Do you have the same feeling that I have? It’s a sense of impending disaster like seeing a train about to ram a fuel truck. SloMo. kaBLAM.
Francis issued a letter to the US Bishops which was clearly aimed against the Trump administration, its policy on “deportation”, and at VP Vance who invoked the term “ordo amoris”.
HERE is a link to the letter at the Vatican website.
Quite a bit of commentary is flowing. I have done some reading about what ordo amoris is really all about. Did Vance get it right or did Francis? Francis, in his letter, suggests… no, categorically states (citing only himself in a footnote)… that “ordo amoris” must be interpreted through the lens of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. That raises the question: Why? In one commentary I read the parable invoked was the Parable of the Friend in the Night (Luke 11:5-8) which involves the sacred duty of hospitality.
The use of one does not exclude the application of the other.
I’m going to get into other things, below, but I can’t help but make a couple of observations about Francis’ invocation of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt, namely:
2. … [Jesus] did not live apart from the difficult experience of being expelled from his own land because of an imminent risk to his life, and from the experience of having to take refuge in a society and a culture foreign to his own. The Son of God, in becoming man, also chose to live the drama of immigration. I like to recall, among other things, the words with which Pope Pius XII began his Apostolic Constitution on the Care of Migrants, which is considered the “Magna Carta” of the Church’s thinking on migration: …
[…]
As I read this, with great respect to the sentiment and to Pius XII, it occurs to me that there are differences between what we see in the Holy Family and what we see today in the movement of peoples, especially at the US southern border.
- St. Joseph obeyed the civil law by responding to the census.
- The Holy Family did not leave the jurisdiction of the Romans. Egypt was a province of the Empire.
- In travelling to Egypt the road was a trade route secured by Legio II “Cyrenaica”, not by human trafficking cartels. They didn’t have to sneak into Egypt.
- St. Joseph worked for a living and did not receive government hand outs, hotels and free cellphones.
- St. Joseph, so far as we know, didn’t have a criminal record, wasn’t a fugitive from justice or a violent gang member with multiple convictions.
- Nor was Mary.
- “Jesus lived the drama of immigration” – really “emigration”, no?
- Jesus also lived the drama of going home.
Also, correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t what the Trump administration doing, even by the Church’s own teaching, “repatriation” and not “deportation”? If I remember correctly, when the Church (Gaudium et spes?) speaks of causing people to move from one place to another, it’s about the ejection of people from their proper, chosen place. That’s “deportation”. Sending people out of a country they do not belong to back to where they came from is not “deportation”, it is “repatriation”. Am I wrong?
Changing gears…
R. Reno at First Things has a couple of interesting comments lately. A couple days ago, 10 February, he penned a piece which brings to two themes of border control and altar rails together. HERE That got my attention! A comment or two from that (my emphasis)…
[…]
A similar shift is afoot in the Church, and for the same reason. The open Church gets colonized by the world. Its leaders talk like therapists and multicultural bureaucrats. The sacred is swamped by the banal. A growing number of churchgoers, especially the young, want something different, something confident and separate from the world. As Cardinal Cupich in Chicago has discovered, to his dismay, they want to kneel at altar rails.
Tell me your views on altar rails, and I can predict where you stand with regard to the increasingly grave political and cultural phenomenon of mass migration. If you think the restoration of altar rails represents a betrayal of Vatican II, I’m confident that you regard any attempt to enforce borders as anti-Christian xenophobia.
[…]
There’s more provocation over there. It also gets me onto the next track.
Yesterday, 11 February, he’s back at it. “Pope Francis’s Apocalyptic Dream” (my emphasis):
Pope Francis published his suicide note. It took the form of a letter to the American Catholic bishops. In so many words, the Holy Father urged his brother bishops to intervene in American politics and oppose the Trump administration’s efforts to enforce our country’s immigration laws. Along the way, Pope Francis also took a jab at Vice President JD Vance, correcting him (along with St. Thomas Aquinas). No, we are not to love our parents, spouses, and children more than others. The true order of love, ordo amoris, starts with the vulnerable and outcast. We must seek “a fraternity open to all.”
[…]
And, still riffing on the borders and altar rails issue:
[…]
The practical upshot of the Holy Father’s letter is nothing other than the globalist, open borders position, glibly theologized. This, Francis implies, is the only position permitted for true Christians who honor Christ’s universal love.
