Posted on 01/02/2011 2:41:49 PM PST by shuck and yall
Florida Catholic Bishops Statement on Immigration
Assimilation is a very important goal, and the Tejanos are assimilated. They serve to mute the cultural clashes. May be wrong, but my impression is they are more “Americanized” than the Puerto Ricans in New York and elsewhere.
You forget that the Catholic Church has long been the Church of Immigrants. For the Irish immigrants, the Church was their chief buffer against the bigotry and discrimination of the Anglo-Americans. But the bulk of immigration before 1920 was from Catholic countries, which caused a lot of anxiety among Protestants.
Does that mean they have to obey the law?
No body, especially the Church, is advocating the breaking of laws. It is only calling on reform of a broken system in a way in which the rights of the immigrants are recognized.
As Christians, we can't claim to love God and then ignore the needs of our neighbors. Loving God is like loving a spouse. A husband may tell his wife that he loves her but to fulfill his obligations and demonstrate his love she will need to see the proof in his actions. Likewise if we claim to be "Catholic," we need to prove it by our behavior and serving other people by working for justice, charity and truth in our nation's political life is one of the very important ways we do that.
The "separation of Church and state" does not require that we as private citizens separate our Catholic faith from our public witness, our political choices and our political actions. That kind of separation would require Christians to deny who we are; to repudiate Jesus when he commands us to be "leaven in the world" and to "make disciples of all nations." Our founding fathers depended on a religious people for our experiment to work and the manifest faith and the convictions of Christians of all denominations have for the most part kept the promise that our Declaration if Independence trumpeted.
If you would you rather have a Church that did not choose the path of conscience and compassion you could always become a Calvinist. Just don't expect a lot of company.
Hey Vette - I’ll bet your people have had nothing but problems with immigrants every since you got to this country.
Yea, but at least they came here legally, instead of swimming the Rio Grande like you and yours did. As a matter of record, as a hiring manager, I have arranged to have several immigrants brought here legally. They were people who came here able to contribute to the success of our business as professionals. Unlike the busboys and toilet cleaners the Catholic Church wants us to embrace. By the way, I still don’t know who “your people” are!
I have a pretty diverse ancestry. The earliest arrived in 1704 in the chains of indenture for the crime of siding against the Protestant crown in the Jacobite Rebellion. Others arrived over the following 200 years from places like Prussia, Bavaria, Ireland and Denmark. One was a stowaway so I guess that was an illegal. The Irish faced the same "Know-Nothing" blow back 150 years ago that you are spouting today.
The obligation to respond decently to needy people does not, however, wipe out the obligation to do in a way that doesn't destroy other elements of the Common Good. In fact, justice to these groups must take place in the larger context of justice to all, as far as our prudence can work that out. And that's where the problems arise.
The controversy about the status of those who enter this country unlawfully is difficult in part because many of these millions are simultaneously accessories to, as well as victims of, injustice.
Check out the testimony of Dr. Carol Swain, a Vanderbilt University professor of law and political science, who spoke to the House panel on immigration last September. (Good Link Here.) She made a convincing case that it is the steady flow of cheap migrant labor which destroys job opportunities and depresses wages for poor blacks and other American minorities.
It's very well to say, as you did, that Latino new-arrivals may be a better category of workers than our own home-grown welfare class. It's legitimate, though, to ask whether successive waves of low-wage foreign workers have played a role in keeping our own "welfare class" socially demoralized and unemployable.
The degradation of the wages of those who are already the poorest-paid workers in America, and the disappearance of jobs for unskilled youth, is having a catastrophic impact on our "permanent underclass." This is a legitimate argument against the acceptance of massive numbers of newcomers, no matter where they come from. It stems from concern for a vast group of sufferers whose interests are rarely considered: the millions --- particularly young, unskilled, minority males --- who are substantially, and in some cases for a lifetime, robbed of any prospect of gainful employment because they have been displaced by a vast influx of exploited foreign nationals.
That’s why I must ask you to resist reducing this controversy to racism or xenophobia on the part of those who strongly oppose illegal immigration. It's a mistake to assume that present immigration controversy is attributable to unreasonable fears and resentments.
