Posted on 10/26/2010 8:34:04 AM PDT by fabrizio
"The Church recognizes this right in every human person, in its dual aspect of the possibility to leave one’s country and the possibility to enter another country to look for better conditions of life" (Message for World Day of Migration 2001, 3; cf. John XXIII, Encyclical Mater et Magistra, 30; Paul VI, Encyclical Octogesima adveniens, 17). At the same time, States have the right to regulate migration flows and to defend their own frontiers, always guaranteeing the respect due to the dignity of each and every human person. Immigrants, moreover, have the duty to integrate into the host Country, respecting its laws and its national identity. "The challenge is to combine the welcome due to every human being, especially when in need, with a reckoning of what is necessary for both the local inhabitants and the new arrivals to live a dignified and peaceful life" (World Day of Peace 2001, 13).
In this context, the presence of the Church, as the People of God journeying through history among all the other peoples, is a source of trust and hope. Indeed the Church is "in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race" (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, 1); and through the action within her of the Holy Spirit, "the effort to establish a universal brotherhood is not a hopeless one" (Idem, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes, 38). It is the Holy Eucharist in particular that constitutes, in the heart of the Church, an inexhaustible source of communion for the whole of humanity. It is thanks to this that the People of God includes "every nation, race, people, and tongue" (Rev 7:9)"
(Excerpt) Read more at vatican.va ...
Ping.
(Priest) Cites Church Stand Against Illegal Immigration
Agonizing in Arizona – A Pastoral Pondering on Immigration Policy
[Bill 1070] Makes Arizona An Instant Epithet
Immigration, Politics, and the Church (Ecumenic)
Bishop Slattery calls for secure borders, immigration reform [Tulsa, OK]
Bishop answers readers' tough questions about immigration
From Under the Rubble... [Bishops vs. La Migra]
Toning Down the Immigration Debate among Catholics (Lots of Interesting Comments)
Channel 2 [Atlanta] Investigates U.S. Border Security Part 1
Channel 2 [Atlanta] Investigates U.S. Border Security Part 2
Migration laws must respect national sovereignty and individual rights, Pope urges
Pope: "states have a right to regulate immigration flows and defend borders and identity"
When the next Pope comes along and contradicts the previous Pope who will be the grantor or dictator of your rights then
On matters of faith and morals, no Pope has ever contradicted a previous one in 2000 years, thanks to the Holy Spirit, because the Church is indefectible as per Our Lord's promise. On matters of prudential judgment, all popes have taught that we are free to disagree as long as faith and morals remain unprejudiced. See for instance what then Card. Ratzinger wrote to the US bishops in 2004:
Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.
what you fail to understand here is - among other things - that this post is directed to those leftist "Catholics" who call us "uncharitable" and "racist" when we say that the right to emigrate requires rules and respect for the identity of the country of adoption. It is false and hypocritical to say that to help the poor one has to abolish borders and law. In fact it is precisely lawlesness that multiplies poverty and exploitation. And when they cite unimportant or grossly misconstrued and out of context documents, we will have yet another teaching with which to counter their lies. Stop hating the Church and THINK before posting!!
>>The problem has never been Benedict.<<
Orly? You and I have not been on the same threads then.
Trust me, that isn’t enough for some people.
It’s certainly true that the pope is not a grantor or dictator of rights. He would not claim to be.
You seem assume that Catholicism sees human rights as originating in some human authority and not in the divine Creator. But the innate quality of human dignity, derived from our creation in the "imago Dei" and discernable even by human reason (Natural Law) has been well understood and defended in the Catholic community at least since the days of Aquinas.
Excuse me if I have misunderstood your point, but you seem to suppose that authority in the Catholic Church functions as a personal papal autocracy. This is mistaken and contrary to the doctrines of the Church as well as Natural Law.
(2)"The challenge is to combine the welcome due to every human being, especially when in need, with a reckoning of what is necessary for both the local inhabitants and the new arrivals to live a dignified and peaceful life"
As usual, the Roman Catholic Church is speaking with forked tongue, talking out of both sides of its mouth, trying to have it both ways.
