Posted on 05/03/2013 5:08:19 AM PDT by Lonely Bull
Just days after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border by climbing a wall, a Chicago priest says what he did was wrong and urged parishioners in his Southwest Side church to apologize if they had done the same.
"And by recognizing you did something wrong, you can't keep it doing it," said the Rev. Gary Graf of St. Gall Roman Catholic Church in Chicago's Gage Park neighborhood. "I'm begging the people to take a different tactic."
--SNIP--
Graf paid for the trip but took about $3,000 from a church collection to pay coyotes, or people who smuggle others into the U.S. for a fee.
He spent three days in a home with 27 people waiting for smugglers to take him to the U.S. before abandoning his plan. Graf said he then hitched a ride and walked hours through the desert until he came to the border.
--SNIP--
Outside of the Southwest Side church, many parishioners showed their support for Graf. Many said they did not know the pastor scaled the border wall until a few days ago.
"We're so happy he did that for us," said Jacqueline Portero, 31, as she stood next to her 10-year-old daughter. "He just wanted to experience what the people experienced. He wanted to show the people he's there for them."
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.chicagotribune.com ...
if it was a newspaper i would say investigative journalism, but a church, and a Roman Catholic one at that... i’d think the pope not too happy about such things. but what was the last time any pope paid a visit to any Roman Catholic church’s door and told them to quit screwball things like this?
... if it happened at any serious evangelical church that pastor would likely be out on his ear in scandal...
He took money from offerings that were not desinated for his so called moral stunt. I hope the archdiocese comes up with appropriate punishment for him.
Seems to me the taking of parish money is a “criminal act”.Lawlessness is the mark of our age.
Freegards
LEX
Try scaling the wall that surrounds the Vatican and see how far you get.
Since he snuck in and is “illegal” and if he wants the true experience, he should now be able to get all kinds of bennies, EBT, housing welfare....
If the people who are supposed to be closest to the Christ misbehave in this manner, then what kind of stinking lousy witness to the world is that.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber."
But since the "priest" rather follow Marx than Christ, stop spiritually defrauding Christian parishioners - defrock him!
Maybe more Alinsky than Marx from what I hear, but I never studied Marx very well. It would be like studying ordure.
We probably have a better chance of protecting the southern border by the Pontifical Swiss Guards than by the current cadre of clowns in the federal govt.
The Pope is a Jesuit (and, in full disclosure, I am the product of a Jesuit education) so I wouldn't put it past him to do something crazy like that, himself. Jesuits may be very smart and they may be very well educated, but conservative, they are not.
if he wanted to go all the way maybe he oughta have snagged a mexican compadre into his scheme, not that it would make it any better. well he did prove that the coyote was superfluous!
He may be a priest but he was carrying satan on his back and still is.
LLS
as a wascally evangelical i sort of sit at the side of the RC scene and watch. trying to imagine what would happen in the RC organization if suddenly the vatican got a more fundamentalist mentality. there would be a house cleaning with a hey nonny. instead they seem to act like distant ceo’s.
He went down there with $3K and was able to locate and pay ‘coyotes’ in 3 days? Without getting killed?
I didn't know ‘coyotes’ were so congenial and open to having an outsider show the world what harsh conditions they put people through...
Maybe someone had a good time in Mexico for a few days, and made up a story to explain why.
it’s not as if anyone in mexico or in the usa is trying to stop the “coyotes” any more, it’s a pro forma exercise, and what’s more, this fellow was able to waltz across the border solo when the coyote was busy in siesta. (was he citing the psalm where David says by my God i can scale a wall?)
“He thought he’d get arrested as soon as he landed on the other side, in Nogales, Ariz., but didn’t see anyone around.”
But, but... Janet said the borders are safer than ever.
(Well, maybe she meant the illegal immigrants are safer.)
Alinsky and Marx both had the same vision: the defeat of capitalism by the “have-nots”(aka: proletarian) to create a socialist utopia. They only differed in their means to this end. Marx saw an inevitable violent revolution of the proletatian, while Alinsky saw semi-violent confrontations and engineered institutional collapse as the means to the same end.
And while declared Marxist regime have directly killed millions during their armed revolutions, they have in fact killed far more by the engineered starvation and physical deprivation created by the policies of the socialist institutions they erected over the ruins of capitalist institutions. The final death toll from an Alinskyite success would not be much different than that of a Marxist success. And since the two are "fellow travelers" it would be hard to have one without (at least for a time) some of the other.
Not much difference in my book!
Theft. The Bishop and the Cardinal need to take action.
That's not the Pope's job.
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