Posted on 03/05/2012 11:12:02 AM PST by moonshinner_09
The recent article about the expansion into Baltimore of the Department of Homeland Security's program to crackdown on illegal immigrants ("Immigrants, city fear divide over status checks," Feb. 26) makes clear the need for real immigration reform. Programs such as Secure Communities, regardless of aim, are succeeding in spreading fear and division and in threatening the stability of the family. Moreover, the program is altering the relationship between federal immigration enforcement and local law enforcement.
The Catholic Church's concern for the welfare of migrants stems from its belief that immigration is ultimately a humanitarian issue because it impacts the basic human rights and dignity of the human person. The Church believes this dignity is undermined by this program's alleged channeling of immigrants into the criminal justice system through racial profiling and pre-textual arrests for the purpose of vetting them for their immigration status. Because Secure Communities is operated at the point of arrest, rather than post-conviction, it casts a wide net over virtually any immigrant who has come into contact with the criminal justice system.
In other parts of the country where Secure Communities is being operated, some law enforcement officers have denounced the program because it creates a lack of trust between immigrant communities and local police, affecting their ability to investigate crime, assist crime victims and ensure the safety of those communities
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
I'm quite appalled by this thread. You folks seem unable to understand the first amendment.
Is "social justice" a religious precept of the Catholic Church?
You getting it yet?
Legislation doesn't grant dignity to a person. A person gathers dignity upon themselves by their actions, words and deeds.
I'm not a member of the Catholic Church and I don't want their religious precepts forced upon me, or other American Citizens, through legislative acts! They violate my First Amendment freedom of religion when they push their "social justice" upon me through government legislation.
I should have added you to replies 43 - 47. They might help you understand this issue better too.
Really, you're not in the position to question anyone else's reading abilities.
The Church has turned a blind eye towards homosexualism, which led to the terrible homosexual priest scandal, and they've implicitly endorsed Barack Obama from the pulpit.
Or maybe you don't go to Mass in other parishes and dioceses to see what's really going on. Fortunately, for you, there are others here to tell you. Wake up.
You do understand that no one is advocating the government silencing The Church, right? You understand the First Amendment, right?
"Congress shall make no law".
Agreed and well stated.
If you want to claim that the moon is made of green cheese or that Obozo is economically literate and that everyone MUST all agree or that you are descended from apes and we must all agree or that the planet is being ruined by man-made "climate change" and that we must all agree and pay taxes accordingly or any number of other liberal fantasies, hey, go for it! We just don't have to agree or obey and, if we have priorities with which you disagree, you don't have to agree or obey either. If your Congressman or Senators are voting for legislation with which you disagree, whether your agenda is that of Karl Marx or of Lysander Spooner, organize and nominate candidates more to your liking. If you still come up empty, that is why God (or the Founders) invented courts. Take your complaints of unconstitutionality to them. If all else fails, move to North Korea or Andorra or even Fredonia and see if your life improves.
See also Arrogant Bustard's #25 which rightly observes that the First Amendment freedoms are, in fact, freedoms that protect political activism. That they protect more does not diminish that fact. We have a court system that likes to pretend that there is some sort of "right" under the First Amendment for genetically gifted (and/or surgically enhanced) and devotedly conditioned young women to, ummmm, "express" themselves by seductively removing their clothing while provocatively cavorting on stage with various props to excite the imaginations of young men seeking a three-dimensional alternative reality (to their customary two-dimensional magazines) and willing to pay for the privilege of becoming visually excited in such fashion. Such judicial heresies ought not to blind us to what the Founders actually had in mind.
Your problem has nothing to do with being deprived of what you hallucinate might be your rights by the Roman Catholic Church. Whatever your specific gripes may be are best addressed to your elected representatives in the case of public policy or the courts if you actually imagine your actual rights being denied. Good luck!
Your position on immigration by the undocumented folks is both right and wrong. The immigration itself is certainly not a First Amendment issue. It is a Fourteenth Amendment issue. Be really honest and brave (hard as it may be for you) now and actually READ and UNDERSTAND the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That amendment speaks of two classes of those protected by it. There are CITIZENS and there are PERSONS. Citizens are the smaller class. However ALL PERSONS are entitled to equal protection of the laws by each state. Like it or not, that means, ummmm, all persons. You don't have to take my word for it. Get any competent dictionary and look up the terms citizen and person.
