Posted on 04/23/2006 9:21:44 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Protest marches. Lobbying for legislation. Alliances with pro-immigration groups. A Good Friday Mass in which an immigrant stood before a cross to symbolize Jesus. The Catholic Church has become a force for change, with the weight of millions of Catholics behind it, in the politically charged battle that is immigration reform.
Some see the position as one grounded in moral principles, in which the dignity of people is more important than their legal status.
Others question the propriety of a faith-based organization, whose main mission is evangelization and the spiritual welfare of its flock, planting itself so squarely in the camp of migrants, some here illegally. The roots of the Catholic Church's fight for immigrant rights, and other social justice causes, run deep.
Its position, leaders argue, is buttressed by international law --- its morality grounded in Gospel. That stance, on what has been called one of the most volatile issues of the day, is also inherently political.
In a letter printed in January 2003, Catholic bishops exhorted Americans and those within the church to welcome everyone --- including those here illegally --- with joy, charity, hope and hospitality.
The letter would become the founding document on which church leaders have based their current immigration reform campaign.
In May 2005, Catholic bishops unveiled the program, dubbed ‘‘Justice for Immigrants: A Journey of Hope.'' The campaign holds that immigrants should be seen not as the enemy, but as humans with dignity.
Less than a year later, Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony told bishops to ignore a proposed reform bill, which he called inhumane, should it pass.
Proposed by Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner and passed in the House in December, HR 4437 called for building massive walls between the United States and Mexico. The bill also would make illegal immigrants felons and could make helping them a crime.
The million-member Diocese of San Bernardino, which encompasses San Bernardino and Riverside counties, declared January as the month of the immigrant. The diocese formed teams that are implementing the campaign in parishes.
Some within the church call the activism an inappropriate blend of politics and religion though faith-based organizations, including the Catholic Church, long have rallied behind causes of social justice.
History of justice
From the Revolutionary War to the labor movements of the reform era to civil rights, religious leaders have stood behind --- and sometimes led ---campaigns for equality with the belief that silence is a form of moral complicity.
Bill O'Neill, a priest and professor of Catholic social teaching at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, said there's a long-standing tradition of bringing the ethical beliefs of the Gospel into the public realm.
‘‘I think the demands of Christian love will always be political,'' said O'Neill, who has worked with refugees in Africa. ‘‘The question is having the wisdom to speak effectively.''
Church leaders argue they are following a higher law, one that sometimes is in conflict with man's law.
‘‘We have to be humble prophets, deeply committed to the heart of our own religious convictions but do so in a way that respects democracy and a . . . pluralist society,'' O'Neill said.
O'Neill points to Martin Luther King Jr.'s call to civil disobedience in his letter from Birmingham Jail. Addressing clergy who criticized his timing and who said a pastor shouldn't encourage people to break the law, King explained the difference between just and unjust laws.
‘‘A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God,'' King wrote.
‘‘There was a time when the church was very powerful . . . when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed,'' King said. ‘‘In those days, the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.''
There are differences between the civil-rights movement and the plight of immigrants, however. Blacks had no choice in coming to America and had been citizens for generations at the time of King's letter.
Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political science professor at the UC Riverside, said immigrants desire to come to the United States. The reason they want to come here, however, is partly America's fault.
No one is pulling people across the border and taking them against their will, he said. ‘‘In some sense, immigrants are responsible for being here, but to some extent their choices are made in a context where employers (and) the U.S. government all engage in a policy of looking the other way to serve their own interests.''
Some Catholics are confused by the church's willingness to disregard a law it terms unjust.
If Catholics are morally obligated to care for the vulnerable, to what extent are immigrants morally bound to respect a country's laws, they ask.
‘‘To incite people to ignore the law that's being (proposed) to help the illegal immigrants -- that in my opinion is wrong,'' said Vincent Kilbride, who is a lifelong Catholic. ‘‘The teachings of the church say help the people that need help; nowhere in the Bible does it say illegal.''
Tax-exempt
Though church leaders argue that they're trying to help the most vulnerable in society, some, including parishioners, argue they're helping the most lawbreaking.
Kilbride, 81, said if the church wants to be so political, it should forgo its tax-exampt status. It bothers him that donations are being used to help those in the country illegally.
According to the tax code, it is legal for nonprofits, including churches, to engage in political activism under the Constitution and federal law and still remain tax-exempt.
They may not be involved in a political campaign on behalf of one candidate or become so involved in politics they lose sight of their charitable and religious missions, IRS officials said.
