Catholic Bishop of Dallas Says Illegal Immigration is a Right

This is the typical thinking by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.   They condone criminal behavior in the name of compassion. 

This week is National Migration Week, a campaign of the American bishops aimed at comprehensive immigration reform in order to legalize 11 million undocumented immigrants.

http://bishopkevinfarrell.org/blog/2013/01/immigration-is-a-natural-right/

Comments posted on the bishop’s website that he needs to answer:

How does your position square with the Catechism of The Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, which states:  “. .. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the maaterial and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, TO OBEY ITS LAWS to assist in carrying civic burdens.” (CCC 2241).  Why do Church Leaders always omit this teaching?

I am a practicing Catholic but I must disagree with you. People do have the right to immigrate but it is not an absolute right. The place they are going to has its own rights and that place has the right to tell the person coming in that they must go through a process to become a citizen. Just as the Catholic Church tells people coming into the Church that they must go through RCIA. That is my view and I have not been convinced otherwise so far. If you can speak to that point then I may change my mind.

One certainly does have the right to emigrate. However, this right is subject to the right of the host country to regulate its immigration policies according to its own vital interests. Accordingly, those who seek to emigrate have obligation to adhere to the immigration laws of the host country.   This fact is ignored by those who enter into this country illegally, especially through our southern border. They are, unfortunately, aided and abbetted in this by unscrupulous politicians, groups like the National Council of La Raza, and, yes, even the U.S. Bishops Conference.

Even the most modest attempts to deal with the serious problem on our southern border like Arizona’s SB 1070 are met with scurrilous and I believe, calumnious accusations by prominent American Catholic Bishops. Cardinal Mahony’s equated SB 1070 to the “techniques of German Nazis and Russian Communists” (http://cardinalrogermahonyblogsla.blogspot.com/2010/04/arizonas-new-anti-immigrant-law.html) and Archbishop Dolan equated it with the of Klu Klux Klan and KNow Nothing Party of the 19th century (http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=36322). When actually reads SB 1070, whose “papers please” provsion is pursuant to existing federal law that has been on the books since 1940, one cannot find an even remote justification for the remarks of Cardinals Dolan and Mahony.

The Catholic bishops have an obligation to teach the faith on this issue. And that is clearly deliniated by citing the binding moral principles which in turn demands a recognition of the legitimate concerns of all sides involved.

Sadly, by taking sides on issues like this, the bishops undermine the proper Catholic understanding they were ordained and consecrated to uphold. And it is the poor migrants themselves who harmed the most by it.