....Russell is honest about the motivation behind these efforts, noting that the Catholic Bishops and their agencies, some which get government money to provide services to illegal aliens, "benefit from immigration by increasing the number of Catholics in the United States."
He goes on, "When Catholic immigrants become naturalized, they may vote for candidates who support church policies." What's more, he writes, "The network of Catholic agencies relies on high rates of immigrants in need of social services to maintain government funding."
Many Americans don't realize that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), which receives a federal tax exemption as a non-profit entity, gets one-third of its annual $146 million budget from the government....
Bump for reference.
Ummm ... NOT. The Holy See has already begun the process of easing him out. He's more typical of "Catholic Church leaders the LA Times likes".
When bishops start talking about specific policies instead of general principles of justice and charity, they often overstep their bounds.
"Treat the alien and soujourner with kindness" is straight out of the Bible. "Let as many aliens and sojourners come as want to, and give them loads of free social services paid for by the law-abiding" is not.
What they will not address is the fact the Church is systematically advocating, encouraging and facilitating illegal immigration into the US.
SYSTEMATICALLY.
Mexico is a Marxist state that has persecuted the Church bitterly for about a century. Mexicans know little formal religion, and if I recall correctly, Mexican immigrants have a remarkably high proportion of leaving the Church.
Motive is the same as all the other leftists: bring like-thinking illegals in to dilute and undermine the “devil” right wing America.
You are absolutely right about this and, in fact, I think those who you will least surprise with this article are the Catholic FReepers (who have said this about the USCCB for years).
I, for one, am incredibly pissed by the behavior of our bishops who are teaching something that does not come close to lining up with the actual teachings of the Church.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:
2241 The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.
Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical condition, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.
The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, paragraph 298, says:
Regulating immigration according to criteria of equity and balance is one of the indispensable conditions for ensuring that immigrants are integrated into society with the guarantees required by recognition of their human dignity.
Pope John Paul II, in his message for World Migration Day, 1996, acknowledged the problems of illegal immigration. In this message he said:
Today the phenomenon of illegal migrants has assumed considerable proportions, both because the supply of foreign labour is becoming excessive in comparison to the needs of the economy, which already has difficulty in absorbing its domestic workers, and because of the spread of forced migration.
He also discussed the topic in his Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Europa, saying: Public authorities have the responsibility of controlling waves of migration with a view to the requirements of the common good.
Our current Holy Father said, in Caritas in Veritate, No country can be expected to address today's problems of migration by itself.
Despite this clear teaching of the Universal Magesterium, the bishops in the US seem unable to comprehend the concept that there is a difference between legal immigrants and illegal aliens. While their attitude, if it were restricted to legal migrants, guest workers, and legitimate refugees, would be perfectly defensible, that is NOT their attitude and I am offended...both as an American and as a Catholic.
What one must first understand is that the Cardinal is a liberal first and a Catholic somewhere down the road. My only window into his soul is what he shows in public, and quite obviously he shares the liberal belief that the United States is capable of harboring a fourth of the population of Mexico, and the poorest quarter at that. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, let us say that he wishes to spare some very good people from one of the most corrupt governments in the world, a place where the ordinary Mexican has almost no chance to prosper.
The problem is that his premise is wrong. As the collapse of California shows, the United States can do no such thing. California by itself ranks, or used to rank, among the 7th wealthiest political units in the world. But it is staggering under the strain of supporting the new immigration. The Nativists in NYC in the 1850s got a bad name for opposing the invasion of their city by poor Irishmen,people who brought nothing with them but strong backs and their poverty. They blamed Catholicism for Irish poverty. I myself blame English colonial government whose ineptness left the Irish to starve after the potato famine hit. I blame the Mexican government for the poverty of the Mexicans, the central American governments for the poverty of the Central Americans. Anyway, the poor have fled north and there are simply too many of them. We are like the rich man who out of the kindness of his heart takes in a poor man from the street. Fine, he has plenty to share. But now the poor man wants his whole family to move in. Fine, still, But now his whole village wants to move in, and there is simply not enough room.
Its no secret why California and Texas are now more Catholic than much of New England and the Mid-Atlantic. It isn't "conversions" as the RC caucus here will tell you.
I’m sure there’s a big reward for you for posting all these anti-Catholic threads............<sarcasm off
It’s gets tiresome, Alex.
Falsehoods and half-truths are not what makes up the Catholic Church.
You cannnot paint the entire Catholic Church with such generalities.
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If by church policies you mean urestricted abortion and "gay marriage," then yes. If you mean traditional Catholic moral positions, then no. Like Black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics are thoroughly in the pocket of the forces of moral nihilism.
The hijacking of the Catholic Church by Marxist elements is now front and center. Who in the major media has the courage and guts to write about it?
The liberal media isn't the least bit afraid to attack the Catholic Church (they've shown that with their witch hunt against the current Pope). However, immigration is one issue where the liberal media agree with the Catholic hierarchy, so don't expect any exposure of this issue other than claims of "nativist Protestant bigotry."
I don’t think the point of all this is so much about what percentage of Catholics vote for one party or the other versus what percentage of Protestants vote for one party or the other. The far more important point is what in the name of heaven do either Catholic or Protestant clergy think they are doing by engaging in political commentary at all? They have no business doing so. They were not called by the Lord of the Church to do any such thing. The only difference between Catholic and Protestant on this point is that Catholic clergy, following the long-standing example of the popes, have been interfering in political matters for centuries, to the neglect of the true spiritual needs of their people.
There is a reason Jesus told all to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. There is a reason that Paul and Peter both commanded Christians to honor the king. There is a reason that you will not find the apostles ever interfering in matters that concern the left hand kingdom of God (government/politics). Their Lord gave them plenty to do in the kingdom of His right hand. It is a certainty that whenever clergy are messing around in the kingdom of the left, be they Protestant or Catholic, they are neglecting their God given duties in the kingdom of the right ... and the souls of people are left to pay the price. It is not simply shameful; it is sinful.
I will add, so that I am not misunderstood, that there is nothing wrong with Christians becoming active in politics. But they should do so as citizens not of the kingdom of God’s right hand, i.e., as Christians, but as citizens of their nation, whichever it is. In our country government is constitutionally to be of, by, and for the people. The Constitution (along with its precursor document, the Declaration of Independence) functions as our “king,” governing all the people, including those in the government itself.
All valid argumentation and discourse under the Constitution is to be made under the authority of nature’s God, which was simply the founders’ way of referring to the One we Christians would more comfortably call “God Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth” or “our Father who art in heaven.” But because those whose duties and authority is, by definition, in the kingdom of the left, simply “God” or “nature’s God” is as far as they have in the past and should in the future go in identifying and defining God according to their duly held offices. Why? Because God didn’t call them to preach and teach about Him and His beloved and only-begotten Son, and so oversee the hearts of men, but rather to govern only the actions of men, and so oversee the conduct of men.
Today, unfortunately, politicians of the left to a greater extent and politicians of the right to a lesser extent co-opt and corrupt the church in all its many visible denominations in order to accomplish their earth-bound, temporary, and political purposes. To the extent the leaders of the church allow themselves and their people to be co-opted to such purposes they do wrong, whether the issue itself is right or wrong. And in the meantime, they neglect their duties to pursue issues that are spiritual and eternal. Their people suffer and the nation not only is not benefitted, but it becomes more and more confused as to who is to be doing what, who is to be proclaiming what to whom, and respect for all authority, of both the right and left hand kingdoms of God is lessened in the eyes and hearts of all. This is the mess we have made for ourselves.