[…]
This paragraph sparked a memory, which I will get to. First…
[…]
Reading Pope Francis over the years has led me to believe that he harbors an apocalyptic dream for the West, one in which mass migration and ecological peril overturn the foundations of Western confidence and global hegemony. In this regard, his thinking accords with post-colonial ideologues and those at pro-Hamas rallies. The West is a den of iniquity. Its capitalism foments greed. Its enterprises have raped mother nature and polluted the biosphere. Its vainglory, especially American pride, has brought war and ruin to foreign lands. The wretched of the earth are fully within their rights to rise up, migrate, and destroy the Behemoth.
[…]
What memory, you ask?
Back in 2014, I had a long conversation with South American journalist Alejandro Bermudez of CNA. The concept of “peripheries”, is important to Francis. Bermudez spoke of the influence on Francis of thinkers such as the Uruguayan writer-theologian Alberto Methol Ferré, the Russian-American sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, and the pivotal Spanish-language poet Rubén Darío. To condense wildly, it seems that Francis may embrace a school of thought that sees a kind of “manifest destiny” for Latin America. When cultures develop a interior decay, which they always do, revitalization of the cultures comes from “peripheries”. For the larger Church, experiencing an interior decay, a periphery is Latin America. Latin America, unlike any other continent, is unified in language (by far dominated by Spanish with related Portuguese) and is/was unified in religion, Catholicism (though there is bad erosion). With these unifying factors, Latin America has a critical role to play in this view.
Francis is famous for his programmatic “¡Hagan lío!”. In the 11 Feb article by Reno, we read (my emphasis):
[…]
By all appearances, [Francis is] an accelerationist, someone who welcomes catastrophe rather than appealing to Catholic social doctrine to make nuanced judgments that might help us humanize, as best we can, the policies and actions necessary to prevent the social upheaval that attends rapid demographic change, and the disorder it will bring. The Argentine Jesuit seems to relish collapse. It will provide an opportunity to break the iron grip of homo economicus and build a new world, a “fraternity open to all.” This borderless fraternity is a true utopia, a world of no-place, a future universal society free from the grave evil of loyalty to one’s country—Donald Trump’s terrible crime against universal love.
[…]
I was tweaked by the word choice, “accelerationist”.
Cambridge says,
“someone who believes that technological change, especially relating to artificial intelligence, should happen more quickly, even if this destroys existing systems and leads to radical (= extreme or complete) social change”.
On the other hand, Britannica has an article about “accelerationism” which seems mainly to be a leftist attack on capitalism through acceleration of capitalism in order to tip it into collapse. The idea is destroy rather than slowly change from within. Why? We don’t have time! A couple of examples of accelerationism in the movies might be the Bruce Willis Die Hard 4: Live Free or Die Hard in which a cyber-terrorist attempts to bring down global everything. Another might be when in a Justice League movie, a terrorist wants to bring down the world economy by bombing the Bank of England.
Millions of people flowing over the southern border unchecked for years seems like one way to accelerate the collapse of these USA.
This is how Reno concludes.
[…]
As I said, I don’t envy America’s bishops. It’s a hard task to require the faithful to attend Mass so that they can be told that loving one’s country and its citizens is a wicked sin. That’s a recipe for ecclesiastical suicide.
Reno rem tetigit. What are Francis’ expectations for the US bishops? He put the bishops in an awkward position before, probably pushed into it by conniving mandarins (cf the cruel Traditionis custodes). What does he want US bishops to do now?
Finally, US Bishops get a lot of government money with which they want (we assume) to do good (such as corporal and spiritual works of mercy). Doing good is a great deal more expensive now because of the dissolution of religious. We lean on government money now to facilitate the work of holy men and women in religious communities. We can’t afford to pay teachers in schools a just wage and there are no sisters to teach. Hospitals, etc. In addition to religious, after Trent Confraternities of people from all walks of life cooperated to do these things. They were also focused on prayer.
Change the Church’s prayer life and you change everything.
I think you see where I am going with this.
It all comes back to that, doesn’t it.
We are our rites. Screw up our rites, you screw up everything.
It’s almost like there is a kind of hierarchy or order of … priorities? Values? What’s a good word?