Some faith-based organizations have been scrutinized by the IRS for unlawful electioneering, most recently during the 2004 presidential election.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed several complaints against churches who endorsed candidates and took on the Catholic Church when bishops declared that parishioners who voted for John Kerry could not receive communion.
Last year, a church in Pasadena caught the eye of the IRS after rector emeritus George Regas of All Saints Church gave a politically charged sermon before the election.
Jeremy Leaming of Americans United said the organization is hesitant to criticize houses of worship for political activities. Only when violations appear flagrant do they step in.
Leaming quoted several recent public opinion polls that show a large majority of Americans don't want their houses of worship to become too political, whether on issues of abortion, gay rights or immigration.
‘‘The bishops are welcoming divisiveness and turmoil'' by supporting one side in the immigration debate, he said. ‘‘Many, many people go to their places of worship not to be lectured on the political topics of the day.''
Catholic doctrine
In the ‘‘Strangers No Longer'' pastoral letter from 2003, the egregious human rights violations committed by current law, including the separation of families, requires the faithful to speak up.
Professor John McGreevy, who teaches on the history of Catholicism in America at Notre Dame, said the church's long-standing ties to Latin America and its adherence to international law make its position on immigration understandable.
Covenants signed in 1948 after the Holocaust guarantee individuals basic human rights, regardless of domestic laws.
What moral weight these rights have is still a question.
Chilton Williamson Jr., author of ‘‘The Immigration Mystique: America's False Conscience,'' writes from the perspective of a longtime Catholic and self-styled neoconservative.
In an essay on St. Augustine's ‘‘City of God,'' Williamson says the 1,000-page tome, by one of the most influential fathers of the church, actually makes a case against globalization and unfettered immigration.
‘‘It was nothing less than a fifth-century precursor of the modern debate on maintaining distinct national identities and preserving the integrity of the Western world,'' Williamson wrote. ‘‘St. Augustine . . . held a view much closer to that of us present-day anti-globalist, anti-immigration reactionaries than the universalist dream that all too many Christians have been persuaded is integral to their faith.''
Augustine writes, ‘‘The earthly city will not be everlasting; for when it is condemned to the final punishment it will no longer be a city.''
Williamson says, ‘‘This seems a clear prediction that the destroyer of the present world will be neither fire nor ice but social chaos --- the end of national identity, Babel unbound.''
Such arguments find resonance in some Catholics, who ask whether the need to preserve and enhance a national identity outweighs a moral obligation to welcome immigrants, even if they're trying to escape poverty or feed their families.
Yet a population of 11 million people can't be ignored.
San Bernardino diocesan officials said the church has no official programs to help immigrants apply for citizenship, though developing them is part of the Justice for Immigrants campaign.
For now, immigrants are referred to Catholic Charities, a nonprofit organization with services for refugees and immigrants. My-Hanh Luu, director of the immigrant program, said about 1,300 people sought help at its office last year, up about 5 percent from the year before.
"Church leaders argue they are following a higher law, one that sometimes is in conflict with man's law"
This is of course a lie. The Princes of the Church have not followed Gods law when they allowed homo Priests to violate young boys and did nothing. Or when they turned the Seminaries over to the "Gay Subculture" and denied access or made life so difficult they quit to those who sought to serve God because they were not Gay.
The Catholic Church in the United States has been taken over by left-wing radicals who are NOT Catholic but who seek to destroy the Church. A task that they have really been doing a good job at as witnessed by the thousands who were molested by the homosexual so called priests.
The Catholic Bishops do not represent the majority of the Catholics in the United States and should be excommunicated from the Church if we ever get a Pope who has the guts to toss them out. But since they elect the Pope that may be difficult.
The book "Goodbye Good Men" by Michael S. Rose is as excellent read of the scum that have infiltrated the Church.
Opinions please?
People really need to think about what they are saying. Remove the tax exempt status from the Church? There is more in the life than the immigration issue and the church is a great friend on other issues. Be careful what you ask for.
I am not going going to waste much time here defending the Church view on this matter. I have done so in the past and my position is well known. FOr the record, I am not a Marxist, or a Socailist or any of those things. However, I do see that the Church is calling me to remember the dignity of the human being. THe fact that the Church being attacked just reminds me why I am Christian.
