Posted on 11/30/2008 2:53:51 AM PST by HollyButler
The new bishop of Arkansas has a strong message for Roman Catholics: Christmas is an immigrant’s story.
"Does Jesus find a warm welcome in our communities?" writes Bishop Anthony B. Taylor, a Fort Worth native, in a pastoral letter read last Sunday in parishes across Arkansas.
"What changes do we need to make here in Arkansas in order to ensure that today’s Marys and Josephs — today’s Marias and Joses — receive a warm welcome truly worthy of the Savior?"
Taylor, 54, was resting this weekend far from the ensuing political firestorm.
Here to see siblings in Fort Worth, he visited the city where his family founded Taylor Dressed Beef Co. and where he spent kindergarten in St. Andrew’s Catholic School.
"I’ve had a few negative letters," he said.
So I see in the Arkansas newspapers and on the Web, where activists from Americans for Legal Immigration are openly publishing Catholic-bashing comments accusing Arkansas church leaders as "pedifiles" and the church of "looking for more alter boys."
Priests across Arkansas will follow Taylor’s letter with sermons today, beginning a three-week series of Advent messages linking the Christmas story to civil rights and immigration.
(Excerpt) Read more at star-telegram.com ...
Mary and Joseph were legal immigrants. They did not steal from the public larder.
If they walk over the oceans to get here, I would let them stay.
Does Jesus find a warm welcome in our communities?” Did Jesus sneak across the border or pay a human smuggler thousands of dollars,buy fake or stolen documents,not pay taxes?
Actually, they weren’t. They had gone to town to register for the census, which was basically for the purpose of paying taxes.
I’m very much in favor of reviewing our immigration policies and establishing a better, more liberal policy specifically for Latin Americans, btw, but this bishop is making a stupid statement that is comparing apples to oranges. It’s idiotic people like him that make it hard to work on the actual problem.
Exactly......anyone should be able to have access to a chance to come here......but illegals have committed a crime by coming and staying.....and a sin.
We cannot house Mexico’s entire poor.....we will be overwhelmed.
ummm who said anything about illegals?
Nonsense. Joseph and Mary were complying with the law; illegal aliens are breaking it.
“What changes do we need to make here in Arkansas in order to ensure that today’s Marys and Josephs — today’s Marias and Joses”
...put a sock in it Bish! Go to the “Federation for American Immigration Reform” (FAIR) web site and read how your “flock” will be financially, ecologically and criminally raped and pillaged as a result of your pandering for money into your church. A$$HAT!
Was Joseph not born in Bethlehem? Isn’t that why they went up there, to register in the town of his birth? Or does he mean when they lived in Egypt? In any case, they were legal there as well because God told them to go there. Oh, maybe that’s it - maybe God has told all of the illegals to flock to the U.S. Got it.
And since they went there from someplace else in their own country...it's like Jose and Maria went to Guadalajara...from Tijuana.
(Hay-zoos!)
Immigrants? I thought they went to register to pay taxes? News to me.
I'm a Jerk!
They were travelers. I don’t think they intended to move in for good.
Where do they get these loons?
I saw a priest once say from the pulpit that our culture is not any better than anyone else’s. That they are all equal.
Actually, in the strict sense, Mary and Joseph were tourists (or maybe “migrant workers”). Immigrants plan to stay “in country”-—Mary and Joseph did not.
Nonsense.
Joesph and Mary were DIRECTED by the Government to travel, so as to be counted.
They were not immigrants in that they chose to move from their home to another place (legally or illegally
Just one more sopposed Christian trying to use the Bible to push Political Social Issues
28 At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year's produce and store it in your towns, 29 so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
The US State Department issues a statement :
Mary and Joseph have a lengthy family history connected with Zionism (going back to David) and in accord with their fanatical expectations they traveled to Bethlehem, where they expected a great miracle pertaining to the mission of Israel.
Clearly they should never have been allowed to cross the Green Line in a demonstration of their extremist views; and their right to reside, even temporarily, in the Occupied Territories runs contrary to every UN declaration on the subject, as well as official US State Dept. policy.
They are considered troublemakers and will not be allowed entry into the US, even for speaking engagements at churches (which are probably too busy with their homophobia to notice anyway.)
And, Seasons Greetings, for those of you who might be commemorating something or other at this time of year.
/Condi Rice
And next week, the bishop’s letter will tell his diocese how Joseph and Mary were homeless. Of course, he’ll be quoting Reverend Al Gore whose faith tradition taught him that and so much more.
LOL
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