If we don’t properly fulfill the virtue of Religion, other things done the line are going to be out of sorts. If we don’t properly love God first, and place no one or no thing other than God on the inmost throne of our hearts, then we won’t love others in the right way. It’s as if one thing affects another… God, family, country, neighbor, in an expanding sphere of love and responsibility. I know there is a term for this idea out there somewhere.
If I have gotten something wrong here, please let me know.
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“The Holy Family did not leave the jurisdiction of the Romans. Egypt was a province of the Empire.”
You probably have an idea of growing up on the border how much is strongly disliked when that was used as an excuse for migrants to cross over etc. Unfortunately many who claim to be social justice warriors lending their voice to the voiceless haven’t seen an ancient map.
You didn’t get anything wrong, and neither did RR Reno in his terrific essay. I agree with all of it.
As a citizen of the nation Francis so despises, I have a few thoughts as well.
I guess we see Francis can respond quickly when he wants to. So much for unanswered dubia. When the money from USAID was recently ended, it begged a question, what are they going to do now. He answered it. Double down, and he is apparently wanting bishops to do the dirty work. Leave your chanceries, Your Excellencies, and take it to the streets. He’s willing for you to make the sacrifice.
The bishops are indeed up against it, but pity is in short supply. The esteem, respect, and appreciation for the bishops, once so high, could be measured in microns. There is not a lot of goodwill, due to multiple factors, duplicity with Francis, the poor treatment of some Catholics, communities, bishops, acting as medical advisers by pushing Covid shots on everybody as a Christian duty, enforcing made-up Covid “rules” and closing churches, watering down the faith, and forgetting Jesus in the process of frantically pushing climate nonsense and open borders, under the guise of “welcoming the stranger”. The obvious grift of assisting the importation of millions of illegals into our nation has directly harmed the Body of Christ, because millions of people now understand the Catholic CHURCH itself is responsible for a great deal of illegals coming into our sovereign nation, by the millions, which have caused so much suffering. It’s personal, for a lot of Americans. The missing children, the rapes of girls, boys, and women, and around 80% of females coming over the border are raped. Where is the compassion for these? Numerous Americans have been murdered, raped, molested, or suffered from crime, home invasions, car jacking, etc. Our services, hospitals, schools, are all overloaded, our culture has changed not for the better. We have officially rejected this and demand of our officials a new direction, to end this. The people have a right to that, and it would be unwise to interfere given where we are now. I sense a growing resentment that may start to become more apparent if the bishops continue in their direction. What was done before was bad enough. Now that things are more clear, the bishops need to heed the sea change.
We are a sovereign nation with a right to decide who, how, and how many. Just because things were done this or that way years ago is no reason to continue a policy that no longer serves our nation. We have seen the invasion and the damage and we don’t want it. It is a miracle we have this chance, and we’re not missing it nor letting anyone steal it from us to fill their coffers or satisfy their agendas.
There are 300,000 children missing, many given to pedophiles. Where are they, Your Excellencies? You should know, you brought them here. We have a right to know where these children are and we want accountability. Don’t say you handed them over to others, we want to know where they are. You are responsible.
Is instructing a nation to break existing laws, isn’t that at least a diplomatic breach? Migrants escaping actual persecution (tiny minority) are by international law also mandated to go to the nearest nation, not to hop, skip, and jump to their preferred location. America also provides plane rides back for repatriation, as Fr Z said, we are not obligated to do that. It is a mercy we extend. People could technically be put on the other side of a border wall and told to go home. Nobody would like that, including American citizens. We are compassionate, people get a plane ride. On the issue of who to love, the average person doesn’t get lost in what is a bit of a theological argument, who is our neighbor. It’s a bit of a rabbit hole. We see things more simply. Our allegiance is to God, family, nation, our people, other people, note who is last, and we’re on to your manipulations. Helping others does not mean sacrificing our people or our nation anymore. We’ve seen it, watched it helplessly for four years. No thanks. America has always been a generous and benevolent nation, not perfect, but both of those. Don’t misuse us anymore with guilt trips and false compassion. We reject that.
Francis is also being hypocritical, he has a giant wall. He just increased the penalties for trying to come over that wall. Bigger fines, longer jail time. How is this hypocrisy justified? Do the bishops lock their chanceries? Why? Do they have migrant families in their spare bedrooms? Why not?
His recommendations should be roundly rejected as globalist clap-trap by Catholics and the bishops may want to see the times they are a-changin’. It may indeed be too late, but you can’t keep the money and it looks like you’re going to need us after all. All things considered American Catholics have been tremendously patient with all the abuse over years but bishops need to recognize it’s a new dawn and a new day, thank God.
