Welcome the Stranger (Why Mass, Unskilled Immigration is Not Social Justice)

One thing we Catholics have known since almost the beginning: Most statements in the Bible can be misread, misapplied, and torn out of context to serve as the pretext for hysterical balderdash. Martin Luther famously used his private reading of St. Paul's Letter to the Romans to invent a whole new theology of salvation, personalized to soothe his aching scruples. Before that, poor Origen, the first great theologian of the Church, applied "If your hand causes you to sin, then cut it off" (Mk 9:43) to his problems with chastity… bless his heart! Today some of our bishops are telling us to do the very same thing to our country.

The subject is mass, unskilled immigration, and the phrase its enablers like to use (they titled one of their interminable, inevitable USCCB documents after it) is "Welcome the stranger" (paraphrasing Matthew 25:31-46). As someone who has actually studied the empirical effects that two million or so mostly uneducated immigrants are having on poor and working-class Americans, I am constantly confronted with this scrap torn from the New Testament, which earnest, otherwise orthodox Catholics wave around like snake-handlers justifying their latest romp in the piney woods with an ice cooler full of copperheads.

Marshal a series of rational arguments that demonstrate that our current immigration policy (designed by that great Catholic thinker Edward Kennedy) is a sin against prudence, and out will come the proof-text. Show that Catholic nations have for centuries, with the acquiescence or encouragement of the Church, restricted the influx of aliens in accord with the common good of their societies (St. Augustine, for instance, wanted the barbarians kept out of the Roman empire), and slurp – somebody whips it out again. Point out the fact that one of our once-richest states, California, has essentially been bankrupted by the tidal wave of undereducated non-English speakers – and whoop, there's that hoary paraphrase. I've gotten so sick of this Bible abuse that I've lost every scrap of patience. Instead of engaging such proof-texts, I counter with my own. "'You shall not suffer a witch to live' (Ex 22:18). That's in the Bible, too. Come on, let's pass a law!"

But the goal of argument by Bible scrap isn't rational discourse. People who wield autistic scripture snippets aren't trying to further the conversation; they want to end it. Whatever rational processes were going on in your mind are supposed to screech to a halt the moment they chant the mantra, as you blush and admit that the "call of the Gospel" is meant to "bring us to a place beyond narrow calculations" of the common good, justice, patriotism, or prudence. Instead of using the brains God gave us, you're meant to swoon, feel guilty for thinking in the first place, and secrete a miasma of vaguely generous sentiments – which reward you by making you feel really good about yourself. Aren't you being charitable… not like those nasty, hateful fill-in-the-blanks: "rednecks," "bigots," "Arizona voters." I call this phenomenon the "pink cloud," and it's the main pollutant emitted by the Amazing Catholic B.S. Generator.

Let me huff and puff once more in the hopes of dissolving this smog. A majority of Americans, as every survey taken on the subject indicates, believe that it simply isn't prudent to admit millions more unskilled workers into a country that has outsourced its factories to Asia, mechanized its farms, and otherwise dried up opportunities for unskilled native workers to earn what the Church calls a living wage. The evidence bears this out: Adjusted for inflation, wages for working-class Americans of every race have stayed flat for more than 30 years – while Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the entertainment industry have multiplied salaries for even their mid-level workers. The law of supply and demand says that when you flood the market with something, the price goes down. We flooded the market, and the price went down – and American workers are suffering.

At the same time, our taxes and deficits are rising, as communities struggle to care for uninsured hospital patients, to expand or maintain their infrastructure to accommodate rising populations, and to offer bilingual education in up to 15 languages (as in Los Angeles). As Harvard economist George Borjas documents, the only social class gaining from mass, unskilled immigration is… the investor class. That is, the people who make their livings by clipping stock coupons. The upper-middle class is not much affected (they can move to gated communities with private schools), while the middle class and the working poor are suffering. It's that simple. (If you want the long form with all the links to exhaustively support these claims, check out my two previous detailed articles on this topic.)

The case is proved. Nobody argues that a mass influx of cheap labor is helping America's poor, making our society more cohesive, or in any other substantive way benefiting America. Open-borders types are typically reduced at this point in the argument to pointing out how much they enjoy eating out at ethnic restaurants and paying somebody $2 an hour to mow their lawns.

Since they have no rational case, proponents of de facto open borders, such as Roger Cardinal Mahony, Archbishop Jose Gomez, and Archbishop Charles Chaput are reduced to Bible abuse. They chant, "Welcome the stranger" as if this were one of the Ten Commandments – not that even those can be rightly read out of context… unless you agree with the Iconoclasts, and want to rip all the images out of our churches.

So let me challenge theologians on their home turf. What would it mean to take this biblical mandate seriously? Instead of conducting an elaborate thought experiment, let me turn to the riches of Church history to show how it really has worked. I've written before of the dangers involved in trying to pervert the evangelical counsels (poverty, chastity, and obedience) into universal commands – and the toxic side-effects of using the rhetoric of the theological virtues to violate the natural ones.