The "challenge", meant to explain how to proceed on the first statement, makes no acceptance that the first statement implies ("the right to regulate migration flows and to defend their own frontiers") that quite possibly NO "welcome" is warranted or deserved. It denies the importance of the right to regulate immigration when it implies there are only two groups of persons for whom dignity is deserved - the "local inhabitants" and the "new arrivals". Nowhere in the challenge is the obligation of the "new arrivals" to NOT BE new arrivals in the first place.
The words on the Statue of Liberty are NOT:
"Give me your tired, your poor and hungry."
They are: "Give me your tired, your poor and hungry, YEARNING TO BE FREE".
The issue, the ideal expressed in those words is about LIBERTY, not material wealth and poverty, not earning more money here than you can where you come from.
As far as I know, the overwhelming majority who comprise the U.S. illegal immigrant population comes from south of our southern border and they have as much LIBERTY as we do; they are as free as we are to act, collectively, to change their society and culture for the better in their homeland. We have NO moral obligation to accept them, to "welcome" them, in some misguided notion that they have a right and we have an obligation to that "welcome".
Very well done.
OK, so in your world, the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution who spoke of inalienable rights were making themselves the grantors of such rights for the sole fact of authoring and signing those documents?Really? That's your rebuttal?
No one, not even the Pope, can grant inalienable rights. Sadly, nor has he ever tried to guarantee them.
Unlike the Pope, they didn't just speak of your rights, their signature makes the government (not the signers) the guarantor (not the grantor) of your god given inalienable rights ...Get it?
First of all, the Catholic Church does not speak with a forked tongue, and as usual you didn't activate what's left of your neurons before offending us this way. Are you against LEGAL and justly regulated immigration? Secondly, where is the contradiction?
A) Do you even understand that this is a message for the WORLD Day of migrants and not for the border states, so the perspective is a bit different? The Pope is not speaking about the US specifically, but of the whole world, and the Church has often blasted the impotence and the hypocrisy of international institutions and of other nations in the face of humanitarian crises, and praised the US instead in this regard.
B) because you have a right to regulate immigration doesn't mean that you need to treat immigrants like animals no? But that's what happens in many hellholes of the world, my hysterical anti-catholic friend.
C) it is precisely this kind of nonsense that gives ammo to the dhimmicrats and their drones to accuse us of racism and intolerance, while there has never been a country more welcoming of LEGAL and well-disposed immigrants than the US of A.
There are a bunch of good people out there who would make wonderful US citizens if only someone had the guts to secure the damn border and treat all smugglers to a big tall tree and a short piece of rope. What do we have instead? Legal immigration is a costly bureaucratic nightmare that punishes honest, talented and pro-US foreigners who want to immigrate the right way, the border is a joke, the left thrives on this situation and what you recommend is that the US just say no to all immigration. And I bet that in your anti-Catholic bigotry you think you're being patriotic and smart! Don't know about your tongue, but your logic sure is forked as hell!
Ping!
Exactly, unless you're God. That's what the Church has been teaching since long before you came to lower the average IQ. Neither I nor the Pope said anything different: you made the unwarranted accusation, or maybe that's just all you could understand of what the Pope said. In this case you would be less culpable, perhaps, but wrong nonetheless
Unlike the Pope, they didn't just speak of your rights, their signature makes the government (not the signers) the guarantor (not the grantor) of your god given inalienable rights ...Get it?
Precisely like the Pope, they spoke of God as the ultimate source of legitimacy of the law, as rendered self-evident by the existence of a NATURAL LAW which is binding on everybody that they are believers or not. And, you are the one who used the term "grantor", not "guarantor". I was addressing the term "grantor" which you used. Methinks you are a bit confused.
“what you recommend is that the US just say no to all immigration.”
(1) Quite the contrary. I think legal immigration should be expanded, particularly in job categories that would help keep domestic employers from looking abroad to establish foreign offices just for the talent available there.
