ordained clergy, and the other half are for counselors, hospital workers, missionaries and others.

The program is set to expire in September. But Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich., is pushing a bill to make it permanent.

Hardy said the religious worker visa program "is a vital part of the missionary effort of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

He said while the LDS Church for decades has sent U.S. missionaries around the world, the visa program that began 10 years ago has allowed the United States "to reciprocate by inviting citizens of these foreign countries to perform their missionary service in this country."

Elder Hardy said that has brought many benefits to the missionaries, the church and to the United States.

"The missionaries are able to see how our church, with its volunteer lay leadership, operates in the United States and they return to their home countries with this institutional knowledge, which in turns strengthens the church and its lay leadership in these countries," he said.

He added, "The religious worker non-immigrant visa program allows those of different nations to witness firsthand the operations of religious freedom in the United States."

Also, he said the program has "strengthened international relationships and provided education and experience in a setting not otherwise available."

LDS leaders have testified before Congress only a handful of times in the past century. The church has stated that it normally stays out of politics, except for moral causes or legislation that directly affects its operations.

Since the early 1900s, the only other leaders to testify for the church before Congress were Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve, who testified for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and Elder Merrill Bateman, who as the church's presiding bishop explained how its welfare program works.

With Hardy on Thursday, Adam Cardinal Maida, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Detroit, said his church "would suffer dramatically without the assistance of (foreign) non-minister religious workers."

He said half the Catholic dioceses use such workers "in parishes, in health care, in prisons, in teaching, in nursing care and in counseling."

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Also, Rabbi Steven Weil from Detroit testified that Judaism also relies heavily on foreign workers. "They work in schools, synagogues, hospitals and homes for the aged. They teach and inspire us to become better people."

Abraham said he introduced the bill and called it "The Mother Teresa Religious Worker Act" because Mother Teresa wrote him shortly before her death. She asked for help to make the program permanent so that nuns in her Missionaries of Charity could more easily immigrate for work in Detroit and other large inner cities.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the full Judiciary Committee, also endorsed it Thursday.

He said making the visa program permanent "is critical. Religious organizations need to have the ability to sponsor individuals to provide services to local communities."

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