Fr. Z and all I apologize for the long rant. We’ve just stifled so much for so long.
Pope Francis, is of course, wrong in his personal interpretation.
What I want to point out is how Pope Francis’ various personal interpretations of things, because they are wrong and obviously wrong to the average person, causes many people to blaspheme against God. The non-Catholic (and many who call themselves catholic), especially of the militant sort, use these wrong interpretations as an excuse and launching pad to rail against God, the Church, and the Catholic faith. Basically Romans 2:24.
And this is going to get a lot worse because Trump/Vance know what we all know. 1.) Actual Catholic teaching 2.) that various par-diocesan organizations have been getting federal monies to promote all sorts of anti-Catholic behavior. 3.) Several of these organizations are involved in human trafficking.
As all of what has been known comes to light, God’s name will be greatly blasphemed amongst the nations. One of the things that I am thankful for is that a lot of younger Catholics, having lived through the sexual abuse scandals don’t have a knee-jerk reaction to defend the bishopric simple because they call themselves Catholic. That makes things so much worse in terms of turning non-Catholics away from the Church and making them hostile.
Father, I read your thoughts carefully. I think you have stated this respectfully and clearly.
I have the same feeling of impending doom you mention. And, as you put it so well, I am *beyond* sick and tired of those who push open borders citing the Holy Family as “illegal aliens” or “refugees”. They were neither. As far as I can see in the Scriptures, the Holy Family *never* defied civil authority. They may have left in haste in the middle of the night to travel to Egypt, but they did not do so illegally. They were also not “refugees”. They were obeying the warning from the angel, who communicated God’s wish that they move to Egypt immediately to ensure the safety of Jesus. They most certainly did not go of their own accord – they went because they obeyed God.
The rest of your explanation also makes a great deal of sense to me. The Holy Family broke no civil laws and in fact went out of their way to comply with Roman law, in addition to Jewish law. They received no charity or handouts – they worked hard every day of their lives for everything they had. In fact, I think it is very probable that they were the first to step up to help those in need. They lived in poverty, but they were not beholden to anyone. They paid their way, obeyed the law, and seem to have been exemplary citizens. That’s without mentioning the profound affect on all mankind by their obedience to the Will of God.
I am the Godmother of a lovely, faithfully Catholic native Mexican girl who entered this country legally and became an American citizen. She is currently a sophomore at a local Catholic high school on a full scholarship she earned by her hard work, exemplary behavior, and excellent grades. Her plan on graduating is not to apply to university, but to enter the Navy and serve our country because she is grateful to be an American, and she wants to give back what she has received.
Those who enter this country illegally are at the mercy of cruel employers and landlords. They are paid *far* below minimum wage at jobs that are dangerous with no safety equipment – because their employers threaten to report them to ICE if they complain. I know of fellow parishioners who are compelled to work in factories with glass and metal shards flying around – and no safety glasses, because they have no OSHA protection. Likewise, there are some who live in rentals with sewage in the basement for the same reasons. If they complain, they will be reported to ICE by their landlords. It is despicable.
The Pope making statements like the letter to the bishops does not address these consequences which are direct result of lax, unregulated border policy,
I cannot imagine why the Pope is involving himself – and by extension, all of us who are faithful Catholics – in American and Mexican border policy. Yes, of course, as Americans we must treat everyone with decency and civility and care for those in need. But to scold sovereign governments for upholding their laws – which are not harmful to those who comply – is out of line, and I am very sad to say so.
Anyway, I appreciate your measured and sensible commentary on this. Peace and good to all here.
I live in Italy, where Bergoglio’s fanaticism for open borders has been devastating. Every day we witness new atrocities committed by the young males from the Muslim world invited into Italy by Bergoglio (and brought! One of the people-trafficking boat operations in the Mediterranean is directly funded by the Vatican and Italian Bishops Conference). Meanwhile Caritas collects billions from the Italian government to manage the reception centers for the illegal immigrants pouring in.
Pope Francis sits in his walled enclave wagging his hypocritical finger while Italians get raped, robbed, assaulted and displaced in their own communities as Italian cities become unrecognisable.
