Immigration debate seems to assume, as a pre-requisite,  the suspension of all common sense.

I have for some time marveled at the chutzpah of the Mexican government lecturing the U.S. on how it should handle illegal immigration.

Regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum on the debate over illegal immigration, it is difficult not to be slack-jawed at the Mexican audacity.  Earlier this year, Mexican President Felipe Calderon lectured the U.S. and Arizona on the floor of Congress over our handling of illegal immigration.  Crushing poverty and crime forces millions to flee Mexico, with the tacit approval of their government, and to enter illegally into the U.S.—and they lecture us.  Like I said, chutzpah.

Frankly, I have never seen anything else like it.  Until now.

The Anglican Church careens down a path ever more divergent from traditional Christianity.  The traditional-minded among the Anglicans begged their Church and their leaders for a safe-haven.  They begged for a place within the Anglican communion in which they could pretend some Catholic sensibilities and retain at least some traditional Christian doctrine.  In a word, the Anglican Communion told them “Nuts!”

The clear message to Anglo-Catholics from their Church, “We don’t care about you.  We don’t want you. Get lost.”

So then these Anglo-Catholics did something many Mexicans do not, they asked for and received permission to immigrate to the Catholic Church.

So now the Archbishop of Canterbury, who heretofore had used his backbone so sparingly that some understandably thought him an invertebrate, wants a say in the conversion process.

In a surprise announcement, Dr Rowan Williams said he wanted to establish a new joint group of Roman Catholic and Church of England figures to oversee the conversion process.

The proposed group would be designed to enable smooth and less painful transition for those who want to leave the Church of England to become Roman Catholics in protest at the ordination of women bishops.

In a related story, a number of foxes have proposed to form a committee overseeing hen-house migration.

Sometimes ‘chutzpah’ doesn’t cut it.