Posted on 07/11/2014 4:42:44 AM PDT by NYer
"In order to avoid future clashes with the citizens of Murrieta, Calif., over attempts to transfer illegal immigrants there, the Obama administration has turned to an unusual bedfellow: the Catholic Church. Deacon Luis Sanchez of the Diocese of San Bernardino tells National Review Online that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent approached the diocese on July 2, 2014, and “expressed his desire for the Church to help in helping these families reach their destination.” Since that time, he says, diocesan officials have spoken on the phone with ICE, and they held a planning meeting on Monday.
John Andrews, the diocese’s director of communications who attended the planning meeting, tells NRO that the idea is to set up “transitional centers” where volunteers and representatives from Catholic Charities would provide food, medical, and spiritual care for families who have been processed at a Border Patrol station. He says he hopes to help the people pushed out of Murrieta, and would need to accommodate 140 people arriving every three days. Andrews says he expects the centers will house mostly mothers and their children for one or two days. But if there’s a situation where a family needs to stay longer than a day or two, he says that placing illegal immigrants with a local family would represent a “very viable option.”#ad#
Andrews says several of the parishes within the diocese might be used as part of the plan, but he would not provide details about the locations he disclosed at Monday’s planning meeting. He has withheld such details, he says, because he does not want to invite the “type of folks who gathered in Murrieta to protest” to disrupt their plans. “They [the Murrieta protesters] don’t see the immigrant in the same way we do, which is as a human being that’s created in God’s image with dignity, just like everyone else,” he says.
Some Church officials appear to take the view that the “type of folks who gathered in Murrieta” must be seen differently from the immigrants. In her blog, Sister Mary Ann Walsh, director of media relations for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that images of the Murrieta protesters recalled the “fire hoses and snarling police dogs in Birmingham, Alabama, used against African-American students protesting racial segregation.” The images also reminded her of a picture of a “little girl in North Vietnam running terrified and naked with burning skin after South Vietnamese planes accidently dropped napalm on Trang Bang” in 1972. Walsh referred derisively to the “mob in Murrieta,” and wrote that she awaits a “moral conscience moment” similar to what occurred with the passage of civil-rights legislation 50 years ago and the moment when the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam.
Parishioners in San Bernardino do not uniformly share Walsh’s view of illegal immigrants flooding into their community, however. One couple who attended the planning meeting called into Rush Limbaugh’s radio show to offer an alternative position. Eddie, a caller identifying himself as a retired doctor, said he’s concerned about the spread of illnesses that might result from the plan put together by the Obama administration and the Catholic Church. “We’ve got FEMA facilities that can provide medical care, housing, nutrition and clothing, safety and transportation, and stabilize the situation so that these people can be reintegrated or be dealt with,” Eddie said. “But to put us and subject us to health-care problems, risk, whatever you want to call it, seems to be an incompetence on behalf of the government when they themselves, these different agencies are not talking to each other.”
It may come as a surprise that government officials are collaborating with the Catholic Church, given recent conflict between the two. The Little Sisters of the Poor faced hefty fines when they challenged the Obamacare contraception mandate. While the Obama administration objects to the kind of health care the Little Sisters would like to provide their employees, it is working on a plan with the Diocese of San Bernardino to allow Catholic Church officials to provide medical attention to illegal immigrants, according to Andrews. And though Massachusetts state government officials have shuttered Catholic Charities’ adoption service, churchgoers in California may soon be permitted by federal government officials to house entire families in their homes.
The Los Angeles ICE office did not return requests for comment about the plan, and Sanchez and Andrews would not disclose the name of the ICE official who has worked with the diocese. But if the plan described by Andrews comes through, the Obama administration may begin using the Catholic Church to shepherd immigrants all over the country.
I read yesterday of two Honduran teens coming to Atlanta to reunite with their parents, who were said to be here legally. If that is accurate (and that is a BIG if), I wonder how much of that there is.
I have no idea whether a foreign national can obtain legal status while abandoning their children.
Now that is how to complain effectively. Good letter. I hope you know I am only in favor of helping them here until we can get them back to their own countries. I am not in favor of allowing them to stay. I just get sick of the Church getting beat up over everything.
“elimination of global underdevelopment is the antidote to illegal immigration” Pope John Paul II 1995
Yes, I got that. I appreciate your stance.
I urge you to tell the authorities of the state that you will house and help these unfortunate Central American young people, only pending the reunification of their families VIA THEIR REPATRIATION TO THEIR COUNTRIES OF ORIGIN.