Any word from Bergoglio for the poor Italian policewoman this week who had her finger BITTEN OFF by a Gambian migrant after he was challenged for riding a train without a valid ticket? For the women this week RAPED by migrants in Milan, Rome, Bolzano and elsewhere? For the souls of the poor people nearly BEHEADED in a church in Nice by a jihadi migrant brought in via Lampedusa (whose trial for triple murder began yesterday)?
No. Not a word. Only filthy hypocrisy from a morally bankrupt pope.
Bishop Joseph Strickland has written an open letter on “USCCB, The Bishops and Federal Funding”. A copy can be found at “Catholics for Catholics”, cforc.com, 1/31/2025. Well worth reading. An excerpt: “The truth is that having a secure border and an orderly and lawful immigration process is indeed the most compassionate approach for migrants, and it helps to safeguard against the chaos and mass suffering that is happening at our borders now. However, it is a fact that bringing illegal foreign nationals to the country and the attempts to resettle them while sidestepping immigration law has brought great sums of money into the hands of these many bishops who now protest so loudly, and who are in reality present-day Judases who stand with outstretched hands for the thirty pieces of silver.”
Regarding Pope Francis’ dissing “concentric circles”… ummm… in 2021 he’s quoted as stating: “The Opera di Maria, (Work of Mary) or Focolare Movement, has always cultivated, through the charism received from its founder Chiara Lubich, the sense and service of unity: unity in the Church, unity among all believers, and unity throughout the world, “in concentric circles”.”
https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2021/september/documents/20210925-vescovi-amicifocolari.html
Also, regarding illegal immigration, Vatican City is surrounded by a 39-foot wall, and anyone entering Vatican City illegally can be sentenced to 1 to 4 years in jail and be given a fine up to $27,500. Hmmm…
“We are our Rites.” Sacrosanctum Concilium 10:
…the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows.
Well said, Father. How long Oh Lord? I don’t think the next conclave will follow the same route, please God! Daily offering for a swift resolution to it all.
Thank you Father for addressing all this and thank you to commenter Kathleen10 for a very good rant. Regarding the 300K missing children, someone at x/twitter a month or so ago wrote that since the Church is a “federal contractor” in the immigration business, there should be a paper trail of documentation for every one of those children. Thanks also for the insight that charity is now expensive because the religious orders and lay groups are gone.
“SloMo. kaBLAM.”
Yes Father, to me it’s as if something far beyond these issues is about to break it’s bonds
Everyone expressed the common sense and rational of the matters and I agree and need not repeat.
Lately I have become more aware that we are sorely missing a vital component and that is genuine holiness in the church. Not the catching butterflies spirit of things but the hardship of saints. The church needs to return to the pursuit of salvation.
Thanks for all you do Father, and for your “saloon”
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Fr Robert Drinan, first Catholic Priest elected to Congress, Jesuit priest lawyer, human rights activist, and Democratic US Representative from Massachusetts. Drinan left office to obey Pope John Paul II’s prohibition on political activity by priests.
Any interventions on abortion in the last administration?
Our Lady of Fatima, intercede
After reading Father Z and the Comments James C. A question popped up in my brain. Are any of the Vatican Clergy or personel personally receiving cash to help facilitate the invasions of the West? Understand, I am not accusing the Pope of taking illegal monies but when I look at the ppl he has appointed it does raise the question in my mind. If that was proven, it would be the biggist scandal ever.
It’s much more basic than all that.
Vance went to RCIA and was received into the Church in a Dominican parish where he learned basic theology and logic. Francis was schooled in the dungeons of Jesuit obfuscation.
No need to go into lengthy rebuttals. The proper response to his letter is
lol
wut?
Worthy of a wider audience and very much appreciated. How did you, where did you refine your skill at providing the plain truth with the virtue of prudence?
God reward you.
I think more people need to be introduced to Mrs. Jellyby, satiric character in Dicken’s novel Bleak House. She was wife and mother of a large family, but utterly devoted to a missionary project in Africa by the name of the “Borrioboola-Gha venture.” The result of her misplaced priorities was that her own children were utterly neglected, rolling around the floor in various stages of undress, at once malnourished and uneducated. She turned the “ordo amoris” on its head, which had the unfortunate outcome of leading her own children to despise both works of charity and those to whom they are directed.
