I don’t keep up with things that are happening in states far from me, and since the Soviet of Washington State is far from virtually every state, I had not heard about this (from a priest commenting on this piece):
Circumstances are qualifiers in our moral judgments of situations all the time, and we tend to forget that when we are faced with the necessity of judgeing the behavior of others. I used this argument in a response last Wednesday to the Catholic News Service article on the Alabama Immigration bill, which basically renders all ministry to those immigrants who are here illegally—even sacramental ministry and the rendering of such basic forms of human assistance as food, shelter, and medical care—as crimes punishable by incarceration. This, of course, is utterly ridiculous! To criminialize the Church for fulfiling her Christ-given mandate to serve the poor in his name, as if the preferential option for the poor should exclude those who are here illegally. The point that I made was that many of the immigrants who have come here, if not most, have done so out of desperation in order to feed and care for their families, who are either with them or remain in their countries of origin. Their desperation should be considered a mitigating factor in any discussion of the “sins” of illegal immigrants who have “violated” our borders. Instead, our societal judgement of the undocumented among us seems harsh and uncharitable, and not at all what one would expect from disciples of Jesus Christ toward those who are poor and down-trodden. The entire issue of immigration should be viewed by Christians through the prisms of the Church’s teaching on the preferential option for the poor and the universal destination of all goods, which you reference in your article above. When viewed this way, the undocumented among us are not “illegal immigrants” but rather, like the sons of Jacob who came before Joseph in Egypt, they are our brothers and sisters who have come before us in time of need.
I think this attempt by Caesar to block the Church from performing the works of mercy and the sacraments for the poor is as despicable as Caesar’s recent attempts to force priests to break the Seal of the Sacrament of Confession. Caesar is welcome to try to enforce his man-made rules about who gets to stand on US soil and who doesn’t. But the Church is answerable to a higher law and is bound to welcome and serve the least of these regardless of the status of their paperwork. Catholics should be very concerned about this attempt by Caesar to intrude on the Church’s sacramental and moral duties, and in particular on the threat to jail Catholics for doing that duty, just as they should be concerned—and vocal—about State attempts to violate the Seal.
This will, in all likelihood, be cast as a Left/Right issue in the media. But it’s not. It’s a question of the Church’s legitimate independence from State domination. Give the State the power to jail priests for serving illegal immigrants sacramentally or via the works of mercy today, and you help to guarantee giving Caesar the power to listen in on your confessions tomorrow—undoubtedly under cover of “national security” or some such lying rubbish.
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Very good, Mark.
Is this one of those “jailed if you do, damned if you don’t things?
We need to get him out of office!!
Perhaps we should all just start training for prison ministry.
The issue of illegal immigration continues to confound us, and I struggle with the conflicting aims of upholding the law and serving the poor among us.
However, it seems so simple to divide the priorities of faith and state - we people of faith and our Church should continue to see to the spiritual and material needs of all persons we encounter, while the state should take a stand in other areas, (e.g. withhold driving licenses for illegals). This action in Washington state is clearly trying to attack the Church under the guise of something else - radical secularization.
Thank you for writing this!
You are right Mark. This is very troubling. If you watched the Republican debate on Fox this past Thursday, you saw Gov. Perry ridiculed for giving children of illegal aliens in-state tuition rates and tuition assistance. Tuition does not fall under the sacramental aspect of the preferential option for the poor (at least I don’t think it does) so the state has the right to get involved. We give in-state residents the lower rates and those who qualify tuition assistance. Why not give those to the children of illegal immigrants? They are here through no direct action of their own. We want them to be productive members of society. Most cannot afford college and this policy makes it possible for them to attend and have better job opportunities than their parents. It is to our benefit that they become US citizens and become educated members of society. We win with this policy yet all of the Rebpublican candidates besides Perry say we should not give them Government assistance. WOW, I thought the Republican party was supposed to be Christian and hold to Christian ideals.
Where is your source for this news? I can’t find it anywhere on the internet, except something about Oklahoma Churches getting in trouble for aiding an illegal immigrant who was deported once and came back a second time.
