Posted on 03/01/2006 8:03:52 AM PST by DumpsterDiver
In his most forceful comments to date, Mahony said he would instruct his priests to defy legislation — if approved by Congress — that would require churches and other social organizations to ask immigrants for legal documentation before providing assistance and penalize them if they refuse to do so. That provision was included in the immigration bill recently passed by the House of Representatives; a similar proposal is in the version that the Senate Judiciary Committee plans to begin debating this week.
[snip]
He [Mahony] said he also planned to step up his personal political advocacy, starting with a letter to California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Senate Judiciary Committee member and opponent of large-scale guest-worker programs outside agriculture.
[snip]
Mahony, a Los Angeles native of Italian and German descent, said his personal passion on the issue was sparked as a child, when he became close to the mostly Mexican immigrants who were hired to work at his father's poultry plant in the San Fernando Valley. As an elementary school student, Mahony said, he personally witnessed what he called a "terrifying" immigration raid on his father's plant, leaving him with an indelible impression about the abuse of immigrant workers.
[snip]
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(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I hate to say it, but the Church should lose its tax-exempt status, if it's going to plunge into politics, and advise priests to break US law.
Didn't President Bush propose legislation that would allow Churches to administer public money for social services? I think it was called Faith Based Initiatives.
I now understand why the Democrats were against it and am in full agreement with them.
ping
"Pogh Mahoney"..
Liberation theology at its best. They've been practicing this for years. Only now are they coming out publicly in favor of it.
Abortion is legal in the US, but as a Catholic, I oppose it openly.
Christ said "whatever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me..."
He didn't say "But first, check their papers."
Cardinal or not, this is overt treason.
So, if the U.S. passed a law, like Canada did, making it illegal to say anything that is against homosexuals, or read passages from the Bible that offend homosexuals, they should lose their status for not following it?
There's a difference between opposing a law and violating one.
Mahoney should BUTT OUT!
If the law opposes the teachings of the church, then which should take priority...the laws of man or the laws of God?
" Christ said "whatever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me..."
He didn't say "But first, check their papers.""
Wow! Is THAT twisting the scriptures! Are you saying Jesus advocated breaking the law?
I think he did not. He said "Render unto Caesar those things that are Caesars" and "My kingdom is not of this world".
Mahony is full of Baloney!
"If the law opposes the teachings of the church, then which should take priority...the laws of man or the laws of God?"
The laws of God, not those of the Catholic Church that have opposed God's word for 1500 years. ("Call no one on earth "father", "Thou shalt not make unto thyself graven images" - etc. etc. etc.)
On the basis of charity, I can appreciate and would agree with providing emergency assistance...a sandwich to the hungry, a bed to the homeless, emergency care to the injured, without regard to their immigration status. We do have an obligation to our brother, after all.
But Mahony takes it to a level that is ridiculous. There is a difference between helping a desperate and needy person and the open defiance of the law. There is a difference between not checking for ID at a soup kitchen and not checking for ID when enrolling a kid in a parochial school. There's a difference between providing a bed in a homeless shelter and providing a long-term subsidy for an apartment.
Mahony says, He said that both Hebrew and Christian Scriptures were consistent and clear about the moral imperative to care for strangers and aliens. The Jewish people were aliens in Egypt, he said, and Jesus was a refugee who was escaping from King Herod. God clearly instructed Moses to care for aliens, orphans and widows in his midst.
He's right. The scriptures said this. However, those who were helped were not illegal aliens. The Jewish people were aliens in Egypt, true. They were there at the invitation of the Egyptian Government. This country also has legal immigration rules. Jesus was a refugee who was escaping from King Herod. We also have asylum laws for those fleeing persecution. God clearly instructed Moses to care for aliens, orphans, and widows in his midst. Those aliens, orphans, and widows were there either as members of one of the twelve tribes or as lawful guests. God also instructed His people to utterly destroy cities, killing everybody and not leaving one stone on top of another.
Jos 6:21 Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword.
As long as Mahony is citing examples from scripture, he may wish to consider the following:
Num 33:50-56 And the LORD said to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, "Say to the people of Israel, When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images, and demolish all their high places; and you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it. You shall inherit the land by lot according to your families; to a large tribe you shall give a large inheritance, and to a small tribe you shall give a small inheritance; wherever the lot falls to any man, that shall be his; according to the tribes of your fathers you shall inherit. But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as pricks in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell. And I will do to you as I thought to do to them."
Matthew Ch 22
[35] Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
[36] Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
[37] Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
[38] This is the first and great commandment.
[39] And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
[40] On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Where do the laws of the Church say that illegal immigrants should be encouraged and comforted? There is no such Church law - this is a radical interpretation of the Church's teachings which are not true to the original.
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