Are America’s Bishops Cowardly — or Just Greedy?
In the late fifth century, St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland, wrote a letter to the army of the British warlord Coroticus, condemning the practice of slavery. He did so not because condemning the then-profitable slave trade put a penny in his pocket (it did not) but because it was the right thing to do, in accord with Christian moral teaching. Over a century later, St. Benedict of Nursia held himself and his fellow monks to such a high moral standard that some of his own monks tried to assassinate him. While many pioneers went to the New World in search of gold, St. Isaac Jogues went to save souls, and gave his life in the process. St. Peter Claver ministered to slaves in the 16th century, baptizing souls that the wealthy traders considered property.
The bishops also know … that their effeminate rhetoric on immigration actually subverts and distorts the Church’s teachings on the subject.
Why is it so difficult for America’s Catholic bishops today to take up the mantle of their saintly predecessors? President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda — namely, the program of mass deportations — is all that any of the bishops seem to speak or write about lately. In a recent op-ed, Archbishop José Gómez of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles turned to the violence in Minneapolis last month, writing, “As a pastor, my heart aches for our people and for our country.” While he encouraged Catholics to pray for Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the left-wing agitators who lost their lives when forcibly interfering with federal law enforcement operations, and for the safety of law enforcement officers themselves, he added, “We pray especially for our immigrant brothers and sisters, who are powerless and caught in the middle of this struggle, living in fear for their futures.” (Emphasis added.)
“There is no question that the federal government has the duty to enforce immigration laws. But there must be a better way than this,” Gómez insisted. Fair enough: after two fatalities and months of rioting and threatening patriotic law enforcement personnel, the sentiment is understandable. But here’s the “better way” Gómez suggests: “One place to start is for our leaders in Washington to limit deportations to violent criminals or those guilty of other serious offenses.” In other words, simply permit the millions of foreigners who violated the first American law they encountered to keep the prize that they cheated to win.
Likewise, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of the Archdiocese of Newark in a recent online statement urged Catholics to say “No” to mass deportations, and encouraged lawmakers to say the same to continued funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). “I think if we are serious about putting our faith in action, we need to say ‘no,’ each one of us,” Tobin whined. Although claiming that being aware of what’s happening in the news is a key part of saying “no,” the progressive cardinal then repeated some of the most egregiously false and inflammatory characterizations of news over the past few weeks, alleging that toddlers have been “legally kidnapped” and that “protestors” have been “slaughtered.”
Bishop Anthony Taylor of the Diocese of Little Rock, which encompasses the whole of the state of Arkansas, echoed dangerous Democratic Party talking points in a public statement, comparing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to Nazis. “Polarization and partisanship are poisoning the social fabric of our country,” the bishop griped, claiming that the “moral decline of our country” bears “obvious parallels” to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and subsequent reign over the Third Reich. “German society moved away from respect for human dignity, peace, and moral restraint. I fear that the same dynamics are now happening in our country,” Anthony added. The bishop, who just completed two years on the board of directors of Catholic Relief Services, an agency accused of facilitating the invasion of the U.S. southern border for profit, referred to halting immigration law enforcement as a “pro-life issue.”
Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C. also embraced the language of the far-left in a statement he led non-Catholic “faith leaders” in signing. The document described the deaths of Good and Pretti as “murders” and the slain duo as “two U.S. citizens devoted to civic engagement and to caring for their immigrant neighbors.” No mention of Good attempting to kill a federal officer with her car or Pretti’s history of riot participation and violent altercations with law enforcement. “Renee and Alex were killed while seeking justice for their community,” McElroy and his allies wrote. “At this pivotal moment in our nation’s life, we are faced with a choice: whether to allow fear, cruelty, and disorder to define us, or to respond with courage, conscience, and moral resolve.”
I’ve written numerous times (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) on how America’s Catholic bishops have bungled the immigration issue, in every way: morally, politically, historically, culturally. I’ve also written (here, here, and here) on how the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and its affiliate organizations, such as branches of Catholic Charities and Catholic Relief Services, have raked in tens of millions of dollars annually for “immigration services,” which has largely involved shuttling illegal aliens who managed to violate our nation’s borders further into the U.S. and misplacing unaccompanied migrant children entrusted to their care.
The Catholic Church does not demand that any nation allow the rape of its borders by the Third-World, nor does the Church require that faithful Catholics fail or refuse to uphold just and reasonable laws, particularly those governing national sovereignty, public safety, and cultural heritage. But to listen to the bishops and their hysterics, one would imagine that open borders topped the list of Catholic moral imperatives. It doesn’t.
Defending the unborn and opposing the evil of abortion does rank among the most crucial moral obligations of Catholics. Yet the bishops rarely speak in force on the matter of the wanton slaughter of unborn children. Former president Joe Biden, a pro-abortion fanatic and self-described Catholic, never faced Nazi comparisons from the bishops, who could not even bring themselves to recommend that Biden refrain from receiving Holy Communion.
The bishops also know — it’s written clearly and has been clarified over the course of nearly 2,000 years — that their effeminate rhetoric on immigration actually subverts and distorts the Church’s teachings on the subject, yet they continue to bloviate, weep, and rend their garments. Either they are all cowards who haven’t the mettle to condemn the mass slaughter of unborn children, or they simply don’t care because immigration pays and abortion doesn’t. I don’t know which would be worse.
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