Posted on 01/02/2003 5:26:09 PM PST by Risa
Disturbed by the plight of refugees after a two-week visit to Africa, St. Cloud Bishop John Kinney is asking officials in his Catholic diocese to consider bringing refugees to Minnesota.
"Conditions are deplorable in those camps, and millions of people are losing hope after years of dislocation," Kinney said after touring four camps in three countries this month.
He said the United States has admitted 28,000 of the 70,000 refugees authorized under law this year, and he will urge Minnesota Congress members to work to fill the quota.
"But we need to explore what we can do right here, in Minnesota, in the Diocese of St. Cloud, to help alleviate the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Africa," he said.
In the 1970s and '80s, Catholic Charities was among Minnesota social-service agencies that helped thousands of southeast Asian refugees escape the ravages of war, and Kinney said, "I think it is time for us to reenergize our efforts and help people who are suffering in Africa."
Kinney is on the Migration Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He visited camps in Kenya, Tanzania and Guinea, where about 200,000 of more than 5 million displaced Africans are living in harsh conditions -- many there for more than 10 years.
"When we look at our blessings -- our luck, really -- of living in such a prosperous country, and we see the suffering of so many elsewhere, we need to ask ourselves what God calls us to do," Kinney said. "I think we do have a call."
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Luck? We as a nation are prosperous because of luck?
And because we are lucky, so should we import millions of poor people who are ill-prepared to find employment here, who will need taxpayer support for up to 3 decades before they are able to assimilate, and who may very well make our own nation as dreary as they've made their own.
Perhaps the Bishop was bred on a silver spoon. Yet the majority of Americans worked hard and made great sacrifices for American prosperity. And I doubt that those who risked their lives or who lost someone they loved in the fight to keep our nation free would cite 'luck' as the reason for American prosperity.
Total crap. Do you know any refugees? Do you know any African refugees? I do. I met some in a refugee camp in Africa, and my wife and I helped them to come to this country--to Des Moines IA, in fact, where they have become upstanding citizens. In three years, they went from being desperately poor to being homeowners with two cars and a little child. And they pay for all of it by working three jobs, each at starvation wages, but together it all adds up. And they're very devout Christians. So what's your problem exactly?
Did you read the article? It says nothing about tapping the government. It talks how a private, Christian charity could help unfortunate people, as the Gospel teaches us to do. Refugees by definition are unwelcome in their own countries. You know, like JESUS CHRIST himself, who was a refugee in Egypt. We talk about stuff like that at church at this time of year. You should go--and take those future Freepers with you!
Huh? Messianic complexes??? Psychobabble worthy of the worst liberal. Look, I personally know people who got the help the bishop urges his flock to provide. They are ultra-Americans, embodiments of what this country stands for. What do you think, that we should take no more legal refugees, not even as many as the law allows?
Clerics are always exhorting "you, the faithful" to bear the burdens while they smile, approvingly, and take junkets to Africa.
Can you afford to go to Africa?
What worries me is just exactly how many will the American lifeboat be expected to hold?
Charity begins at home and there is plenty to do right here and right there in Minnesota.
This problem is never going to end until it is addressed where these people are coming from. Conditions may be terrible and I do feel sorry for those people, but things could get bad here, too, and then where will we be with so many, many more people needing jobs.
From where I sit, it isn't looking good. Way too many of our OWN people are barely making it at low-paid, no insurance jobs!!!
I really resent his bishopness who never has to ever worry where HIS next meal is coming from telling us what we should do!
"Moral orgasm"??? What's the matter with you? Doing good for others gives people joy. JOY. That's not the same as "orgasm," fella. It's, like, uh, better.
But that's not the issue here, is it? The issue is what it means to be an American. I'm one myself because my own ancestors were fortunate ("LUCKY" as the bishop said) to have been able to escape from the squalid refugee camps where they were staying and get over here. Then they worked real hard, and now I'm doing just fine. Bet your own story isn't all that different. So why would you want to keep legal immigrants from coming here--especially when other people would be willing to help them once they arrived?
Sell what you have and give it to the poor yourself, Sinkspur. The Gospel tells you to to do that. And I've given plenty to Africa and African refugees. My son spent four years there, most of it working with the poorest of the poor. His mother and I went over to lend a hand, and we ended up at the UNHCR begging for some refugees who wanted to come over and get a real chance in life. They've already spent more hours doing hard labor than I ever did--and more than you ever did, my friend. And they're doing very, very well. They're proving that conservative principles ("work hard, be responsible") pay off. Why would you hate people like that--or those who want to lend them a helping hand?
He has used the word "scources", and therefore he is exempt from any proof at all. We, poor trusting souls, do not know if a poor family were rescued by the person who rebutted your remarks. We do not know that they have a house and two cars. We do not know, and I should say I,if whether three low paying jobs are being worked at, to provide these things.
Like I say, hitting people with unidentified scources is usually the prime attack that denotes a White Liberal.
Listen, bub. I've sponsored Vietnamese refugees when we didn't have two nickels to rub together and even had a family of five live with us for two weeks in a two bedroom house in the late 70s. And we had two kids under four.
So I don't "hate" anybody. I resent these purpled princes demanding that their people take on another burden, when the real problem is the socialist governments, or the idiots like Mugabe, who cause the refugees to flee in the first place.
It's always the American sucker who gets tapped. When are the Kinney's of the world going to get in the faces of the dictators who are responsible for this misery?
Sell what you have and give it to the poor yourself, Sinkspur. The Gospel tells you to to do that.
Uh, huh. You first. I'm all tapped out.
I made no reference at all to what I "feel." (Dr. Laura rightly warns that that is the liberal disease.) I spoke instead of what I know from firsthand experience with refugees. It sounds as if you are the one going on feelings. Sorry they are such prejudiced feelings because I'll bet your own ancestors were refugees from someplace.
It sounds as if you were once willing to do what Our Lord taught us all to do. Just because you're old now doesn't mean you can't keep doing it.
I'll pay for a Motel 6 room; hell, I pay to put up my in-laws when they're in town. I have a home office, and they won't turn off the television when I'm working during the day, so they've got to stay elsewhere.
I think you've paraded your charity quite enough, mad. Any more bragging and you're going to be in Pharisee-territory.
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