Echoing Leo, which is the real Catholicism -- the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (as a whole) or individual bishops (such as Chaput) or the commenters here (playing at being "reactionaries")?"
Here is an official statement by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops concerning (the political joke known as) "comprehensive immigration reform".
Those who refuse to admit that The One True Bureaucracy is at war with our nation, and indeed with all Western nations, will seize upon the portion I will quote first, while totally ignoring the portion I will quote second (which is the reason for the order in which I quote).
Under the heading: Catholic Social Teaching --
"The Catholic Catechism instructs the faithful that good government has two duties, both of which must be carried out and neither of which can be ignored. ...
The second duty is to secure one’s border and enforce the law for the sake of the common good. Sovereign nations have the right to enforce their laws and all persons must respect the legitimate exercise of this right: "Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption. 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." Catholic Catechism, 2241."
That sounds so good, doesn't it? Well, unless one looks too closely at what is actually said.
Consider: "Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions ..." But, of course, if they may, then they may not; that is, according this quotation from the Catholic Catechism, the enforcement of the "second duty[, which] is to secure one’s border and enforce the law for the sake of the common good" is not a matter of the duty of officials to uphold the laws of their "sovereign nation", but rather is a matter of the discretion of officials whether they will uphold the laws of their "sovereign nation".
Consider: "Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them ..." Really? And who is going to make this law and enforce it? Does the USCCB allow that the "political authorities" may deport immigrants who do not meet their "oblig[ation] to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them"?
Right!
Even in this part, which those who refuse to admit that The One True Bureaucracy is at war with our nation will seize upon, what is actually said is inimical to the interests of the citizens of the United States (and of all Western societies).
Now, for the second quote from the USCCB's stance paper --
"The Catholic Catechism instructs the faithful that good government has two duties, both of which must be carried out and neither of which can be ignored. The first duty is to welcome the foreigner out of charity and respect for the human person. Persons have the right to immigrate and thus government must accommodate this right to the greatest extent possible, especially financially blessed nations: "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. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him." Catholic Catechism, 2241.
According to the USCCB, the *first* duty of "good" government "is to welcome the foreigner out of charity and respect for the human person". According to the USCCB, the *first* duty of "good" government is not to safegaurd the security and well-being of the society of human persons over whom it asserts authority to rule, but rather it is to welcome the alien, over whom it does not assert the authority to rule, who chooses to intrude upon the society over which it does assert the authority to rule.
According to the USCCB, "[p]ersons have the right to immigrate", from which it follows that "thus government must accommodate this right to the greatest extent possible" ... and, of course, "the greatest extent possible" is throw open the borders, which happens to be precisely what the USCCB is shilling for.
But, look at that assertion again: "[p]ersons have the right to immigrate". Really? Since when?
The Founders of the US government asserted that "[p]ersons have the right to emmigrate" -- which, let it be noted, was a novel and revolutionary assertion by those who would rule over a people. But to say that "[p]ersons have the right to emmigrate" is a very different thing than to say that "[p]ersons have the right to immigrate".
Our Founders asserted that neither they nor any other set of rulers owned the human persons over whom they ruled. The Roman Denomination asserts that no existing human society (especially the ones which are "prosperous") has the right to limit, much less refuse, aliens intruding into its midst.
It's a matter of simple logic: IF "[p]ersons have the right to immigrate" -- if persons have the right to come into a society -- THEN societies have a corresponding "duty is to welcome the foreigner out of charity and respect for the human person ... to the greatest extent possible".
Further notice, this isn't *just* the damned (and I mean that word most literally) "liberals" of the USCCB -- and who happen to be the spiritual overseers of you American Catholics -- simply making these assertions; they are directly quoting the Catholic Catechism. This call to national suicide is made not just by the USCCB, but by The One True Bureaucracy as a whole.
13 comments:
Roman Catholicism has proven itself false many time over. I mean, the current "Pope" is at best a cultural Marxist, and at worst an anti-Christ.
Many Romanists -- including many at The Orthosphere -- like to blame Protestantism for the main ills of the Western world. But, the turth is, the mains ills that are killing us -- leftism and modernism-leading-to-post-modernism -- arose out of Catholicism ... and then mostly swallowed it.
Ilion,
You might profit by reading THIS. I especially recommend the second to last sentence.
As is by now well-established custom, when the point may touch, however peripherally, upon one of your pet peeves, you miss the point.