As one of the elders who talks to himself and Jesus and shouts at the TV occasionally, in one of my discussions with God I went through all of the resons why we shouldn’t aid the illegals. The answer I got in every instance was “feed the poor.” They’re here illegally? ans. “feed the poor.” It’s our tax money? ans. “feed the poor.” What about those who are here legally? ans. “feed the poor.” After exhausting all my questions it was as if God said “stupid don’t you listen, just feed the poor.
They’re trying to suppress the church in all ways possible. If these new guidelines go through and all insurance must provide free sterilizations and free contraceptives with such a flimsy exclusion clause all Catholic universities, hospitals, grade schools, etc will have to close. It’s that or fire all non-Catholics and only accept Catholics to be taught or treated. Free care provided by Catholic Charities will now have to ask if the person is Catholic and turn away non-Catholics. Inner city Catholic grade schools which are a refuge for children whether Catholic or not will have to change or close. Their other choice to go against the moral teachings of the church.
Is this really true? Is there an Alabama state law which SPECIFICALLY criminalizes these acts of charity?
I have seen this on a few other sites (U.S. Catholic in particular) but I have yet to see ONE QUOTE from the legislation in question.
I would wager that this legislation is simply over-broad and that this is an interpretation that is as renegade as any law officer would be in trying to enforce it in the manner specified.
Seriously, how does the law really read?
It is a shame that the ACLU was successful in having the Ten Commandments banned from the Alabama Supreme Court.
(As Charlie Venus infers… the Gospels imply that “Charity” is implicit on US and not on the “State”.[which willingly sucks the dollars out of our pay checks and gives them to those that the STATE determines to be their beneficiary]).
We need to be doubly wary of the marxists that the current administration are populating our courts with.
I would recommend a constitutional ammendment which requires any law unconstitutional to go back thru the legislative process, so that Judges can not make the law, but only interpret the law.
I thought I read the the section in question in the Alabama law merely restates Federal law. I can’t find anything to that effect but, if it does, then is this any new power play by the state?
This is the good christians in Alabama. NOT the feds folks. Arizona wants to be loving to immigrants.
Not Obama’s fault! States rights, Right?
I wasn’t sure anyone even noticed my original post, Mark, they were so busy beating up on you. Thanks! In response to Tom D., google Alabama Immigration Law and you can easily find the wording of the law. The problem is that the wording is overly-broad, and can be interpreted in such a way as to be used to prosecute anyone assisting those who are illegal. Feeding and sheltering someone you know is illegal suddenly becomes “harboring,” and giving someone a ride (to mass, for example, or to an ESL class) becomes “transporting of illegal aliens.” Legislators are saying that that is not what the law means, that the intent is to prosecute those who are involved in the actual trafficking of illegal immigrants, but in practice the language needs to be crystal clear about its intent or it will too easily be abused. There doesn’t seem to be an over-reaction here on the part of the Catholic clergy and other denominations, but rather an expression of genuine concern for the over-reaching of state authority.
The entire text of the Alabama law can be found at Latin America News Dispatch (latindispatch.com), but it is a grueling task to read it. There is also an interesting and short analysis of the religious implications of the Alabama law based on a few case laws from the past. The article is entitled “Immigrants—and Christian Charity—Unwelcome in Alabama” by David M. Krisch. You can find it on a blog site of the New York Law School (www.lasisblog.com). I don’t know anything about Mr. Krisch, but he reaches the same cautionary conclusions that everyone else seems to be reaching about the potential dangers of the law, if it is allowed to stand as is. There is also a good letter from the Archbishop of Mobile, Alabama on the Archdiocesan website about the issue, but he doesn’t quote the text of the law.
Steve, you write “I would recommend a constitutional ammendment which requires any law unconstitutional to go back thru the legislative process, so that Judges can not make the law, but only interpret the law”. Do you know an example of an “unconstitutional” law that is currently on the books and not being tested?
This Alabama law seems to be Republicans going to their far right base during this election cycle. Cheering for Death penalty cases, and dying from lack of insurance and booing gay servicemen who want equal treatment. I should have said earlier, with the Republican Arizona immigrant check laws, this is a natural extention.
