Bluster, Distortion and the Truth

Donald Trump has been saying extreme and hypocritical things about illegal immigrants recently, but when I heard Cardinal Dolan called him a "nativist" my first thought was that the Cardinal was misusing language as badly as Trump does, just in a different way. The original nativists he mentions were bigots and didn't care if the immigrants were legal or not. Many people against illegal immigration presently are Catholics, and many of the immigrants coming across are illegals. That means that many are lawbreakers, and some are criminals of a more insidious type. I have never met nor even heard of any conservatives in the immigration debate who are against legal immigration. Never.

This makes the Cardinal's attempted historical parallel inaccurate and, I'm sorry to say, that means he's either being either intellectually lazy or dishonest. Cardinal Dolan writes 3 or 4 articles in the NY Daily News each year, and I'm confused as an American Catholic as to why the Cardinal didn't take this opportunity to write something about this latest Planned Parenthood travesty.

So wouldn't it be nice if, to dispel any confusion, the true Catholic teaching would be stated somewhere officially, in the Catechism for example? Yes, and in his latest article on Stream, John Zmirak points out that it already is:

There is a Catholic teaching on immigration. It offers a brief and sane criterion for principled policy, which it codifies in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. … 

And:

Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens (2241).

Within the bounds of these two statements, Catholic laymen are free — indeed, we’re obliged — to argue about the proper application of this teaching in our own country and context. In the same way, we apply “just war” teaching to particular conflicts our nation faces. While we listen to the advice of popes and bishops, we know that they can be wrong, as some medieval popes were wrong to call crusades against Christian heretics or to wage war on neighboring cities.

After he quotes the passage, Zmirak goes on to parse the phrase “To the extent they are able …”:

This statement is broad enough that we could argue over it indefinitely. Theoretically, the entire population of the world could fit in the state of Texas, with several feet of wiggle room to spare. Does that mean that the U.S. is “able” to accept the entire world? Clearly not, because there are countless economic, environmental, cultural, fiscal and other factors that determine what we are actually “able” to do. All those points are things we must determine by rational argument and setting our national priorities by democratic vote. There is no secret “Catholic answer” to these questions; however, natural law principles can and should be invoked in our discussions of the matter. Such arguments are prudential, and the Church does not pretend to have the competence to answer them; if it did, we should simply ask Pope Francis to use his infallible authority to draw up the U.S. budget every year.

As we always say here, read the whole thing.  This discussion in this article represents the most sensible approach to tackling the sensitive subject of immigration and avoiding both extremes in the debate.

By the way, here's a good link for anyone who wants to get emails to help them read through the Catechism in a year. I just found it, and decided to subscribe to it. I already am using Daily Gospel which is another great email service for daily mass readings.