Replies

You are under no obligation to embrace an invading army or a pack of criminals. True?

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/kschiffer/what-the-bishops-the-catechism-and-st.-thomas-aquinas-say-about-immigration

Aquinas and the Catechism: A Different Perspective

But St. Thomas Aquinas would seem to approach the issue of immigration from a different perspective. In his Summa Theologiae, Aquinas was careful to divide relationships with foreigners into two categories: peaceful, and hostile. Among peaceful relationships, he identified three types of encounter which the Jews might have with foreigners who entered their lands:

Sometimes, foreigners simply passed through their land as travelers;
Foreigners came to dwell in their land as newcomers. In Exodus 22:21 and again in Exodus 22:9, the Law protected the rights of newcomers, warning “Thou shalt not molest a stranger”; and
When any foreigner wished to be admitted entirely to their fellowship and mode of worship. In this instance, the newcomer was not to be automatically admitted to citizenship. Immigrants from some countries were not to be admitted to citizenship for two or three generations.

“The reason for this,” Aquinas wrote,

“...was that if foreigners were allowed to meddle with the affairs of a nation as soon as they settled down in its midst, many dangers might occur, since the foreigners not yet having the common good firmly at heart might attempt something hurtful to the people.”