b2059ccf8e008b68b869…

Kindly quit being such an amnesty shill, your holiness

Tancredo has lost my support. So much for Republican conservatives coming up with accurate quotes.

Thank you. Silence was more or less what I expected, since I am confident that nobody can come up with a direct quote of the Pope supporting amnesty/open borders (if anyone can find one, I will be more than willing to concede the point). Even Tancredo can do no better than simply refer to news reports – did the man actually read or listen to any of the Pope’s speeches? Has anyone here actually bothered to look at the source material? It’s all been published in full online.

I have been reading Benedict for a long time without ever having come across the sort of opinion being ascribed to him in this article or in the news reports. Moreover it’s the second time in a month Hot Air has run a misleading story related to Catholic affairs by relying solely on MSM reports without actually bothering to check out the source info (the 7 “new” deadly sins thing) – is this stuff just too good to check because it fits in with pre-conceived notions about the Church?

Benedict is one of the few western leaders who actually “gets” the problem of Islam and the problems with present-day progressivism. He’s trying to reverse the damage done in the Church as best he can, and the Catholics who agree with his plan would appreciate a little more support on calling the MSM and leftie church’s bull instead of seeing the lot of you leap on their bandwagon and proclaim the pope is in cahoots with them. Congratulations, opportunity lost, thanks for lending just a little more legitimacy to the open-borders US Church by not contesting the notion that the pope supports it.

Or Bolton/Tancredo.

Talk about kicking and taking. Sheesh!

————–

Great, great headline, Allah, PBOY.

Congressman Tom Tancredo gave a rather interesting speech on the Pope and immigration. It has caused a stir, mainly due to certain ill-considered suggestions in the latter half of the speech — but the first half appears to me to……

I don’t remember a passage in the Bible that encourages law of the land disobedience and certainly not as a tool to increase the population of one country by migrating from another.

Connie on April 18, 2008 at 6:38 PM

Fr. Torraco responded by saying:

“The positions of various Church leaders on illegal immigrants are entirely their own opinions and not the official teaching of the Church. If the Church has any applicable teaching on this issue, it would be that the civil government has the obligation to uphold laws that are just and citizens are obliged to obey such laws.”

The Catholics at vox-nova.com were very unhappy with Fr. Torraco”s reply. A poster went so far as to say,

“Daniel H. Conway Says:
August 30, 2007 at 9:04 pm

And let me clarify…

I am willing to argue the point, however, and would consider the difficulty (but not impossibility) in disputing this “law and order” stance. And Torraco is not “wrong” in a limited sense.

You know, “prudential judgement” and all…

However, I am shocked by the disappointment with this comment bearing the “EWTN stamp.” This is typical of the EWTN stamp, and if any comment best typifies what EWTN “stamps,” this is it.

Let me extend my comments-I would be surprised if EWTN would permit any other answer than this.

EWTN is politically conservative-law and order, “pull up by bootstraps” anti-welfare, anti-abortion, and frequently pro-war. (Or to rephrase…when did they last oppose a Republican-led war?)

This is Mother Angelica’s EWTN, as I have always known it. Right-wing, cleverly “orthodox,” amidst expressions of overt piety.”

So here we see left of center Catholics bashing EWTN and Fr. Torraco for being right of center. What this says is that the spin for the pro-illegal side of the issue is really coming from the American left/liberals in the Church.

In all fairness, most denominations are experiencing the same left/right split, if not on this particular one, on others.

“Excerpts from Atlanta’s Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory’s homily at the Immigration: The Facts, the Challenges, The Moral Response Conference this past December 4th. For the full homily text, click here.

“The role of the Catholic Church in the current immigration debate in the United States has surprised and perhaps upset many people, including even some Catholics. But the Church’s position on migration has remained consistent for decades. Drawing on some classic principles of Catholic social thought, the bishops of the Church have expressed our opposition to the breaking of laws and unlawful entry into the country. The Church has long acknowledged the right of a nation-state to control its territorial borders and to regulate entry.”

“The State has a very serious responsibility to protect its citizens and this may entail strong immigration controls. At the same time however, the Church says that human beings have a right to migrate – particularly in search of work in order to improve their human condition and to provide for the needs of their families.””

more at link

I think we should be compassionate, but being tolerant of people who break the law then is inherently not compassionate.

Why is compassion always one sided, too? I have never heard one illegal immigrant in all these protests express remorse or concern for legal immigrants who are displaced, ignored or have their status held up because of this illegal alien SNAFU. I don’t see it in the money that is wired back to Mexico when our hospitals are going bankrupt and my city council just voted for a 1% property tax increase every year, standard. I don’t see it in the dearth of illegals who go back to their home countries and try to push for democratic reforms.

I don’t see it in people failing to learn English; when I asked a cleaning lady in a hotel last year for help (the door to the ice machine was locked and my key didn’t work), she said she didn’t understand and then said, “Don’t you speak Spanish?”.