But there is one group in the Church that has made its business living out the evangelical counsels to the letter and pursuing the theological virtues rigorously: monastic communities. Indeed, the Church holds up religious as the very people called by God to witness to the next life through their embrace of the "hardest sayings" that came from the mouth of Our Lord. The first major monastic order in the West, which preserved Western culture through the Dark Ages, was the Order of St. Benedict. Conveniently for this case, the Benedictines did more than simply embrace poverty, chastity, and obedience. They also took literally the very mandate we're considering here: "Welcome the stranger." Across the world, the Benedictines are famous for offering hospitality to visitors – who, to this day, can drop in unannounced at Benedictine communities and receive a warm bed and hot meals, no questions asked.

You know what the Benedictines don't do? They don't let large groups of strangers move in permanently, flout the rules of the community, claim the status of monks, and help elect a new abbot. Had that been part of Benedictine hospitality, the Vikings wouldn't have needed to batter down the walls of places like Lindisfarne in order to steal all the sacred vessels. They could have simply turned up, moved in, eaten the monks' food and drunk their wine, and waited till they had the numbers to vote in Bjorgolf as abbot. Sure, he might change all the monastery's rules, loot its treasury, and divide its land among his warriors…

But that's the price of "welcoming the stranger" in the style that's being demanded of us today. In a mass democracy where new citizens can vote to raise our taxes, confiscate our property, subject us to discrimination through affirmative action, force us to adopt bilingual laws, and otherwise remake our life as a community, mass immigration threatens to transform America against the wishes of its citizens. And foreign governments are complicit in the process – as Mexico purposely shoves across our borders the citizens with whom it doesn't wish to share the wealth. It's as if a mischievous fraternity had decided to flood a Benedictine abbey with its pledges, until they could vote in one of their members as the abbot, and turn the monastery into a really awesome gothic tequila bar.

Convents have historically proved even more reluctant to offer unconditional and permanent welcome to strangers. Especially males. When a band of helmeted, undocumented Scandinavian migrants in search of hospitality arrived at the women's abbey of Coldingham, England, in 879 – and announced their proposed changes to the community's rule of chastity – the abbess Ebbe gathered the nuns and told them about this proposal. Then she sliced off her nose in the hope that it would deter the Vikings from raping her. All the other nuns did the same, and Ebbe led them through the gate to confront the ruddy warband. Appalled, the Vikings didn't rape the nuns but sent them swiftly, en masse, to heaven. She is now known as "St. Ebbe."

So when people tell me that Arizona voters have cut off their nose to spite their face, it reminds me of good St. Ebbe. Let's invoke her intercession for the citizens of that state under siege. Viva Arizona! Sancta Ebbe, ora pro nobis.

John Zmirak is author, most recently, of the graphic novel The Grand Inquisitor and is Writer-in-Residence at Thomas More College in New Hampshire. He writes weekly for InsideCatholic.com.

I resent the Catholic higher ups thinking they have a divine right to flood America with Catholics. No church or religion has this right. Protestants, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims don’t have the right to flood this country with their co-religionists

But the Catholic church is the worst and the obvious results from Mexico etc are all around us.

This country was founded by Protestants, has a Protestant English legal system and Federal government and has the Protestant work ethic. But Protestant immigrants are the most discriminated against ever since the 1965 Immigration Act. While it is open borders for Catholic third worlders and we go out of our way to import 70,000 Muslim refugees each year from pits such as Somalia

The discussion of this ‘illegal’ invasion should first be directed to the powers that be of whatever religious persuasion. While much can be pointed to and directed to the Catholic religion the objective to ‘destroy’ US is certainly NOT limited to this particular denomination.

Any civil society is formed and maintained by four distinct pillars or institutions. They are the political, economic, education, and certainly not least the religious. It has been the political that has sent by unoffical invitation a mass welcome to peoples around this globe to come.

There will come an accounting of the leaders of these intuitions regardless of how much is claimed they act out of compassion. There is blood on the hands of these that promote lawlessness on both sides of the border. I find it more than a little disgusting to have the holier than thous promoting human beings as chattel to service the political for votes and striping the middle class clean bare telling US to be compassionate while the religious tax plate is held over our labor and properties.

I’ll believe welcome the stranger when, the Catholic Church opens their schools offering free tuition to the stranger, when the Catholic Church refuses gov money and offers to pay at their hospitals, all medical services to welcome the stranger without it being a burden on taxpayers.The Catholic Church, is for all this as long as someone is paying for it all and they reap the benefits of filling the pews, to further justify their cause of welcome the stranger. Does welcome the stranger apply in Mexico when others come south must pass through, Mexico, to reach the border, there is not many welcome the stranger, rest stops along the way.

The younger Latino class coming over the border is no more capable of hard or skilled work than our own lazy, young people.

