Posted on 07/15/2013 9:15:25 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
didn't realize that Archbishop Jose Gomez of the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese has a new book out, Immigration and the Next America: Renewing the Soul of Our Nation, that steps right into the national debate on immigration reform. Gomez and the publisher describe the book as "a personal, passionate and practical contribution to the national debate about immigration - pointing the way toward a recovery of America's highest ideals....Immigration is a human rights test of our generation. It's also a defining historical moment for America." Daily News columnist Tim Rutten disagrees in his Sunday column. He calls the book by LA's top Catholic official strange and confounding, and its overall reach potentially tragic. From the column:
It goes without saying that the current crop of U.S. prelates has managed to shred most of the moral authority the bishops have wielded in American politics since the New Deal. When it comes to sexual ethics, the pedophilia scandal, along with continued opposition to marriage equality and contraception, has pretty much taken the bishops out of the game. After generations of providing clear and far-sighted leadership on society's health care obligations, their dog-in-the-manger opposition to President Barack Obama's landmark reform package has managed to do the same. If the archbishop's book signals a turn by the bishops on immigration, then something similar is about to occur on this issue -- and that's a tragedy.Here are some warmer reports on the book in Catholic media. Apparently, Gomez stresses that most Americans have learned a history that omits the Hispanic and Catholic culture that existed in the land before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. "Long before America had a name, long before there was a Washington, D.C., or a Wall Street, this land was Spanish and Catholic," Gomez writes in the book. Two hundred years before any of the Founding Fathers were born, this lands people were being baptized in the name of Christ...The people of this land were called Christians before they were called Americans. And they were first called this name in the Spanish tongue." From a writer in the National Catholic Reporter:
Gomez's book takes its title from another tract, "The Next America," a denunciation of the country's alleged drift into a secularism overtly hostile to religious freedom. Its author, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput, is a leader among those bishops implicitly, but relentlessly suggesting that "faithful" Catholics cannot belong to the Democratic Party. As a cleric who owes his spiritual formation to his long membership and education in Opus Dei, an organization fundamentally shaped by its origins in Franco's Spain, it's no surprise that Gomez is an instinctual social and political conservative. His book, in fact, grows out of talks he gave at the Napa Institute, which was founded by a wealthy and conservative Orange County Catholic layman, Tim Busch. As such, it's a novel attempt to make the case for immigration reform according to the values and historical fantasies popular on the American right.
If that sounds like something of a shotgun marriage, it's because ... well, it is.
"Over the past few years," Gomez writes, "I've talked to many Americans, and I've listened carefully to their arguments against immigration. I have to say: I have a lot of sympathy for point of view. I understand why they want to build more walls to secure our borders. I agree when they say we should look more closely at who we let into our country. Opponents of immigration are trying to express something admirable and patriotic. They are trying to defend this country they love."
That's a sentiment sure to be appreciated by the "patriots" who blocked immigration reform in the House last week.
Elsewhere, the archbishop expresses understanding for the view that undocumented migrants simply are lawbreakers. "The presence in our midst of millions of unauthorized immigrants offends something deep in our American self-understanding. The chaos that illegal immigration has caused in some of our southern border communities only adds to a general feeling of lawlessness. The thought that these immigrants might go unpunished or win some kind of amnesty strikes at our basic sensibilities of justice and fair play."
Really? Perhaps, but only in those right-wing circles where "the rule of law" is tortured into a concept of criminality that equates flight from dire economic necessity with theft and murder.
Gomez goes out of his way to acknowledge the good faith of those who worry about immigration and who oppose reform. He agrees that no one should break the law, he acknowledges that people are often made fearful in the face of demographic change, and he takes the right of a country to protect its borders seriously. He is never dismissive to those who oppose immigration reform, instead he acknowledges them and their arguments with respect but then, without any of the shrillness that has accompanied so much of the discussion of religious liberty, he shows why he sees these issues differently and why he believes the Gospel and the Churchs teachings call us to see these issues more humanely.
....Apparently, Gomez stresses that most Americans have learned a history that omits the Hispanic and Catholic culture that existed in the land before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. "Long before America had a name, long before there was a Washington, D.C., or a Wall Street, this land was Spanish and Catholic," Gomez writes in the book. Two hundred years before any of the Founding Fathers were born, this lands people were being baptized in the name of Christ...The people of this land were called Christians before they were called Americans. And they were first called this name in the Spanish tongue."
They're about smashing everybody down to equal levels of misery.
IOW, if you oppose open borders you is a raccist.
And a virulent anti-Catholic bigot.
By the end of the century, we shall be Latin America's northernmost country. The "Hispanics" will be a majority. At the moment, their numbers approach 100 Million. (NSS!)
Of course, if you count LA County alone, there are 11 million illegal aliens + their "anchor babies." Add to that the millions of legal "Hispanic" immigrants admitted since 1965, and their offspring.
Any question of this being a good idea, or bad, is quite beside the point. It's just plain old arithmetic. Technically, the historical points the Archbishop makes are accurate. Mexico, Santo Domingo, Panama, Cuba etc. had already been in business for well over 100 years before the Pilgrims showed up.
So in the "Hispanic" view it is only natural that they complete this, the takeover, and turn us into what the rest of Latin America looks like, and make us just as functional.
Oprime número trés por inglés, pinche gringo.
Protesters Question Clergyman’s Loyalty
At Archbishop Jose Gomez Residence
Dozens of protesters have shown up at Archbishop of Los Angelus Jose Gomez residence many carrying American flags and bearing signs questioning his loyalty to the US not Mexico along with many signs demanding equal rights for American citizens in Mexico.
The protest was apparently triggered by the clerics decision to push forward with his predecessors decision the disgraced Cardinal Mahoney with offering amnesty thus citizenship to Mexicans crossing the border illegally while thousands of Americans in Mexico suffer under 2nd class citizenship unable to own property and suffer indignitys let alone participate in Mexican elections while living there in Mexico.
A spokeswoman for the group, Harriet Hildegarden insisted her group consists of Catholics loyal to the church. “We will be protesting at other locations where prominent clergy of the church have sided with the Obama regime”Hildy” claims the church is supporting the democrat party which denied God at their convention and declared what she claims is war on the Catholics but would collude with i t on many issues including “amnesty” .
When asked if she may be denied communion for her activities her reply was; “Well it’s been known that when that happens quicker when clerics get personally attacked than when some politican challanges the church on the grounds of faith and morals” . “You didn’t hear much from them (the bishops) about the Gosnell baby murderer trial. Now that it’s ended perhaps the bishops might call a “conference” next year but they sure acted swiftly when it comes to allowing this country resigning its sovereign rights and new parishioners.” the groups speaker concluded.
http://www.theusmat.com/natldesksatire.htm
Ping for later
For a view that conforms to actual Church teaching, as opposed to that of Gomez, read:
Be sure to take note that that is satire.
Very glad to see someone bumping this. But in fairness, this is authored by a priest and not by a bishop. As I stated on an earlier thread, let me know when one of your bishops is found discussing the same ideas.
You realize it’s satire and hasn’t happened yet....
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