As I understand it, many of these children are being united with "families" here in the US. Presumably, some of these families are also illegal aliens. Are you also proposing that all members be identified and repatriated to their country of origin?
Lol. I KNOW what you mean.
AnnnaONETWOTHREE!!
So, Yes. In a swift, efficient and kindly manner.
Yes that is a sticky wicket! I am deep disturbed that they are keeping these people under wraps. Apparently this has been going on for a while.
Make no mistake my friend -- My thinking is quite precise and I am very clear on who the real bad actors are in this crisis.
You missed my point -- That being that I see this as an attempt by the "bad actors" -- I prefer "evil-doers" -- to use you and the Catholic Church's "Corporal Works of Mercy" to advance their mission to destroy our Judeo-Christian values and heritage on which this country was founded by opening our borders.
The Left's tactic of advancing their political agenda by wrapping it in a humanitarian cloak (which makes those who want to preserve our sovereignty by controlling our borders look "mean" or "uncaring" at best), then appealing to religious people and institutions to join them -- as religious tenets compel -- is sheer brilliance (though truly evil in its contemptible use of people of faith who the Left holds in disdain).
There is no question we must treat these people humanely -- illegal though their actions may be -- and we must show compassion for their plight. But that compassion must be on a personal level, not on a societal or "group" level or we'll lose our country.
You must remember this crisis is -- at its core -- a political tactic. The Left cares little about religious people and even less about the church, and it makes me angry that good people like yourself cannot see beyond the humanitarian imperative. Provide food, temporary shelter and any necessary medical care to these people then, after explaining why they cannot stay here, put them on a comfortable bus and send them back to where they came from.
As to others on this forum who would rather attack those who disagree with them than to acknowledge the counterpoint (e.g., defconw: It's like talking to the deaf. But it's ok. because just like the idiots that claim to be Catholics and continue to take the Eucharist, they are just bringing wrath upon themselves.) I say this: You should show a little compassion toward those who see beyond the humanitarian crisis and you should at the very least acknowledge that history shows that good works, no matter how well intended they may be, can produce an even greater tragedy. Instead, you profess to somehow know that those who take issue with you will bring "wrath upon themselves".
Nonsense, Evangelicals are the best voters in the land, and even the all encompassing “Protestant” vote always goes anti-democrat, yet the Catholic denomination does and always has with very few exceptions, voted democrat.
And we all know that the left counts on importing more Catholic voters, it is why they passed JFK’s 1965 Immigration bill.
The Catholic immigrants will vote democrat.
All of the Hispanic immigrants are fleeing Catholic nations.
Have you read my complete posting history or are you just extrapolating what you think defines my complete opinion from your imagination?
I simply commented in support of an aspect of the situation that has been a little ignored on this board. I find no particular need to affirm that laws should be obeyed and criminals should be prosecuted.
Nor do I find it helpful to me personally (and to my salvation) to rail against invaders when they were invited and the door left open. Better to rail against the ones who are throwing the party.
ping to 49
It's FReeper courtesy to ping FReepers that we mention by name in our comments.
The empirical evidence is impossible to ignore.
Many in the Catholic bureaucracy are in cooperation with the democrat party. Cardinal O'Malley is a case in point. He is a reliable shill for the democrats on this issue, and in April he traveled all the way from Boston to the border and passed Holy Communion between the slats of a fence to contrive a touching photo-op scene which made national news. Look at the connections and follow the money. The manipulation of trusting Catholics in this country by the wolves in the hierarchy is disgusting. Pointing out the hypocritical actions and corruption of human elements within the temporal organization should not be viewed as an attack on the entire Church.
I apologize to defconw for not including him on the posting ... I meant to ... then forgot to (old age, y'know).
Thanks for correcting my mistake and calling me out on this one, don-o.
Glenn
That which you do for the least of them you do for me. That is Jesus. So what's your beef?
I am educated in my faith. The Catholics on here know what I am talking about. Non-Catholics, all I can say is you can't learn it all in a day. It takes a lifetime. It's a journey not a destination.
Here is my question to the non-Catholic choir on this forum. Would you prefer that we drop out of politics? Because I will give up politics before I give up my religion. I won't change my views, I will merely retreat from this world and put the energy I spend on politics on my faith.
(And again, I apologize for being impolite for not including you on the posting address line. Best regards, G)
It’s cool Glenn.
See 59! It’s all good!
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