When the federal courts rule against states trying to enforce the nation's borders by arresting people for being in, say, Arizona or Alabama without some local poohbah's permission (or some terribly indignant folks supporting such claims while baying at the moon shining on the border), you will know in advance why the court would have to rule that way. You can still pretend to be outraged by the inevitable court decision since you are protected by your First Amendment rights. The Catholic Church cannot have you arrested for disagreeing with its agenda and you cannot have us Catholics arrested for disagreeing with yours.
I don't remember a single instance of any authoritative voice of Catholicism supporting abortion, DADT, or gay "marriage." Please correct me if I am drawing the wrong conclusion but your post, therefore, suggests that you support all three. As ever, you have a First Amendment right to advocate all three without necessarily having a right to prevail. The Catholics have a similar First Right to disagree with you but not necessarily having a right to prevail. Of course, murdering innocent babies seems to transcend the status of a mere lifestyle choice (however perverted). Whether legally sanctioned abortion is an inherent violation of the Equal Protection Clause that deprives a PERSON of life remains to be sorted out. That did seem to occur even to the late "Justice" Herod Blackmun in Roe vs. Wade in which he said that IF the unborn were deemed to be PERSONS there could be no right to abort. But I digress.
If you favor abortion, DADT and gay "marriage," that would seem to classify you either as a liberal or as a libertarian. Since you post on Free Republic, I would give you the benefit of the doubt and regard you as not being a liberal. That leaves libertarian. I used to be a libertarian (and a state party officer) in my misspent youth but then Roe vs. Wade was handed down and I grew up quickly. I was in law school when the decision was handed down. I was at the law library desk to get the first copy hot off the copying machine and wanted to know what the geniuses of SCOTUS had figured out (as I could not) as a "constitutional" underpinning for a right to abort (which I then supported). I read Herod Blackmun's decision and the concurring and dissenting opinions and realized that there simply was NO constitutional underpinning for the legality of abortion. My departure from the Libertoonian Party followed soon thereafter. It is a thoroughly false idea of libertarianism that requires uninvited aggression causing the death of the innocent unborn child to service the mere convenience or reputation of the mother and the financial convenience or reputation of the father.
Again, Arrogant Bustard is right (as is still customary whatever you may imagine) and you are not. You are absolutely entitled to disagree with Arrogant Bustard, with me, with other Catholics or with anyone else but, like us, you are not entitled to prevail, only to argue. I can't speak for others but I know I don't care if you disagree.
Your #s 63-67 don't change that in any way.
Some folks are allergic to the term “social justice.” The answer to their allergy is in the language: They are also obliged .... mindful of the precept of the Lord to assist the poor from THEIR OWN RESOURCES. Even libertarians cannot very well object to folks spending their earnings as they choose on the needs of the poor. In fact, excessive taxation by government diminished the ability of the faithful to be personally charitable. Libertarians AND Catholics should agree to resist excessive taxation.
Is "social justice" a religious precept of the Catholic Church?
Sorry, I obviously meant your #s 43-47.
For longer form and better informed answers than I can give, I would suggest to you the following:
Social Justice Review, November-December 2009, Political and Catholic Perspectives on Freedom of Speech and of Religion, Cynthia Toolin, Ph.D, Professor at Holy Apostles Seminary, Cromwell, Connecticut. Social Justice Review is now more than a century old, published in St. Louis, MO, by the Central Catholic Verein, an old German-American Catholic organization.
There are also a variety of papal encyclicals easily accessed online.
Start with Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum of 1891.
Then Pius XI's Quadragesimo Anno (1931);
John XXIII's Mater et Magistra (1961);
John XXIII's Pacem in Terris (1963);
Paul VI's Populorum Progressio (1967);
Paul VI's Octogesima Adveniens (1971);
John Paul II's Laborem Exercens (1981);
John Paul II's Solicitudo Rei Socialis (1987);
John Paul II's Centissimo Anno (1991);
Benedict XVI's Deus Caritas Est (2005);
Benedict XVI's Caritas in Veritate (2009.
All those encyclicals are available to be read in English online at educationforjustice.org/catholic-social-teaching/encyclicals-and-documents.
Next question...Is immigration reform one aspect of social justice in the eyes of the Catholic Church?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.