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By engaging in misguided mercies -- at the expense of justice to innocent third parties -- I was proving my qualifications to serve as a U.S. bishop. I was acting just like those prelates who hide illegal aliens in "sanctuary" churches, and help their children (who, if they are born on U.S. soil, through a sick quirk of American law, are citizens) collect public benefits paid for by the hard-working taxpayer. When bishops lobby for illegal aliens to attend public schools (with cripplingly expensive bilingual programs) and get free medical care, the cost of these goodies doesn't come out of their diocesan budget. I don't think our good bishops miss any golf games because they're spending the money reimbursing native-born, blue-collar Americans, many of whom can't afford medical insurance themselves.
If we let our sacramental sympathy to the fellow Catholic who might sneak across the border overwhelm our duties to the community where we live -- the United States -- we are not serving a "higher loyalty." We are committing a kind of treason. Likewise, when we snicker -- as so many Catholics quietly do -- that "America is just a Protestant country anyway . . . but we'll soon take care of that." I know many Catholics who privately grumble that neoconservatives have hijacked our foreign policy to further the interests of the state of Israel. The same people will turn right around and try to set our immigration policy according to the needs of Catholic parishes: We need more seminarians. We need more faces to fill up our emptying churches -- and to help our sleeping shepherds dodge the question of how they lost the flock in the first place.
One out of three Catholics who grows up in America leaves the Church. The only thing that has kept our share of the population from shrinking is mass immigration of uneducated poor people. Their arrival bucks up the numbers, gratifies a deeply dysfunctional bureaucracy, and fills the empty pews . . . for one generation. This influx of "fresh souls" from poor countries lets us pretend that our Church is successfully passing along the Faith, is reverently offering the sacraments, and generally chugging along as it always did. In fact, by losing one Catholic out of three, American Catholicism is collapsing almost as quickly as English Catholicism did under Elizabeth I. Except that we aren't even being persecuted -- and our Spanish Armada didn't sink. It crosses the Rio Grande, in small contingents, to the tune of around 1 million people per year. “Subsidizing” the U.S. Church with a constant influx of fresh Catholics to alienate and scandalize is no more prudent than paying General Motors to go right on building Humvees for the suburbs.
Readers have left 57 comments.
InsideCatholic.com - Render Unto Caesar: The Church and Immigration (http://tinyurl.com/6hjlpm - broken link)
The Bible was basically written to be interpreted by any king or leader to get people to do what he wanted for fear of God.
I dont think the bible is going to have any answers for complex situations like this.
Haven't you heard? The earth is 6,000 years old. . That would also explain the grand canyon, and the millions of years it took for water to carve through it.
Lamentations 5:2
Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.
Yup, I'm sure the Bible says something about,
"Thou, as American, shalt be entitled to 2 story dwelling, 3 cars, and clean grass. And thou shalt only heareth English, and not the fork tongue of Spanish. Thou shall not help thy neighbor with medical help from thy taxes, for that is against the law in the future! "
One out of three Catholics who grows up in America leaves the Church. The only thing that has kept our share of the population from shrinking is mass immigration of uneducated poor people. Their arrival bucks up the numbers, gratifies a deeply dysfunctional bureaucracy, and fills the empty pews . . . for one generation.
Sums up the accusation people have been making : the motivation of the Catholic Church acting as a safe harbor for illegal aliens isn't based on altruism or a matter of conscious, as purported, but is completely political, a means to an end to generate funds for their coffers.
Im not religious by any means, but in the end, what does all of this matter?
I don't think the pope is backing illegal immigrants, but just people doing there thing.
As long as we have food, a roof over our heads, and our family, everything else is just extra.
Thats why I feel the way I do about this debate. Its not because I "share ethnicity" with the people everyone is against. Not because I'm "secretly an illegal" or have some kind of motives.
I just know that our lives aren't really horrible right now, so we don't have any reason to be as angry as some of the people on this board are.
Im not saying open the borders, or let them all be illegal, but why be so angry and hateful towards an entire group of people?
Especially when youre life isnt all that bad at all.
"because theyre breaking the law!"
Stop fretting over it. you'll live longer.
People shouldn't be walking around in agony over hearing spanish, or seeing brown people on street corners trying to get work.
If they have a cause, go against the people doing real crimes that really hurt people. Legal AND illegal.
Another good article concerning Christians and Illegal Immigration
"The Rev. Luis Cortes, the founder of Esperanza USA, a group of Christian Hispanic leaders involved in promoting President Bush's failed efforts to promote amnesty attacked all the Republican presidential candidates. He is working with a new group called "Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform."
A quote from Reverend Luis Cortes : "I'm voting brown".
Say I was a black public figure. How do you think people would perceive the comment, "I'm voting black". Dare I ask what the reaction would be if a white public figure said, "I'm voting white". People would call a spade a spade. And what's worse, these types promote a seperatism within America based on race (or country of origin, i.e., "Wherever there is a Mexican, there is Mexico . . or the Vietnamese, "Remember Vietnam, Remember Who You Are!", etc.).
Reverend Luis Cortes is a racist . . these types are, and their corrupt congregations sew discord, corruption, and hate in this country.
Amnesty is an act of altruism, but this corruption of charity by our public figures is clearly treason, as there is ample evidence they support the overthrow of the United States of America.
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. That would also explain the grand canyon, and the millions of years it took for water to carve through it.
or have some kind of motives.
