Posted on 06/30/2007 8:27:21 AM PDT by hardback
WASHINGTON, June 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The U.S. bishops decried failure of immigration reform and its implicit exploitation of millions of people.
The position was voiced by Bishop Gerald R. Barnes of San Bernardino, California, chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration.
"As a nation, we cannot continue to employ an immigration system that leads to the exploitation of millions of our fellow human beings," bishop Barnes said.
"We cannot accept the toil of a large underclass which does not have full rights in our society. This strikes at the very character of our nation and lessens us as a people."
Bishop Barnes called on "Congress not to abandon this issue and to return to it as soon as possible." "The status quo is morally unacceptable and should not be allowed to stand," he said. "The U.S. bishops shall continue to point out the moral deficiencies in the immigration system and work toward justice until it is achieved."
The June 29 statement follows. On behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), I am deeply troubled that fair and comprehensive immigration reform legislation has failed to move forward in the U.S. Senate.
I applaud those U.S. Senators of both parties who showed courage in working for comprehensive reform legislation and encourage them to continue their efforts to fix our broken immigration system.
As a nation, we cannot continue to employ an immigration system that leads to the exploitation of millions of our fellow human beings. We cannot accept the toil of a large underclass which does not have full rights in our society. This strikes at the very character of our nation and lessens us as a people.
I urge our elected officials in Congress not to abandon this issue and to return to it as soon as possible. The status quo is morally unacceptable and should not be allowed to stand. The U.S. bishops shall continue to point out the moral deficiencies in the immigration system and work toward justice until it is achieved.
SOURCE U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
If the American people really wanted to solve this problem would not deal with companies the knowingly hire illegals. This would take an effort on are part, more than many people yelling for a fence are willing to do. It would cost us both money and time. One of the few jobs really assigned to the Federal Government by the Constitution is to protect the boarder. Yes, the goverment needs to do their job, but if we really belive in a limited federal goverment WE need to do our part of the job too.
Thanks for that info! Here in Oklahoma the Mormon Church in my area is doing an outreach into the illegal community which I thought was odd.
Most of the Catholics here that I know do not support the illegals, but then they go to the new Church across town not the older church that has a Mass in Spanish.
Well .. they should be on their knees begging God to have mercy on them for supporting people who commit crimes against America.
Have we heard from the Catholic Bishops who are for rule of law and against an illegal invasion and lawlessness?
The USCCB, known in some Catholic circles as the United States Country Club of Bishops, might indeed do better to decry the failure of the Mexican government to take care of its own people and stop misleading American Catholics. The bishops are not even in line with the Catechism. It states that honoring one’s country and it’s laws must be adhered to as falling under the 4th Commandment.
It was immigration Deform that failed. Good.
HUH?
The willingness of the illegal worker to invade the country and break the law in order to falsely obtain legal work here is what placed them in a situation that made their "exploitation" possible. Not the American people. They were not dragged across the border kicking and screaming and demanding to be allowed to go home. In fact, 60% had jobs back home.
"We cannot accept the toil of a large underclass which does not have full rights in our society. This strikes at the very character of our nation and lessens us as a people."
We don't accept it. It's illegal and the illegal worker and the employer who abets their illegal toil need to be held responsible for it. The illegal worker needs to go back and get in the legal immigration line, and the employer who knew they were illegal needs to go to jail. Those who created this "system", the illegal worker and the unscrupulous employer, need to be held to account; morally and legally.
"The status quo is morally unacceptable and should not be allowed to stand," he said. "The U.S. bishops shall continue to point out the moral deficiencies in the immigration system and work toward justice until it is achieved."
The status quo - that America's southern border is treated with disdain - is morally unacceptable. And we will continue to hold the Catholic Bishops accountable for their moral hypocrisy in not owning up to and advocating against the cause of most of the illegal immigration - the moral, economic and political corruption of the political class of Mexico, which prefers to export their economic problems instead of solving them. Where are the American Catholic-Bishop hypocrites on this? They are no where to be found.
I urge all American Catholics of good conscience to hold the American Catholic Bishops to account, privately and publicly, for their abject moral hypocrisy on so-called "immigration"; which is not immigration, because if it were then the people the Bishops were speaking of would be here legally and there would be no issue.
Interesting the things these "bishops" choose to immediately condemn and point our "moral deficiencies," isn't it.
Condemn themselves for tolerating sexual perversion and molesting of Catholic boys, nah, need to "pray for sinners" and hide under the rug; condemn Americans for not desiring millions of illegals to use all of our natural resources and billions of our tax dollars, NOW THAT'S REAL MORAL DEFICIENCY!
The overwhelming majority of illegal aliens don't go to Mass and those that do rarely contribute to the collection.
Must be something in the AmChurch bylaws that says only anti-American idiots can become bishops.
Based on what they've said, I seriously doubt that the alleged happiness you describe is absolute.
Baptists announce national immigration effort
Texas Baptists to launch immigration services
a weakly standard bearer?????
So you are contending that the Bishops think they do. And I'm asking if you have any basis for that contention.
I know a lot of protestant clergy who charge for special services, like say marriages and funerals. I don't think it's at all right to expect a fee for Baptisms, but fees for what you might call "individual services" are not a phenomenon confined to Catholics. I think it's far more a Mexican thing.
If you read my post to which you replied you will have noticed that I was writing about Catholics, including clergy, providing services to migrant workers (it wasn't a situation where we were concerned with who was legal and who wasn't) at no charge. So are you saying that we were NOT representative of Catholicism, that we were unusually charitable -- for Catholics that is?
Whom do you know under the age of 75 who's afraid of contradicting the clergy?
The Bishops are politically and spiritually wrong. But, that is not the importance of this stance. The old FDR coalition which had Roman Catholics in its hip pocket was broken by Reagan. This is an attempt to get it back in the Dem pocket once again. Not only Hispanic Catholics but those MidWest and Eastern Catholics who voted Pub for a few times. This is a ‘guilt’ ploy and my guess is, it will work. I see lots of Catholics deserting the Pubs in ‘08 and that will keep the Congress safe for Dems. The Pubs will not try to counter this because as The Stupid Party, they will just give up. They should not. They could gain some Catholic votes and ethnic votes but they won’t.
I was at the Vatican in April.
I wish our borders had one tenth the security the Vatican has.
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