RIGHT SPEAK: Where the Church’s Immigration Rhetoric Fails; Catholic Bishops Chided for Sowing ‘confusion’ On Deportation Stance; Immigration Enforcement and the Christian Conscience

Where the Church’s Immigration Rhetoric Fails:

Catholic discussions of immigration frequently omit salient facts, most prominently the legal status of the “migrant.” I criticized this curious neglect in Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te. In that document, the discussion of “migrants” ignores the question of their legal status. Since then, Pope Leo has acknowledged state sovereignty while saying it must be “balanced” with the duty to provide “refuge”—telling us neither how such balance is achieved nor assuring that the Church won’t always fault nations for addressing a migration crisis. Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich’s latest video insisting the “Church stands with migrants” likewise evades the question of legality.
An honest discussion would not circumvent the issue of legal status, which is why growing numbers of people are beginning to ask whether the Church is a good-faith interlocutor on questions of mass migration. Glossing over the distinction between legal and illegal residency cannot be ecclesial oversight; too many critics have pointed out that the Church regularly sidesteps this issue. Church leaders at times formally acknowledge state sovereignty over immigration, but in practice the rhetoric (“undocumented”) suggests otherwise. Which makes one think the Church is dodging the question of illegal status, a posture more befitting a lobbyist pushing an agenda than an honest broker addressing a question that affects the common good.

The Church seeks to frame the discussion of illegal immigration through the lens of “human dignity.” This is a fitting concept with which to begin. But the Church’s selective use of this framing neglects to address the way in which illegal immigration offends human dignity.

Free will is an essential aspect of human dignity. Man is alteri incommunicabilis: Nobody can will for me. Nobody can ultimately make me want something. I can be influenced, pressured, and even physically forced, but I cannot be made to will something. Even God does not interfere with free will; in the end, he respects what we have chosen, even if we damn ourselves in the process.

Willing is not limited to individuals. Political sovereignty is also an act of will. It is a decision of a community, exercised by its designated leaders. In Catholic thought, sovereign decisions are accorded deference, because the one charged with attending to the common good is supposed to employ an objective overview of the common good—which individual parties with individual interests might not see—when making a decision. It’s why distributive justice belongs to the one responsible for the community and not its individual members.

In modern political structures, the sovereign will is expressed by the democratic choice of a majority, adopted through processes established by rule of law. In our constitutional order, this is done through passing legislation in accord with proper procedures. These laws are entitled to the presumption that they serve the common good, which means that they are not subject to veto by parties outside of the legislative process. There is a profound moral reason for the presumptive respect for validly enacted laws: They express the rightly adopted will—an essential aspect of human dignity—of the organized political community on a question. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 fits that requirement.
Thus, if we recognize human dignity to be expressed through free choices, individual as well as collective, and that the latter deserve our deference as decisions made for the common good by those responsible for that common good, then validly enacted laws also deserve recognition as expressions of human dignity. A political community’s free choice of a morally legitimate option (no one has claimed immigration restrictions are intrinsically evil) by a collective decision in the name of the common good cannot be dismissed on the ground that it affects the human dignity of an individual, as if the individual is the only party that has a dignity claim. --->READ MORE HERE

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters; Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu

Catholic bishops chided for sowing ‘confusion’ on deportation stance:

CatholicVote posits that 'properly speaking, there is no such thing as an official "Catholic position" on the practical details of immigration policy'

After the U.S. Catholic bishops issued a statement opposing mass deportations, a prominent American Catholic group chided some bishops for sowing "confusion" about the church’s official stance on law enforcement and called for a "more complete conversation on immigration."
On Wednesday, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a "special pastoral message on immigration" in which the bishops said they felt "compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity."
In the message, the bishops stated unequivocally, "We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people. We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.
"We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement. We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care."
They also lamented that "some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status. We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones."
A day later, conservative advocacy group CatholicVote issued a report titled, "Immigration Enforcement and the Christian Conscience."
"Despite what some Church leaders in America have indicated, a faithful Catholic can support strong and humane immigration law enforcement — by means such as physical barriers, detention and deportation — without violating the teaching of the Church," the report states.
While the U.S. bishops’ statement invokes the scripture verse, "whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me," in reference to the plight of migrants, CatholicVote’s report states that the "implications of this passage apply to all people — including those left poor, forgotten, unemployed and the victims of crime."
The report posits that while "weak borders and lenient law enforcement are often presented as ‘humane’ and ‘compassionate’ policies demanded by Christian love," such policies "frequently have a terrible human toll — such as when they enrich and empower the criminal cartels, clearly harming both Americans and foreigners in the process."
It also makes the case for deportations even in instances that lead to the separation of families, saying, "In this regard, there is no essential difference between a prison sentence for other offenses and the deportation of illegal immigrants.
"If legitimate law enforcement is disruptive to family life, the responsibility lies with those family members who broke the law." --->READ MORE HERE :