Mark, why not just skip Ceasar and tell us Obama is Caligula? That would make things simpler and show us your motivation.
Nothing to do with the Obama adminstration, its a poorly written right wing bill by the Alabama GOP. I think it is actually intended to not stand up well in court so the GOP can milk the issue for another election cycle with the ‘activist judges’ meme and not have to actually do much about the real underlying issues.
The CA GOP ran on one of these sort of anti immigrant laws in 1994 or 1996 as a voter prop that had at least eight violations of the US consitution (they were clearly informed of this BEFORE the election and persisted). The law never went into effect as the fed courts struk it down piece by piece (as predicted by every reasonable legal analyst). The state wasted tens of millions in court costs and the state GOP completely walked away from it and never mentioned it again.
Rover:
This piece has nothing to do with Obama (though Obama has his own designs on trying to crush the Church’s liberty where he can. Caesar is bipartisan in his hostility to the Church). Also, if you were familiar with my work, you would know that I (like the Pope and the bishops) oppose the death penalty, among other things. Stop jerking your knee.
Excellent point about Caesar’s bipartisanship political machinations! Come to think of it, it’s best that we have that healthy tension between church and state where the church is neither a wing of the state or the state finds itself overcome by any particular group of Christians. James Madison, well familiar with Britain’s religious wars and also quite keen about the festering tensions between the increasing numbers of mostly Scotch-Irish Presbeterians who moved past the Anglican Tidewater aristocracy into the Blue Ridge Mtns and Shenandoah Valley ... knew how explosive the growing social divisions caused by ancient religious strifes brought over from Europe and Great Britain in particular would become in the new nation. Hence the First Amendment.
Odd how the most fervent believers nowadays seem willing to discard the very Amendment that’s done more to allow this nation to become the most devout of all major nations with a predominately Christian population base. The moment we declare ourselves official to become a “Christian nation,” that’ll REALLY be the day when American exceptionalism is buried once and for all.
Hi Fr. Leonard!
Please accept that my motive in questioning this story is to avoid ridicule of the Church. I personally want to see illegal immigration curtailed. I also personally do not want to see peaceful illegal immigrants hurt by the application of law. This is a real conundrum.
I recently was in an auto accident that was caused by a man who likely is an illegal immigrant. When he did not leave the scene of the accident he begged me to not call the police, and so I did not (first time ever for me).
Yes, you are correct that the text can be googled. My complaint is that reporters are not including the text, and are not comparing it to the federal law. I myself googled this text:
“Any person who . . . encourages or induces an alien to . . . reside . . . knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such . . . residence is . . . in violation of law, shall be punished as provided . . . for each alien in respect to whom such a violation occurs . . . imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.”
This text is NOT from the Alabama law. It is from the Federal Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952.
It would seem that the Alabama law IS principly just a restatement of Federal law. My understanding is that a 1930’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling states that State laws regarding immigration can ONLY restate Federal law. So, for me the bottom line is that the Church should avoid embarrasing itself over the Alabama law (or worse by calling the 1952 law immoral), and reserve its moral authority for criticism of any egregarious enforcement of the law.
Tom D,
I am certainly no lawyer, and can only say that there is plenty of concern out there for the implications of the Alabama law. It may very well be, in part anyway, a restatement of federal law. Nevertheless, its provisions are apparently a serious cause for concern, and how the two laws (the existing federal and the new state law) relate to one another is for minds more learned than my own to figure out. One thing bishops have plenty of these days is legal counsel. If they are concerned about the implications of the Alabama law, then rest assured it is a cause for concern. At the heart of the matter is not simply the issue of illegal immigration (which is not a simple issue at all!), but rather the freedom of the Church to be faithful to her mission in the world. There are many other areas in our society where the Church’s freedom is being threatened, like the recent HHS regulation on contraception and sterilization in private health plans, and the President’s statements contra DOMA, to which Archbishop Dolan has eloquently responded. The Church’s freedom in this country is under attack. Mark’s article is aptly titled: Caesar grabbing for more power over the Church! That is the REAL issue here.
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