When I can help people, I try to, not because I am a good guy, but because my Lord Jesus has done the same for me. ...My meager charity has nothing to do with the responsibilities of our government, as designated by God. The divisions of nations are for the prosperity and security of the citizenry, and leaders of nations that can’t accept those responsibilities should get into another line of work. I have no problem feeding and clothing illegals who ask me for help, but I expect my government to enforce the laws that are meant to safeguard this nation. It’s not complicated.

This is such an excellent article.

It is too bad that the author found it necessary to bash sane, normal protestants in the very first paragraph. It probably will prevent it being read by many sane, normal protestants.

Bashing snake-handlers, yes.

Bashing the very people who will sanely and rationally side with you in rejecting unrestricted illegal immigration....dumb.

This is just a bunch of gobblety goop to confuse people. If a person, even an illegal, came to me with needs, I'm bound as a Christian to try to help them. If they are hungry feed them, if they need clothing, help them.

If they are illegal, call ICE! I have no responsibility to help them break the law! Believing Christ condones law breaking is heresy. The only law Christ says to break is when man's law contradicts God's Law.

Roman citizens had rights under their system and could demand certain things from the government. A non Roman had no such rights. Christ commanded his followers treat people with compassion, but to condone law breaking wasn't one of them. It's the same argument about the Death Sentence. The 6th Commandment says we shouldn't shed innocent blood. Another way to interpret it would be "Thou shalt not murder". To say "Thou shalt not kill" is a little misleading in translation. Some have even taken this to mean we can't kill for food or step on a spider. We surely have the right of self defense and protection of family and country. To allow yourself and family to be slaughtered because you think God would frown upon self defense is sick.

If a person, any person needs food, why would I deny it just because they are illegal? OTOH, I would be ignoring the law to ignore their legal status. The Apostles had to abide by the law in their time and their are verses to cover that aspect of Christian life. It is also made perfectly clear that we are to follow God's law over man's law if they contradict. I can't find where God forbade nations having borders.

I myself am not Hebrew-litrerate, but as I understand from people who know Hebrew the Hebrew word usually translated "widow" is actually almana, which is semantically associated with "desolate" or "emoty house," and orphan is yatom, which means "without man" or "without a father."

My point her eis that Biblical Hebrew is apparently not as specific in meaning as the English words use to translate. A woman who is almana is a woman in an empty house, lacking male suport (whether she had a husband who died, or for whatever unspecified reason); and a yatom is a child without a father, whether he died or is merely absent is unspecified.

My point is NOT to say that foolish willful choices have to be subsidized; butthe compassion urged for the poor goes bneyond strict contractual justice. It is an applicationof mercy, not a rndering of just deserts.

I don't think the bishops believe or assert that they have a divine right to flood America with Catholics. However I agree with you that their immigration stance is irresponsible, and their rash judgment against the rest of us --- implying that we're racistrs and greedy --- is particularly galling.

Hence the need to push back.

I too, can't understand why Catholics find it necessary to bash other believers when we need to stand together. We seem to forget the problems in our own church and point to splinters in others eyes. I've had this conversation so many times I should just copy and paste from other posts, but a majority of Catholics voted for Obama and then try to claim innocence by saying they aren't “real” Catholics. Prots have snake charmers, for sure, but most are fine people that follow Christ, but just disagree with the teachings of the Catholic church. There are more and more “Catholics” that disagree with the Catholic church, but the minute someone says something the army of posters come out with “CATHOLIC BASHER”@!!! If a Prot gets busted for gayness or something, they seem to forget the Catholic problems as they bash a Prot. Divide and conquer is a great tactic for Satan to split Christ's people. Then we wonder why the culture is being destroyed. Catholic or Protestant CANNOT claim Christ and vote for abortion or homosexual marriage. Splitting Christians just means we all lose.

It seems to be to tough for some to make their point without tearing down someone else.

When my brother and I were children, we got free tuition at a Catholic school because we were low income: that's actually not unusual at all. And Catholic primary and secondary schools are not subsidized by the state.

However, it is quote otherwise with "Catholic" colleges and universities, and the "Catholic" healthcare systems, now quite effectively spun out of the control of Bishops or any other ecclesiastic authority, and deeply entwined with public funding and subsidies at all levels.

The grim truth is that very soon, I fear, these institutions will sever their last threads with the Church and become 100% assimilated into the Borg.

I've got to agree with you about the throwaway remark concerning Martin Luther, which does limit the article's acceptability right from the top. Your objection is reasonable, and well worth discussing further --- but I hope not on this thread, since it's far from Zmirak's principle theme, which is the misuse of Scripture to justify illegal immigration.

In fact, I thought of editing Zmirak's article to eliminate the itchier distractions, but decided that it would be too big an alteration of Dr. Z's characteristic style. I judged that most people would focus in on his main topic. I hope I have not judged rashly.

Anyway, thanks for the comment.

It is such a good article. It’s one that we FR protestants will easily and wholeheartedly agree with.

I’m glad you posted it.

I should get Dr Z’s email and drop him a note about shooting himself in the foot. :>)

Blessings, Dear Sister in Christ.

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