OT but I thought you'd get a kick out of him finally admitting it (like that time on the trinity).
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2016/04/on-being-underwhelmed-by-economists.html
"labor mobility is a necessary component of free trade from theoretical, logical, and empirical standpoints"
This written by a man living in Italy, who just edited a book written by an American, and then produced by a Finnish publishing house.
Equally OT response --
Vox Day: -- "I have yet to hear a single free trader even TRY to respond to my point that if the international economy was opened up to free trade to the extent that the domestic economy is, US labor mobility indicates that nearly half of all Americans would be forced to emigrate by the time they turn 35.
Free trade. Nations. Pick one."
Translation -- I made a pointless (and baseless) assertion; no one has "responded" to it; ergo, I'm correct in my assertion that the only way to perserve one's nation is to use state violence to force the politically unorganized many to subsidize the politically organized few.
The fact is, we went that route in the 1970's for the auto industry: the big-shots -- in both the corporate offices and the labor union offices -- looted the American people and gave us trash in return. It was only after they were *forced* by free(ish) trade competition to improve their product that they did finally improve their product.
If a US citizen buys a foreign-made product which is available to him because of free(er) trade, he is generally (*) not buying from a government, rather, he is buying from an individual -- it is not the USA buying a bottle of wine from the Republic of France; it is a US citizen buying a bottle of wine from a French citizen.
Protectionism is the demand to enslave that US citizen (and all his multitute of fellow citizens) for the narrow benefit of a small number of persons (who may or may not even be citizens).
(*) exceptions would be products from slave-states, such as China or (soon to be) Cuba.
But what is "free trade"? Free trade would be other countries freely sending goods from their companies to us, not US companies outsourcing their production to said countries and then shipping their products back to the US. That's corporatism and crony capitalism, not free trade.
"Free trade would be other countries freely sending goods from their companies to us ..."
You missed my point. Normal countries don't trade with the USA; rather, their citizens/subjects trade with our (so-called) citizens (*).
"But what is "free trade"? Free trade would [not] be ... US companies outsourcing their production to said countries and then shipping their products back to the US. That's corporatism and crony capitalism ..."
That's neither corporatism nor crony capitalism. However, it is one possible result of liberty acting in response to perverse government policies -- in fact, the attempt to prevent this *would* be corporatism, which is to say, fascism.
Look, either one is committed to liberty, or one is not.
However much I may deplore "US companies outsourcing their production to said countries and then shipping their products back to the US", it is none of my business as a citizen. That isn't to say that as a consumer and as a member of society I can do nothing in response, such as refuse to buy their products; it's just that it is an attempt to violate *their* liberty if I try to use government violence to compel them to expend their resources as *I* think they should rather than as they wish.
(*) By the way, once one *grasps* this, one sees the stupidity of tracking, much less hyperventillating over, the "balance of trade". A "negative balance of trade" from now until forever doesn't put the USA in hock to anyone. A "negative balance of trade" will last only so long as private entities can convince foreign entities to sell to them on credit -- when that gravy-train comes to a stop, it's the foreign entities who are in the lurch, not the USA.
However, the present debt-economy, which is driven by cash-transfers from the USA to private entities, and financed by the USA borrowing everything it can borrow, *does* put the USA in hock.
Vox has accepted a debate so this could bear further watching.
I saw that. Specifically, I saw -- and laughed at -- this "A professor of economics with a PhD from the ultimate monetarist school throws down a gauntlet, albeit in a considerably more civil manner than I've come to expect from my critics ..."
It's one of those days that I've totally missed the joke.
The joke is Vox Day whining about lack of civility "from [his] critics".
Mind you, I'm accusing him of hypocrisy because he is "mean" and ruthless; I am accusing him of hypocrisy because he is a hypocrite -- try to criticize him (*) where he ultimately has control over who can say what, and one will quickly learn that the more cogent the criticism, the more he cannot blunt it, the more he will ban it.
For all his good qualities (and he does have them), he's not really all that different himself from the Social Justice Wankers.
(*) and I mean criticize, not guttersnipe or anklebite
Gotcha, and you're right, I've also noticed that.
You see his post on the debate?
It's as if the more clearly I am able to think through these complicated issues, the harder I find verbally articulating the path through them.
aka the tumblr-esque "I can't even!" or "the more in my bubble I get, the harder it is to relate to people outside it!"
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