Pope Francis seems to indicate that extreme need changes any equation, and there is a place for that consideration, but both Europe and North America at present seem to ignore the legitimate needs of existing residents for the sake of potential residents. It’s not a good look for the Church, which is supposed to highlight the goods within the family, nor is it helpful in the end to bring these people to a place where they in turn will be neglected for the sake of the next project.
It was an awesome moment, when JD Vance basically said to the US bishops “You’re wrong,” and I’m going to stop you. Priceless!
With regard to “turning the ‘ordo amoris’ on its head”, one of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters addresses that subject. Screwtape and Wormwood are discussing whether Wormwood’s “patient” — a young man living in England during the German Blitz — should be encouraged to hate the Germans as a means of damning his soul. Screwtape, surprisingly, advises against this, because this kind of hatred would be largely “imaginary” and not aimed at actual individuals (other than, perhaps, Hitler) but at images formed from the media of the day (newspapers and radio). “There is no good inflaming his hatred of Germans if, at the same time, a pernicious habit of charity is growing between him, his mother, and the man he meets in the street”, Screwtape states. IOW, how he acts toward the people who are actually part of his daily life matters far more than how he feels toward people whom he doesn’t know and will likely never meet.
[I don’t understand to whom you think you were responding. It could be you meant this for me, Fr. Z. However, your comments make that hard to conclude. It is always best practice to begin a response or comment to a another commentator with that commentator’s “handle”.]
Everyone is rightly upset about the illegals coming and committing crimes and bilking us. But why are they really coming, beyond free everything? The US State Department, USAID and the intelligence services have been wreaking havoc in Latin America and all over the world in order to gain some US dominance and most especially more money for US corporations and Americans. Sanctions are placed on many countries when they fail to allow us to interfere in their internal affairs, commerce and elections. These sanctions hurt the people, especially the poor. US sanctions caused the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children. Madeline Albright said it was a sacrifice worth making!!!It makes life unlivable for them and they seek to escape any way they can. When the US actively bombs their country, that really causes them to want to escape. No one in their right mind would otherwise want to leave beautiful El Salvador to live in Minnesota. All those Somalis in Siberia, uh, Minnesota really do not want to be there. [Um…. we don’t know that.] The Chaldeans would otherwise not be here either. No one wants to leave their home. Only great desperation moves them. Criminal drug cartels are another story. They force people to work for them by depraved blackmail. Also, US government subsidies to US farmers make it impossible for many farmers in other countries to make enough to sell their food in their own country. US imports are cheaper. So the farmers are desperately poor and then war or US sanctions hit them. Let us stop the State Department from its meddling and most of these illegals will only be too happy to return to their homes!!! [Oh, yeah?] Let me tell no one in Mexico or El Salvador prefers Michigan to their own countries. Also, I do not understand your reference to pro-Hamas rallies. What does that have to do with anything?? [My reference? Perhaps you ought to go back and read that part again.]
A first thing to say to Francis: Do you know what the word “neighbor” means?
“Love your neighbor as yourself”. Neighbors are, by definition, those who live near you. By extension, “near” can be physical distance, or in personal relationships (family), or in OTHER communal relationships, i.e. parishes, businesses, clubs, cities, states…
We have a relation to every human being who ever lived: like me, they are all children of Adam, hence my extended family. But by putting ALL people in the category of “related to me”, that just forces us to look also at the two other factors in the equation: (a) is there a matter of degree in nearness that matters? And (b) what means have I with which to succor my neighbor.
The obvious answer to (a) is yes: degree of nearness matters in my relationships to others in how I express love for them: St. Thomas said “because all acts of virtue must be modified with a view to their due circumstances.“. I shouldn’t punish a child (who needs it) down the street just because he is my neighbor, I don’t have the close relationship of parent to that kid. The obvious answer to (b) is that I have LIMITED means with (including my time) with which to help my neighbor, which implies that I must use prudence to discern where to allocate my effort, and this necessarily means yes to some and no to others. We should have benevolence toward every person, because all are worthy of being loved, but we should provide corporal works of mercy to only SOME because the virtue of prudence demands attending to the details of means and needs. The virtue of prudence requires laws regulating immigration, and prudence about the rule of law requires ejecting those who flout those laws. This prudence PROTECTS the charity we can employ successfully toward the ones rightfully put in our path. (And we see the immense suffering caused when we defy those laws: rape, slavery, sex trafficking, terrorism, drug cartels…)
The Gospels do not provide one single instance of Christ giving money to the poor, though he was free to do so. His primary goal was their salvation, not relieving them of poverty. The one instance where an apostle (Judas) attempted to revise Christ’s use of a luxury because it might have been sold and the money given to the poor, Christ berates him.
