Bishop blasts Arizona immigration law [CWN]

[Stylites]

One cannot view the bishop’s comments without wondering if he bothered to read the law because if he read it he surely doesn’t understand it.

. . .

The fact that the bishop is passionate in his position is no excuse for being dishonest in defending it.

Faithful and practicing Catholics should not claim that Bishops are dishonest or incompetent.

 

[AnotherVoice]

Faithful and practicing Catholics should not claim that Bishops are dishonest or incompetent.

Perhaps all of us including Bishops should be factual first. If a person begins with an accurate statement of the facts I, for one, tend to assign more weight to the opinions they express. In the debate surrounding immigration, both legal and illegal, there seems to be a distortion of facts in order to intensify the rhetoric.

 

[Stylites]

Perhaps all of us including Bishops should be factual first. If a person begins with an accurate statement of the facts I, for one, tend to assign more weight to the opinions they express. In the debate surrounding immigration, both legal and illegal, there seems to be a distortion of facts in order to intensify the rhetoric.

The bigger point is that faithful and practicing Catholics ought to always assign weight to the opinions expressed by the Bishops. To imply that Bishops are not being factual means they are incompetent or inept or lying, and implying so is most grievous.

On the other hand, maybe Jesus was wrong, and a person can serve two masters. Give it a try and let us know how it goes.

 

[Tigg]

Bishop Zavala mentions “migration” but the crux of this issue, particularly the Arizona law is the differentiation of legal from illegal immigration. **Surely the good bishop does not encourage the breaking of U.S. Immigration laws. **

I am no longer quite so sure about this. The official stance of the church which states that a sovereign nation has every right to protect its borders is now contra-indicative to the political statements made by several individual bishops. Of course as you can see with other subjects, the immigration thing is just one more issue that is confusing faithful Catholics because the prelates no longer speak with a united voice.

The Bishops are not there to run society for you and I. They are speaking out against an unjust law which robs people of their dignity. If you whine about them not coming up with a solution to enacting just immigration laws which relect the reality of our society then you do not understand the role the Church plays in guiding our society.

It is not an unjust law and the political rhetoric I’ve heard has not convinced me otherwise. These people freely and illegally come here, knowing full well the risks they undertake in order to oftentimes, obtain what is not theirs by right. There are so many factors that weigh in on the side of the IMMORALITY of their actions…why don’t the bishops ever address this as it relates to all of society, or the common good?

 

[AnotherVoice]

The bigger point is that faithful and practicing Catholics ought to always assign weight to the opinions expressed by the Bishops. To imply that Bishops are not being factual means they are incompetent or inept or lying, and implying so is most grievous.

On the other hand, maybe Jesus was wrong, and a person can serve two masters. Give it a try and let us know how it goes.

Rather than try to talk around the issue; the Bishop states “We celebrate that police cannot insist that anyone they deem suspicious provide documents proving citizenship, as the legislation called for".

Anyone reading the legislation would know that is not what the legislation called for. Why miscast that fact?

 

[Ender]

Faithful and practicing Catholics should not claim that Bishops are dishonest or incompetent.

Faithful and practicing Catholics are not, however, disbarred from making factual observations, so let me make a couple more. The word “falsehood” means an absence of truth. That is, his statements were incorrect; they may or may not have been lies. What the bishop said was untrue but as I have no idea whether he realized that or not I can hardly charge him with dishonesty. As for being incompetent, what can I say? Those statements he made are wrong - am I not allowed to point that out because I’m Catholic? The basis for his opposition to the Arizona law is invalid. You may draw your own conclusions as to what that says about his honesty and competence; I don’t find it necessary to go there.

Ender