The stand taken by these eight Florida bishops is sufficiently squishy that it will likely have little impact. But to the extent that we pay any attention to it at all, let's notice that they're making the same rhetorical error here that the USCCB made in the "health reform" debate: namely, they're giving a sonorous "Oremus" to the label of "immigration reform", while allowing the content to be substantially defined by President Obama and his legislative allies.
If the so-called "reform" is injurious to the Common Good, no amount of "Oremus" is going to make it "compassionate," "generous" or "just".
My own specific critique will have to wait til later. What I'm doing here, Natural Law, is defending our right as a matter of justice and charity to disagree with Bishops' ill-considered political positions. Charity and justice are always the Church's concern; but public policy is the sphere of lay responsibility in which clergy have neither special competence nor direct ecclesial authority.
I am not completely endorsing the Bishop's position, but I recognize too that the Bishop is not attempting to set policy, but rather to shape it. In doing so one must often exaggerate and over state ones position.
But lets not deceive ourselves into believing that we are innocent victims in this matter, intentionally targeted and abused by a hoard of uninvited immigrants. We as Americans share much of the blame for creating and fostering the conditions that lead to the current state of affairs. We as Catholics have an obligation to deal with the human consequences regardless of the causes and blames.
An insane drug policy that ignores the lessons of Prohibition, coupled with an insatiable demand for drugs in this country has created conditions south of the that no sane human would wish to endure or let alone attempt to raise a family. The popular culture here that thinks drugs are cool and that drug use is a victimless crime is an accomplice in the violence in Mexico.
The demand and tolerance for cheap, off the books labor, whether by businesses or by individuals looking for a nanny, construction workers, or crop harvesting is creating an attractive nuisance. This coupled with open borders and a catch and release immigration policy provides no disincentives. Lastly our welfare policies and freebies as a result of both political parties looking for new voters has resulted in a very large problem.
It doesn't sanitize it - that's the problem. Using the Bible to justify stealing is NOT a good tactic. And that's what the bishops are doing.
It's also what "Natural Law" is doing. It's not impressive - it's offensive.
The Church backed the wrong horse on the Messican illegals, FRiend.
I came from a religious background rather older than the Church. But, whenever Mosaic, or any other “law” is in conflict with the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, I ignore that “law”. Americans always have.
As Washington said, “The Constitution is sacredly obligatory upon all”.
As the Church stupidly expected America to tolerate queer priests buggering boys, one can’t help wondering if the Church hierarchy is so isolated and stupid as to assume America will tolerate “swarms of Messicans sent here to eat out our substance”.
Your government?????
Nonsense!
You are one citizen out of many, same as these bishops.
NOBODY appointed you God Emperor of the United States ... if you fancy yourself such, you have problems best addressed by a psychiatrist.
Glad you agree. I’m beyond fed up with border-jumping criminals and their apologists attempting to silence opposition to their crimes by shoving scripture in my face. Mexicans are Catholics, they should clean up the land God gave them and make it work.
Not as much as your comprehension problem, there was another post about this fake bishop crap you should attempt to read it.
Which other citizens of these United States would you like to silence as untermenschen???
It’s crap like this that causes me to seriously question my religious affiliation.
We serve Caesar best by serving God first. We honor our nation best by living our Catholic faith honestly and vigorously, and bringing it without apology into the public square and its debates. We're citizens of heaven first. But just as God so loved the world that he sent his only son, so the glory and irony of the Christian life is this: The more faithfully we love God, the more truly we serve the world. - Archbishop Charles Chaput
I do not blame the illegals as much as I blame the hostile US elite who are intentionally targeting and abusing the American people. Importing cheap labor has displaced blue collar Americans on a massive scale. Large-scale non-European immigration creates social division aimed at short-circuiting any revival of nationalism in defense of American interests.
Unfortunately, many bishops are siding with liberal elites against the interests of American Catholics. Dissolving American borders has nothing to do the traditional Catholic teaching. The bishops of Latin America would never betray their people in this way.
We serve God, not man. There have been wayward bishops since the time of Judas, but one must persevere for greater reward in spite of the scandal. St. John Chrysostem, himself a bishop, said "the floors of Hell are paved with the skulls of bishops."
Natural Law's misrepresentation of the Catholic religion on this thread is disgraceful.
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