The Pope and Immigration

Rome ignores the record of the United States since its inception in opening itself to millions. The Pope’s prescription would have the nation labor under that mandate forever, regardless of the profound demographic, economic and environmental transformations in our society. Of course these references will not be politically direct, but I suspect you’ll hear references to the importance of society being open and compassionate to immigrants, to strangers, to sojourners and so forth. The Pope is already very much aware that the Catholic community in the United States is increasingly Spanish-speaking of Latin American origin. If you don’t think this wasn’t the same in the 19th Century, open a history book!

But, in all fairness, that has been a standard criticism of the Church’s immigration policy for many years. Immigration skeptics have said innumerable times that the Church favors Hispanic immigration in order to Catholicize the U.S., that they care more about increasing the number of Catholics in the U.S. Tancredo, a former Catholic who now attends an evangelical Christian church, said it was not in the Pope’s job description to engage in American politics. Secondly, he is missing that there will always be scandals in large organizations; the real problem is when the leadership (the Bishops in the case of the Church) handles the situation poorly. I think that if we have fewer priests, we will have per capita the same number of scandals.

Our immigrant ancestors helped build the Church here and helped establish a thriving American political system. The Church in the post-World War II era for the first time proclaimed a “right” of immigration. But it balanced that new-found right with acknowledgement of the right of governments to regulate immigration. If the catholic church wants to get into politics, let their tax exempt status be revoked.

Its policies fly in the face of the constitutional stance the US takes regarding the division of Church and State. We are very much at risk for violating that stance when our Head of State and our country gives the leader of one religion so very much pomp and honor. This is where the universality of the Catholic Church gives the Pope a much larger view than the narrow self-serving view you are taking. He is undoubtedly including the need to respect the basic rights of illegals, but I’m sure he is also referring to the fact that many of them are here because there was a huge demand by American citizens for their cheap labor. For over two hundred years, the Church has welcomed the waves of new immigrants to the shores of your country. It was the love and compassion of the Church that so many new arrivals first felt when they stepped onto the soil of this young nation.

This is the attitude that the Pope is trying to address. For the sake of the genuine refugees, given that many countries signed up to the UN treaties on taking in refugees anyway, there should be a willingness to at least look at their claims objectively. How you deal with separated families, under served segments of the populations, etc can be debated within a Christian context (sending “them” all back is not a Christian attitude).

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Tags: Acknowledgement, American Politics, Bishops, Capita, Catholic Community, Catholics, Environmental Transformations, Evangelical Christian Church, History Book, Immigrant Ancestors, Immigration Policy, Inception, Innumerable Times, Job Description, Latin American Origin, Scandals, Skeptics, Sojourners, Tax Exempt Status, World War Ii