Lastly, prepare to expand your attacks. If this has Legs after the Easter break expect other forces to come into play. There is the possibility that some major Evanglicals might speak out on this topic and have a view similar to the Catholic Church. THe boogymen of child abusing Priest and Liberation Theology will not be there. When the Church speaks out on a issue I disagree with it on , I try not to lash out against it. I try to first humble myself and ask if that is Christ speaking to me. Even if in the end I oppose a political stance of the Church, I try not to lash out at its ministers. Do I always succed? No. But thats an occasion of sin for me and I realize that. Furthermore, I thank God there is some with guts to go against the mainstream and realize that I in fact may be wrong. I think that can apply to the Protestant , the Catholic, the Orthodox, or ot the Jew
I am a Catholic and feel that if Church officials, no matter how exalted in the hierarchy, try to undermine our immigration laws, they will be violating the Word of God. "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's". Immigration law is definitely the within the purview of "Caesar", and the Church is obligated to accept that fact.
"Consequently he who rebels against the authority [established by God] is rebelling against what God has instituted , and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."
While I admire my Church for extending compassion to others, that does not give it license to undermine our immigration laws, and to teach its flock that violating the law is morally acceptable. Would that the Church would instead use its moral influence to end the conditions in Mexico which cause people to head north.
Shouldn't the church work within the originating countries to which many of the illegals have come?
Why is it necessary for 'sanctuary' here when all it does is place new burdens on churches and faith based orgs that are already caring for many of their own legal citizenry in their own locales?
There is a point at which doing the right thing , regardless of belief or no matter how well intentioned, can actually do more harm in the long run, imo.
Thanks for sharing your views, btw.
St.Paul wrote, "If they will not work, neither should they eat." But you never hear the welfare state Christians quoting that one.
good point
Thanks,
You raise an interesting point. I would say that there is sort of a misconception of how the Catholic Church operates that even many Catholics have. The Church has traditionally very much discouraged Bishops of one Country to get involved in the political affairs of other areas. Especially, outside a Bishop's country. This is for practical as well as Jurisdictional concerns. The Church in Mexico is in a certain precarious situation. It speaks out and does try to change things. However, its a slow process because the Church could be tormented by the Govt again if it moves too fast.
The Church as a whole ,on this whole immigration poilcy, recognizes that the State is not obligated to take in everybody. In fact it states that doing so could harm the common good and the State has responsibilties to regulate it.
Likewise, the Catholic Church views the State in the realistic terms. It realizes it can't solve all the problems of the world. I suppose the Church's biggest concerns is this. That the dignity of the human person and the family be protected. These family issue is where I expect the main problem to be. The Church and many of its members would probally view any policy that broke up so many family units in such a drastic way as deficient. Thats one reason I expect some Evanglicals to speak out. If someone ask a person like Billy or Franklin Graham , or James Dobson etc the right questions on this the answer might be interesting.
Its all a very complicated mess. I think in the end major border security and combinations of proposals is the only way out of this. I do know this, that the current situation is intolerable. Its intolerable because we have terrorist that might have God knows what just walking across the border. Its intolerable because social services and States are being overwhelmed. Its intolerable because there is a lot of workers here doing God knows what in horrible conditions. For instance, I have often wondered what the illegals in New Orleans are doing. I used to live and work there. There are certain areas where very nasty chemicals were unleashed. I suspect they have not been told and are getting cancer as we speak. I could go on and on.
Its all a very complicated mess.
Agreed. :)
They twist the Scriptures to their own destruction while they load the ballot box for the Vatican.
"Likewise, the Catholic Church views the State in the realistic terms. It realizes it can't solve all the problems of the world.'
That Church is only out to solve one problem: it isn't in absolute control of the world yet.
Simple solution. Deport the entire family and the anchor babies can come back as adults. Thus preserving "family unity".
You don't seem to want illegals to live with the consequences of THEIR OWN ACTIONS.
Aside from the laws being broken, the part that really irritates me is the hypocracy. These religious people say that we should have mercy and compassion on these immigrants from Mexico. At the same time Mexico has far far more draconian laws and treatment for peoples coming north into their country.
The only reason they are berating us and demanding that we change the laws here instead of Mexico, where a much greater proportion of illeval immigrants die or at least lose what little they have or go to jails that are in general worse then we can honestly imagine a jail being, is that we will probably let them whereas the Mexican government would crack down on them with far worse than rubber bullets.
Good point, what you are defining is sedition and I agree with your position.
LOL!! Ten American cardinals don't elect the Pope. It takes 81 cardinals to make a 2/3 majority, so the Pope is actually elected by cardinals from OTHER countries.
I'll bet you agree with the bishops when they're lecturing pro-choice politicians, don't you? But, on your pet issue, you want to excommunicate them.
There's a word for that.
You're certainly in the running for the "Dumbest Post of the Day" with this one.
Except that illegal aliens typically don't attend Mass or contribute to the collection plate.
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