Additional Information Regarding Illegal Immigration - Including REAL Church Teaching

Yesterday I raised a number of questions about the sudden increase in the number of children being sent from Mexico and points south of there to the United States.  I had suggested that perhaps the children were seized from their parents.  Another possibility might be that Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and other countries are emptying their orphanages and juvenile detention centers and literally dumping their problems and responsibilities into our laps.

Read about the deal cut between Mexico and Guatemala.  They call it the Southern Border Program to Improve Passage.  It sounds so nice and official, doesn't it?  Unlike the US today, Mexico takes its border control responsibilities seriously - particularly to its south.  However, Mexico is cutting its immigrants a break, provided that their ultimate destination is the United States via our porous southern border.  People coming into Mexico will receive a "Regional Visitor's Card", allowing them to stay in Mexico for up to 3 days - enough time for them to make their way to the northern border.  Of course other countries such as Honduras and El Salvador will be sending their migrants through Mexico, too.  Wanna bet that the Obama regime is in on the scheme?

We also hear that on Friday some Central American leaders pressed Vice President Biden to "improve migrant rights".  One might wonder why Biden didn't retort that these countries should be addressing their national ills that would impel their citizens to leave their countries.  But again, Biden is in on the scheme.  One of these (so-called) Central American "leaders" was Jorge Ramon Hernandez, president of Honduras.  He threatened to continue the rapid influx of Honduran children "unless immigration reform" happens.  That's nonsensical.  Suppose the US "reformed" immigration to his liking; does that mean he'd stop sending Honduran children?  But wait!  Let's leave that irony aside for the time being!  Didn't we just read of another Honduran leader trying to cajole the US into accepting Honduran children - "problem children" to be precise?  Read yesterday's post!  That other Honduran leader, closely echoing his president (and NOT Church teaching) is Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga.  They're spouting the same talking points, hoping we won't notice.

As far as Church teaching goes on the matter of immigration, might not the Summa Theologica of St Thomas Aquinas have something to say on the matter?  Here is the second part of the first part of his work; scroll to Article 3.  John Horvat has commentary on it.  Time prohibits me from going into a full analysis.  Suffice it to say that the Angelic Doctor clearly states that a nation has the right and responsibility to control who gets to enter into the nation and if/how immigrants assimilate into that nation.  St Thomas states that the nation's leaders have a responsibility to secure the best interests of the nation and its citizens.

Getting back to the massive shipment of Central American children to the US, one must wonder if the USCCB is being complicit in what may be a child-trafficking scheme.  With the millions of grants they've received these past two years, do they care?

Why We MUST Speak Out When Clerics Err Publicly

I post below a video by Fr Paul Nicholson, but before I do, I want to post this piece by St. Thomas Aquinas.  He is a Doctor of the Church (probably one of the leading ones) and author of Summa Theologica, from which this quote is taken.  This is from "the second part of the second part", question 33, article 4, reply to objection 2.  It reads (in part), "It must be observed, however, that if the faith were endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly. Hence Paul who was Peter's subject, rebuked him in public, on account of the imminent danger of scandal concerning faith and, as the gloss of Augustine says on Galatians 2:11, "Peter gave an example to superiors, that if at any time they should happen to stray from the straight path, they should not disdain to be reproved by their subjects."

Now the video.

Catholic Morality And Right To Self Defense

Thanks to Pewsitter today, I found an excellent treatise on the right to self-defense as found in Catholic tradition.  The author refers both to Summa Theologica (click here and go to Article 7) and the Catholic Catechism, summarizing the conditions under which the use of lethal force may be allowed and even mandated.

I suggest that all read it.  One interesting point he makes is why so many abortion proponents seem keen on depriving us of the means of self-defense - and he makes perfect sense.  The progressives who push for abortion and the destruction of the traditional family wish to make the state into a de facto deity.  The right to self defense comes from God - a source outside the state.  Thus they perceive this right as a supreme threat to their state-idol. Their puppets in the USCCB and various chanceries are merely doing their bidding to make people more dependent upon, and subservient to the state-idol.  Why are these preceding sentences italicized?  You'll see below!

A perfect "case-in-point" occurred yesterday in the online edition of the Not-So Catholic Reporter.  The bloviations typical for that rag run rampant throughout the article, calling for disarming the citizen (What?  Do you  think crooks are going to obey gun laws and surrender their arms?)  One source of the whining is John Gehring of Faith in Public Life.  My Catholic Media Coalition colleague, Stephanie Block, exposed Faith in Public Life for the left-wing front organization that it is.  Here's another piece that she did.  Faith in Public Life has taken money from George Soros.  So much for their credibility when it comes to things Catholic.

Another key whiner is none other than the USCCB.  They issued a statement that says in a footnote (tucked away so we nasty right-wing bloggers don't notice!), "However, we believe that in the long run and with few exceptions -- i.e., police officers, military use -- handguns should be eliminated from our society."  Now compare this statement to the italicized sentences two paragraphs prior to this one.  The USCCB is indeed spouting the talking points of their progressive puppet-masters.  They are doing so even to the point of dissenting from Catholic moral teaching in regards to the right to self defense.  To me, that means that the push to disarm that may come from "social justice" arms of chanceries and conferences must be opposed and resisted as the departures from morality that they are.