I just don’t see compassion or understanding in the illegal alien movement as a whole. I’m a second generation immigrant and I am grateful for this country’s legal immigration system, but the respect for America isn’t there in the illegal movement, it’s just not. It’s as if they think they are owed this, and their government encourages them in their feelings of entitlement and sends them across the border. I can’t stomach that.

Having one set of rules for one group of people and another for a second is just unfair, not matter how you slice it. In trying to make life ‘better’ for one group, you generally end up taking or depriving another group that in some great social calculus, a fellow flawed human being has decided has ‘too much’.

God is the final arbiter of us; it is not for man to decide that one person deserves what another person has and redistribute according. Who gave government the right to sit in judgment of our lives and wealth this way? We should be a nation of laws, a few reasonable laws, and that’s it, none of this morality handwaving.

As a side, I heard on the radio yesterday driving home that the House has voted to increase funding for college loan programmes. The government loan programme costs over $85 BILLION a year. Only 27 members of the House dissented.

Is education a guarantee of government now, too?

I don’t think your mom is brainwashed or wrong, I would just like to see/hear whatever she did so I can get it from the horse’s mouth, as it were.

In regards to treating immigrants leniently, I think this is a natural extension of God’s being compassionate toward us. Just as He grants us mercy instead of what we truly deserve, so should we extend that caritas to others, insofar as it is compatible with the rule of law.

The Unrepentant Geek said it better than I ever could, but I’ll add my two cents.

People need to take responsibility for their actions. If that means a family has to sell their house, so be it. (Just FYI, about 15 years ago my mom had to sell her house because she was behind in property taxes and they were about to foreclose). If people chose mortgages they couldn’t afford or engaged in unsustainable spending habits, why am I suddenly responsible for them? The Constitution doesn’t guarantee that you will own a home, have healthy kids, have a good job, own two cars, always have the food you want on the table. That is not its job; this is where communities and churches/synagogues step in to help the needy.

I am more than happy to donate to good charities and causes, but not at gun point. I had an in-law one time tell me she is happy about high taxes for the ‘rich’ because she is, “… not a saver.”.

Those of us who chose to be responsible shouldn’t be punished for it, and those who aren’t shouldn’t be rewarded. Everyone has hard times in their life, has had to make tough choices, and most people, at some point or another – in college, first job – has gone a bit hungry. The difference is whether you will learn or change for the better as a result of your experience, but you won’t learn a bloody thing is everyone else is paying the price for your recklessness but you.

The Berlin Wall (physical) and Iron Curtain (virtual) kept people IN, not out. An important distinction.

It is every country’s right to protect her borders – just like its your right to protect your house and family – but it is NOT a right of the state to imprison you within its borders and prohibit the exercise of your God given liberty to vamoose.

I know I read a year or two ago a piece in which the Pope supposedly encouraged America to be kind to illegal immigrants. Can’t even remember where I saw it.

Yesterday however, my mom emailed and was furious, because she had just heard a sound bite from one of the Vatican’s spokesman in which he encouraged America to be lenient on illegals, and she was burned up.

I’ll try to find out more data from her about where she heard it, but as an FYI, she doesn’t read Hot Air, so I doubt its Allah & Michelle brainwashing her. =) My point is, people are getting this impression from other sources.

This is obviously politics, ‘Pontiff style’.

Cyrus on April 18, 2008 at 1:50 PM

Cyrus wrote an excellent post and as far as I can see nobody has bothered to respond.

If what Cyrus quoted is the whole of the Pope’s arguing for open-borders, then I think we have simply fallen into reading the AP liberal bias as truth. Admittedly, it’s sometimes difficult to do, but it’s frustrating to think that we will look out for that bias in reporting on the pope in some contexts (Iraq War, alleged rehabilitation of Martin Luther, etc.), but at least in this context we simply take the media’s word on what the pope actually said.

If any of the commenters here think the Pope is so open borders, I ask that you please post an original speech or document from him that shows that.

This is essentially the Barack Obama line, that people can’t possibly live their lives based on their actual faith, but instead they use their faith as a tool for personal gain. Thus, their faith is contingent on their politics, and I think that is a preposterous claim to levy against the Pope, of all people.

Also, I’ve looked over the homily at Nationals Park and I can’t find any pro-open borders words. Did I miss them somehow or am I looking at the wrong speech? I do, however, see the pope say in Spanish to Hispanics

The Church expects much of you. May the generosity of your gifts never be lacking. “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give” (Mt 10:8).]

He sure seems to recognize that many have gotten a free ride, and he expects them to return the favor. That doesn’t particularly sound like Ted Kennedy or Graham to me.

We’re truly witnessing a “step down” in the ability of people to “honestly argue” on a widespread basis. I’m seeing it everywhere.

Maybe it’s not a true “step,” but it sure seems like the trolls are out in force everywhere wielding fallacies and gratuitous insults like paper sabers.