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Yes, “the widow, the orphan and the stranger” are the objects of God’s special concern, as we are taught by the Prophets, and by Our Lord. They and their modern-day equivalents --- husbandless mother, the unborn child, and the vulnerable immigrant --- have a strong claim on our solidarity.

The obligation to respond decently to needy people does not, however, wipe out the obligation to do in a way that doesn't destroy other elements of the Common Good. In fact, justice to these groups must take place in the larger context of justice to all, as far as our prudence can work that out. And that's where the problems arise.

The controversy about the status of those who enter this country unlawfully is difficult in part because many of these millions are simultaneously accessories to, as well as victims of, injustice.

Check out the testimony of Dr. Carol Swain, a Vanderbilt University professor of law and political science, who spoke to the House panel on immigration last September. (Good Link Here.) She made a convincing case that it is the steady flow of cheap migrant labor which destroys job opportunities and depresses wages for poor blacks and other American minorities.

It's very well to say, as some do, that Latino new-arrivals may be a better category of workers than our own home-grown welfare class. It's legitimate, though, to ask whether successive waves of low-wage foreign workers have played a role in keeping our own "welfare class" socially demoralized and unemployable.

The degradation of the wages of those who are already the poorest-paid workers in America, and the disappearance of jobs for unskilled youth, is having a catastrophic impact on our "permanent underclass." This is a legitimate argument against the acceptance of massive numbers of newcomers, no matter where they come from. It stems from concern for a vast group of sufferers whose interests are rarely considered: the millions --- particularly young, unskilled, minority males --- who are substantially, and in some cases for a lifetime, robbed of any prospect of gainful employment because they have been displaced by a vast influx of exploited foreign nationals.

That’s why I must ask well-intending Christians to resist reducing this controversy to racism or xenophobia on the part of those who strongly oppose illegal immigration. It's a mistake to assume that present immigration controversy is attributable to unreasonable fears and resentments.

Many Christian groups --- not only Catholic Bishops, but Evangelicals, and Baptists, and Hispanic Protestant Church groups, among others --- check these Links! ---have been big, prominment supporters of "immigration reform"; but let's notice that they're making the same rhetorical error here that many of them made in the "health reform" debate: namely, they're giving a sonorous "Oremus" to the label of "immigration reform", while allowing the content to be substantially defined by President Obama and his legislative allies.

If the so-called "reform" is injurious to the Common Good, no amount of "Oremus" is going to make it "compassionate," "generous" or "just".

My own specific critique will have to wait til later. What I'm doing here, is defending our right as a matter of justice and charity to disagree with our clergy's ill-considered political positions. Charity and justice are always the Church's concern; but public policy is the sphere of lay responsibility in which clergy have neither special competence nor direct ecclesial authority.

She made a convincing case that it is the steady flow of cheap migrant labor which destroys job opportunities and depresses wages for poor blacks and other American minorities.

There is also the principle of subsidiarity. We are supposed to care for poor Americans before caring for the poor-from-everywhere-else-who-want-to-come-to-America. Giving advantages to those who sneaked in illegally is not only failing to help American citizens, it is actively harming American citizens by aiding those who have no legitimate claim on the U.S. at all (aside from the fact that the federal government is not supposed to be handing out money like this anyway). People feel sorry for poor Guatemalans? Let them send a check from their own bank accounts to poor Guatemalans or to social service or missionary organizations in Guatemala who are working to help poor Guatemalans. This, eliminating union-supported minimum wage laws and union-supported restrictions on "child" labor would go a long, long way to providing Americans with an entry into the job market.

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.

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.

it is the steady flow of cheap migrant labor which destroys job opportunities and depresses wages for poor blacks and other American minorities...

It's legitimate, though, to ask whether successive waves of low-wage foreign workers have played a role in keeping our own "welfare class" socially demoralized and unemployable...

The degradation of the wages of those who are already the poorest-paid workers in America, and the disappearance of jobs for unskilled youth, is having a catastrophic impact on our "permanent underclass."

Throw minimum-wage and minimum-age laws on that pile and you've indeed got the makings for a "permanent underclass" - which serves well the perverse desires of both (A) those doling out the welfare charity and (B) those in the working class who want to feel they're at least above SOMEBODY on the social scale.

The (B) situation isn't so much different from the poor whites in antebellum America who opposed abolition because, well, at least they weren't on the bottom rung of society so long as there were slaves below them. And those in the middle rungs need the cheap labor which slavery provided then and illegal immigration provides now, in order to make their own earnings purchase more. Not to mention the necessity of importing cheap labor to fund our nation's old-age-care promises. So there are several groups which need/want/approve the exploiting of illegal immigration AND the welfare class.

Aside from creating a permanent underclass, this welfare culture wreaks untold destruction on the lives of its victims. I can't speak much for women; but as a man, created for work, I'd much rather have snuck across the border and be working hard for $2 an hour than a baby-daddy sitting in the projects watching TV and living off my girlfriend's welfare check.

Welfare destroys men. And if you want to destroy an entire class/race/nation of people, destroying its men is a darn good start.

It’s all too common for unclueful organizations to say they are for “this” or “that” reform without realizing the wide range of meanings the term could take on or who is vying to control the popular perception of it.

“Social justice” as a term gets my goat too. Automatically I ask “OK, what is the ‘social law’ this ‘justice’ is supposed to be based upon? Otherwise this term is meaningless babble.” That law was clear enough in the context of the bible’s Old Testament. The Christian New Testament doesn’t address itself to secular social issues, seeming to prefer specific ministry of Christians to the needy in a pure Christian context. (True religion [literally, ‘godliness’] is to visit widows and orphans in their distress, and to keep one’s self unspotted from the world.)

There are at least 50 million Americans who are better qualified than all 300 Catholic bishops put together to pronounce on 99% of the stuff that the USCCB spend their time pronouncing on. You are one of those. (Except I would number you among the 100 most-qualified.)

Every horror contained in Obamacare should be blamed on the bishops, who have campaigned for national socialist health care for a CENTURY. They have not stopped preening and posturing about their pro-life creds--ever since they flip-flopped on Obamacare DAYS before the vote.

Everything I have said above applies to "the bishops'" treasonous effluvia about immigration "reform," right down their slavish use of Democrat terminology and talking points in all things.

public policy is the sphere of lay responsibility in which clergy have neither special competence nor direct ~~ecclesial~~ ecclesiastic authority.

I disagree. Since God's perspective is the only perspective that matters, and since the clergy specialize in trying to understand God's perspective on all matters public and private, I believe it is a duty of the clergy to assert the influence of the Bible everywhere in creation.

Matthew 16:19
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

If a member of the clergy violates a law that clergyman is subject to the lawmaker/enforcer. If a lawmaker/enforcer creates or enforces a law that violates God's law, the clergyman should boldly condemn both the sinner and the sin.

For example, I would call upon my Pastor and Elders to excommunicate anyone known to promote abortion.

Leviticus 25:35
And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee.
36 Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee.