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Catholic Bishops Stumble on Immigration
America’s Catholic bishops are giving President-elect Donald Trump a mixed reception ahead of his second term. Following Trump’s overwhelming victory in Tuesday’s election, Archbishop Timonthy Broglio, head of the Military Archdiocese and president of the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Conference (USCCB), issued a statement congratulating the 45th and 47th President on his victory.
[T]he USCCB would do well to familiarize themselves with the Catholic Church’s moral teachings on immigration throughout the centuries.
“I congratulate President-elect Trump, as well as the national, state, and local officials who campaigned to represent the people. Now, we move from campaigning to governing. We rejoice in our ability to transition peacefully from one government to the next,” Broglio wrote. He added, “Let us pray for President-elect Trump, as well as all leaders in public life, that they may rise to meet the responsibilities entrusted to them as they serve our country and those whom they represent.” (READ MORE from S.A. McCarthy: Kamala Harris’s Anti-Catholic Bigotry on Display)
In a subsequent interview, Broglio noted, “No matter who occupies the White House or holds the majority on Capitol Hill, the Church’s teachings remain unchanged.” So far so good, although the USCCB made little enough mention of the Church’s perennial moral teachings on abortion during outgoing President Joe Biden’s term, even though Biden is a self-described Catholic.
“Let us ask for the intercession of our Blessed Mother, the patroness of our nation, that she guide us to uphold the common good of all and promote the dignity of the human person, especially the most vulnerable among us, including the unborn, the poor, the stranger, the elderly and infirm, and migrants,” Broglio said.
Ah, there it is. The Catholic Church has, since the first century, reaffirmed and reiterated the inherent human dignity of the human person, especially the unborn innocents, and ferociously, unequivocally condemned the grave moral evil of abortion. While the Church’s moral teachings do also address such issues as poverty and migration, those issues were never placed on a par with abortion — at least, not until Trump came on the scene in 2016.
To his credit, Broglio did insist that the USCCB’s “preeminent concern” is “the dignity of the human person. We like the phrase that the human person is created in the image and likeness of the Almighty from womb to tomb. So that’s a primary concern.” He called abortion “a form of violence in our society” that “cheapens the dignity of the human person.”
However, the archbishop quickly followed that up by saying that the U.S. is a “wealthy nation” and, as such, has “a responsibility to address … the concerns of the poor, those who are on the margins of society. It’s distressing to see in some of our major cities the number of people who are without homes, without shelter.”
Again, fair enough: care for the poor has always been a concern of the Church’s — it’s one of the reasons so many American Catholics were once Democrats. But it would be erroneous to place it on a par with abortion. Poverty is an unfortunate reality, one which might be alleviated; abortion is an unnecessary brutality, one which cruelly ends the life of an innocent unborn child, an evil which demands to be opposed at every turn.
Catholic Doctrine and Immigration
Broglio followed that concern, however, by noting that USCCB leaders “have advocated for reform of the immigration laws in this country for decades. And this is really the time I hope that something can be done to rectify a system that is broken and to try and make it more responsive to the needs of people.” He added, “Coupled with that would be our responsibility to help those nations from which people are migrating, because often they’re migrating because of poverty and other difficult situations in their home countries.”
The Catholic Church has, contrary to the claims of progressive bishops, long been a proponent of national sovereignty and advocate of justified border control measures. Pope Pius XII once declared, “It is quite legitimate for nations to treat their differences as a sacred inheritance and guard them at all costs.” Yes, Christians have an obligation not to treat immigrants — legal or otherwise — uncharitably, but we also have an obligation to love our nation, our national heritage and culture, and to protect and preserve those things. Enforcing laws that uphold the common good is a matter of justice.
It was largely on the grounds of this particular issue, closely following concerns over the economy, that Trump was handed the sweeping mandate — the electoral college, the popular vote, the House, and the Senate — that he was, even after nearly a decade of mainstream media and Democratic politicians smearing him as a fascist, a Nazi, and even Adolf Hitler.
The American people, in accord with our laws, placed Trump in office a second time. He has a responsibility — to the American people, to the U.S. Constitution, and even to Catholic moral teaching — to protect and preserve the nature and identity of the country. (READ MORE: Trump, McDonald’s, and the Lost Art of Noblesse Oblige)
Broglio’s devotion to pro-life principles, to defending the lives of the unborn innocents who have been so callously and wantonly slaughtered in this country, is admirable. However, he and the rest of the USCCB would do well to familiarize themselves with the Catholic Church’s moral teachings on immigration throughout the centuries. Particularly given the USCCB’s complicity in the ongoing illegal immigration crisis, it might be best for the bishops to sit this one out and focus their efforts on protecting the unborn.
The post Catholic Bishops Stumble on Immigration appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.
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