Francis’s letter is riddled with hypocrisy and contradictions:
we wish to emphasize that the most decisive value possessed by the human person surpasses and sustains every other juridical consideration that can be made to regulate life in society.
If he really meant this, he would have to get rid of the Vatican’s jail (“detainment center”) and stop handing over convicted criminals to Italy to imprison. And why has he not built St. Peter’s Square over with hotels and grocery stores for the immigrants? He could issue a directive and it would be done immediately.
The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality. At the same time, one must recognize the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe
Yeah, right: those who break the law about immigration are, by definition, law-breakers. And due to the well-known knock-on effect of ignoring laws on one side, you attract ALL SORTS of other illegal behavior when you start to ignore needed laws: “marketing” of border-crossing at high cost (thus stealing their meager wealth), plus the trafficking, drugs, terrorists, and other criminal underworld creeping in. Charity toward LEGAL immigrants requires enforcing the perfectly valid laws for regulating entry by repatriating illegals back to their OWN HOMES.
This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration. However, this development cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others.
This is pure poppycock. In the condition where more want to come in than we can receive at one time, the very act of “regulating” entry enjoins RULES (that’s what “regulating” means) on the many, which divides up the possible immigrants in to some that are received and some that are not. His language pretends that it is never the case that hard choices must be made. It’s pure BS. Moreover, the Vatican doesn’t operate that way, so he knows (or should know) that it’s BS.
[I don’t understand to whom you think you were responding. It could be you meant this for me, Fr. Z. However, your comments make that hard to conclude. It is always best practice to begin a response or comment to a another commentator with that commentator’s “handle”.]
Yes
For Example
I thought Benedict Joseph’s response was aimed at me (since it was directly below mine). It took me several seconds to realize that couldn’t possibly be true.
I have done a pretty extensive analysis of the concept of ordo amoris that Vice-president Vance cites. I did not do an exhaustive analysis because that would take a dissertation (hmm…never checked on that). The analysis is long and detailed. I have read many commentaries on Vance’s recent use of the order of love, pro and con, but almost all of them seem to miss the point.
Would a quasi-historical analysis be of interest to anyone, if this thread still has legs? The upshot of the analysis is that neither Vance nor the Pope are using the term properly, but of the two, the Pope has the better of it. In fact, the whole idea of the ordo amoris is a fallacy of irrelevance and really has no bearing on immigration policy, but I should defend that point.
Anyone interested? I say this with fear and trembling because political discussions, these days, are like mouse traps and every contrary statement is cheese. In other words, I’m not up for trolling or fighting words. It’s just that I spent a couple of days researching and thinking about the issue and I’d hate to see the work go to waste.
What say you?
The Chicken
Equating the three members of the Holy Family and the single victim in the story of the Good Samaritan, which is also done, with the flood of immigrants coming over open borders is quite a stretch. God gave Joseph and Pharaoh a heads up about seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine to give them time to prepare. If the Good Samaritan had to take care of several thousand victims at once I wonder where he would have been able to put them all? As I recall even Mary and Joseph had a hard time finding lodging in Bethlehem. I wonder if the census related travelers had maxed out the local housing resources? Even today something like a convention can cause fully booked up hotels. Every city and state has finite resources to serve the public needs. Open borders treats them like bottomless bank accounts with limitless resources. Even New York City had to cry uncle. Public accommodations are given capacity limits as to the maximum number of persons in the interest of public safety.
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To me the purpose for importing the migrants is to fracture and delegitimize the electorate by the American ruling class oligarchs. These oligarchs have always hated the common man. The migrants are to act like the five peoples who were imported into the Northern Kingdom of the Lost Tribes of Israel (2 Kings 24). The American oligarchs will always want to use the migrants as a weapon to advance a globalist ruling class oligarchy treating the people as serfs.
Like all inveterate liberals, Francis is absolutely unwilling himself to live by the consequences of his own logic and decrees. The severity of the Vatican’s own penalties for illegal entry into the city-state is very well-known. His rant to the American bishops requires no response from anyone with a Christian conscience. Not that they have the courage to do so, but the bishops should ignore this latest eruption of his spleen.