Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

A couple of months back, I heard an interview with the President of the Southern Baptist Convention. He noted that he was the only head of a major denomination to come out for the war in Iraq, and it was because he was democratically elected by his flock. He said that more denominations would have been pro-war if it was just left up to a vote of parishioners.

Of course, this neglects other issues, such as gay rights and abortion, where many denominations are more conservative than their members. These were positions he was okay with, so he didn’t mind that though.

I thought about that when I read this article in the Tucson Citizen about the reaction of conservative Roman Catholics to recent statements by bishops regarding illegal immigration. There is among some of the people quoted in the article policy differences and discomfort with Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony’s rather radical call for civil disobedience. I can understand that, because it is similar to my discomfort with the church’s position on the Protect Marriage Arizona ammendment. We Catholics, liberal and conservative, thrive on being ticked off at one or another political stance that the Church takes. And the Church would not be doing its job if it just took stands that made all of the parishioners happy. That’s what Disneyland is for.

But, one person quoted in the article particularly disturbed me:

Retired IBM manager Rob Haney, a parishioner at St. Thomas Catholic Church in Phoenix, also is strongly opposed to the bishops’ stance on immigration. He feels the bishops are supporting “open borders” that would turn the United States into a “Third World Country.”"They (bishops) have no respect for the sovereignty of the country,” Haney said. “They want more welfare from the federal government to aid illegal immigration.”

By supporting immigration reform that would legalize millions of Latino immigrants, the bishops are undercutting their own stance against abortion, because Latinos tend to vote Democratic, Haney added.

“It makes no sense, ” Haney said.

First of all, Mr. Haney seems to totally misunderstand why the immigrants are coming here. Few, if any, are signing up for welfare. This is because they are basically fugitives, and fugitives don’t tend to willingly put their names and addresses on government sponsored lists. But Haney also doesn’t stop with simple policy differences with Church leaders. He’s angry because these aliens might become citizens and vote the wrong way.

Evidently, in his copy of the Gospels, the Beatitudes have a codicil that says “none of this applies if you have political differences.” Disgusting.

Yes, I’ll admit that church officials often have petty political motives behind what they do. I, for one, will be anxious to see if those three bishops that wanted to deny communion to John Kerry will be nearly as ready to deny it to Rudy Giuliani when he runs for president. Haney seems to think that the Church should only preach charity to people who support it politically (and at that, only political stances he personally supports). Charity is not supposed to be done for political reasons, or only given for people that we like. If it was, it wouldn’t be charity, wouldn’t it?

Another thing I heard this weekend was an interview with Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. He was criticizing Cardinal Mahony’s statements. First he claimed that the Church shouldn’t be practicing charity with “their parishioner’s jobs.” As if there are millions of Amreicans who would love to pick strawberries or wash dishes.

He also said that the Church is free to give communion to illegal immigrants (gee, thanks), but he doesn’t support “harboring” and “smuggling.” Who is harboring and smuggling?

I figured out that his definition of harboring and smuggling is rather broad when he talked about two “Arizona church workers” who are on trial for “smuggling.” He didn’t name them, but he is probably refering to the case of Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz. Calling them “church workers” is probably a bit much. The group that Sellz and Strauss are with, No More Deaths, is an eccumenical organization tangentially affiliated with St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church(a Protestant congregation that a Catholic Arch-Bishop from Los Angeles has no sway over), and the two of them are non-practicing Jews. To imply that the two of them were “directed” to do so by the Catholic Church or any other religious institution is silly.

But aside from that, how is what the two of them did smuggling? They saw some people in trouble and tried to take them to someplace where they could get medical care. I don’t call that smuggling, I call that being a decent human being. In the twisted universe of the anti-immigrant community, this makes them worse than coyotes. I mean, they must think it is worse because I don’t see them getting nearly as angry about actual paid smugglers.