(2) However, I also believe that expanded immigration for “immigrants we need” is a NATIONAL moral imperative over generation after repeated generation of preferences for “family members” that at present TRUMP most other immigration preferences.
(3) I think ANY form of general amnesty for ILLEGAL immigration is a huge MORAL insult to EVERY LEGAL immigrant. It spits on them, it says they were idiots and fools to even bother to go through legal immigration, and if amnesty does come you can guarantee that is exactly what they will tell their relatives who have not immigrated here - “don’t be idiots like we were, just get our numbers up and all the silly moralists will demand that all be forgiven”.
The “challenge” offered in the Vatican statement does not even accept that it can be MORAL to deny “welcome” to ILLEGAL immigrants. Its own phrasing in the “challenge” puts all immigrants (legal AND illegal) in the category of “new arrivals” which as much as accepts that once they have become “new arrivals” we are obliged to give them a place instead of sending them home. If anyone actually cares about their own families and communities there is nothing moral in that blanket acceptance.
The Vatican takes back in the “challenge” what it pretends to respect in the fig-leaf recognition of the legal right to control immigration. It DOES speak with forked-tongue. It as much as says: “well yes there are legal rights to control immigration, but regardless of those rights, ALL “new arrivals” deserve the same welcome. No, ALL do not, and yes they are trying to be mugwumps - their mug on one side of the fence and their wumps on the other.
The Vatican’s only “challenge” in its statement is one issued to those on the receiving end of “immigration” - legal or illegal (they make no identifying connection, in the “challenge” that they are different). If that were not the case, then the “challenge” would also include the moral “challenge” for the ILLEGAL immigrant to NOT think he has some inherent right to cross borders at will. It does not. It ignores it.
Some Bishops are not so good on immigration, but all are strongly against abortion, which is the principal reason they reject Obamacare.
“Now we have a reference.”
Bump!
STATES! That includes ARIZONA!!! LOL.
“Some Bishops are not so good on immigration, but all are strongly against abortion, which is the principal reason they reject Obamacare.”
I hear the teaching, and I see - for decades now - sincere Catholics literally on the front lines of the pro-life movement and providing the bulk of its support. But then I see moral and doctrinal monstrosities like Pelosi, Kennedy et al. provide the necessary support for abortion mills to operate at full efficiency, while proclaiming their loyalty to Catholicism. They are not censured, they are communicant. This is what I don’t understand.
Again, an outsider’s perspective, but it does puzzle me and has for a very long time.
I hear you. Some Bishops would refuse Communion, and some would not.
Here’s an example of a now Vatican Archbishop who would refuse to give Communion to pro-abortion politicians, and he says all Bishops should do the same:
“Vatican’s Archbishop Burke, No Communion for Catholic Politicians who Support Abortion
snip
“The Church’s law is very clear,” said Archbishop Burke, who was appointed last year by Pope Benedict XVI as the head of the Church’s highest court, the Apostolic Signatura. “The person who persists publicly in grave sin is to be denied Holy Communion, and it [Canon Law] doesn’t say that the bishop shall decide this. It’s an absolute.”
Among the US bishops directly to address the issue, Archbishop Burke was one of around a dozen who vigorously supported a directive of the Vatican that said pro-abortion Catholic politicians “must be refused” Holy Communion if they attempt to receive at Mass. Others have refused to abide by the Vatican instruction and the Church’s own Code of Canon Law, saying they would rather focus on “education” of such politicians.
http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=31984
It looks like some Bishops are ignoring the Vatican about giving Communion to pro-abort politicians, but I am convinced even those Bishops are against abortion.
From the link you provided:
“Archbishop Burke called “nonsense” the accusation, regularly made by some bishops, that refusing Holy Communion “makes the Communion rail a [political] battle ground”. In fact, he said, the precise opposite is true. The politician who insists on being seen receiving Holy Communion, despite his opposition to the Church’s central teachings, is using that reception for political leverage.”
I like that Archbishop Burke!
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