So, you’re saying that if, for example, your bishop says he thinks Right to Work laws are a good idea, you have to prove him wrong before you can legitimately have an opinion on the subject?
This is also true of my dead battery problem. I made no argument that all solutions are morally valid.
Your last statement is simply untrue; it’s done all the time. Your assertion would make it impossible to imprison anyone who had children. Nor do I consider it a moral disorder to deport an illegal alien even if it forces such a choice on him. We all recognize situations where separation is a valid option; what we disagree about is when such an action is appropriate and, as the action is not intrinsically evil, we know such situations exist.
This difference is not a moral issue, it is a circumstance and while circumstances need to be taken into account when determining what to do they are of themselves not moral issues.
True, what they do no have is a moral right to insist that the country they wish to enter must take them in, as the Church has also said she *“recognizes the right of States to control their borders and the entry of persons in their territory.” *These are often competing rights and the determination of which right should predominate in specific situations is one of *“the particulars of contemporary society” *about which only prudential judgments can be made.
True, the problem is that many bishops speak as if support was a moral obligation, when, as you acknowledge, it isn’t.
The problem comes when bishops exercise their rights as citizens to speak out but leave unanswered the question of whether they are exercising their moral authority as bishops. A bishop has the same right as I do to push for specific proposals but he fails in his duty as a bishop if it is implied there is a moral obligation to assent to his political opinion.
We are peers on the golf course and also in politics. Given that discussions about concrete solutions are political rather than moral I certainly consider myself not just your peer but a peer of the bishops as well. As a matter of fact it is not I who has intruded onto their territory but they who have wandered into areas which are properly the responsibility of the laity to address.
Moral harm? I know what harm is and I know what immorality is but I don’t understand the term “moral harm.” What I certainly don’t have to do is prove that one solution will be more harmful than another; that’s what the debate is (or should be) about. There are possible solutions to the dead battery problem that involve immoral behavior. By this standard being unable to start ones car would be a moral problem.
Once again, this standard would have prevented anyone from speaking up on the sex abuse scandal. Perhaps this thinking is why it took so long to have the problem addressed.
Neither he nor I said we could “blow off” our bishop’s opinions but Dulles most assuredly did say we don’t have to assent to them. That’s what this statement means: “To differ from such a [prudential] judgment, therefore, is not to dissent from Church teaching.”
None of these examples is relevant to what is being discussed. All of these things are within the bishop’s responsibility as the head of his diocese. Political issues do not fall under this heading.
The Catechism is quite specific on our obligations to assent (891-892). Infallible doctrines “must be adhered to with the obedience of faith.” With regard to a non-infallible proposal of the Ordinary Magisterium, we *“are to adhere to it with religious assent”. *There is nothing suggesting we have any obligation to assent to prudential opinions.
I have never suggested, let alone said, this. You should be more careful with your allegations.
I think the problem that you’re having here is that you keep saying, “many people” would think so or think not. Many people don’t have any moral authority. Bishops do. We have to forget what many other people think or don’t think. It’s irrelevant when it comes to calling something moral or immoral. What is relevant is what do moral authorities say.
No. My statement was to a question that I raised. Let me go back to that. As I read this thread I’m horrified to see Catholics say that they wish that bishops would stay out of politics or would not express their opinion on this matter or that this has nothing to do with the faith.
I’ve had hundreds of them seek my legal counsel, true, most were several years ago when I lived and practiced in LA, but yes, I’ve known ALOT of them in a professional setting. Then there’s the testimony of colleagues in immigration law…not as many try going back and forth as you claim. Also, they need proof of status to enter at a Port of Entry, not just an ID, and getting a passable fake green card is NOT easy.
I have to speak up here. I work in the healthcare industry and can say, people who are not paying expenses associated with their care are, for the most part, Americans. Healthcare has risen to such a point that people just cannot afford proper healthcare ‘out of pocket’, if they don’t have insurance. What is the number one reason for personal bankruptcies in America?
Thank you! Some sense from someone in healthcare on this issue!I have to speak up here. I work in the healthcare industry and can say, people who are not paying expenses associated with their care are, for the most part, Americans. Healthcare has risen to such a point that people just cannot afford proper healthcare ‘out of pocket’, if they don’t have insurance. What is the number one reason for personal bankruptcies in America?
And I work in the healthcare industry too , and your post does not mitigate my point regarding the affect of illegal aliens on health care providers . I did Not say that illegal aliens were the largest or primary cause , rather I said in reference to them , " in no small part " . Their part is significant .I have to speak up here. I work in the healthcare industry and can say, people who are not paying expenses associated with their care are, for the most part, Americans. Healthcare has risen to such a point that people just cannot afford proper healthcare ‘out of pocket’, if they don’t have insurance. What is the number one reason for personal bankruptcies in America?
It has been frequently pointed out that the bishops of the United States are all speaking out on this issue, to different degrees, but all condemning current immigration laws as unjust. Thus, in accordance to your quote, this teaching has a tremendous amount of weight and authority behind it.
Since our bishops have defined immigration as a moral issue, who am I to disagree. I lack the expertise and authority that they have.
Okay, then. Post for me where the bishops (not the USCCB laymen) say that each of those things I posed, or any of them, is inherently immoral, including, but not limited to, sending a Norwegian and his American born child back to Norway, or the Iranian government sending me and my child back to the U.S.I think the problem that you’re having here is that you keep saying, “many people” would think so or think not. Many people don’t have any moral authority. Bishops do. We have to forget what many other people think or don’t think. It’s irrelevant when it comes to calling something moral or immoral. What is relevant is what do moral authorities say.
Bl. John Paul made it clear that deportation can be immoral when it is unjustly applied. The question that bishops are raising is a valid moral question. Who gave the State the power to break up families, regardless of how they got here? The state does not have the moral authority to hurt families. The argument that they state would not be doing this if the family were here legally does not hold with the Catholic Church.
In moral law, the rule is very simple. If you directly attack the family, no matter how good your intent, such an attack is morally wrong. The Church holds the family as sacred and commands the state to do the same.
The problem that we have in the USA and Europe is that citizens don’t want to recognize the right of the Church over the state. There are areas that are the proper domain of the state, but doing moral harm is not one of them. Monitoring borders is good. Deporting people who enter a country to do harm is good. Those things fall under the domain of the state, how the state does it, falls under the moral domain of the Church. The Church gets to tell us when the state is crossing a moral line. The expectation is that in a democratic society, we will reign in the state to make conform to our moral principles. But in this country and many European countries, we’re not doing that. We’re turning on the Church. There is a great danger there. The moment that you give the state any authority over the family, you’re going to have a very hard time reigning it in. The Church is very wise and universal. She has seen this happen around the world in other countries. This concerns her. It should concern all of us.
We need to tell the state that it has to protect us, but it may never do harm to that which we hold sacred. Hopefully, we do hold the family a sacred. Along with that, are the rights of citizens. If one citizen has the right to be here, so does another. And if that other is a child who cannot advocate for his rights, then it is the duty of the Catholic next to him to do so. We cannot remain silent, because it’s in our interest, when the interests of children are at risk. Another moral issue is proportionality. We cannot call criminal someone who breaks an unjust law. Nor can we treat two people the same, when they are not. A person who crosses a border with the intent to sell drugs is not the same as one who crosses in search of a better life for his children. All of these are moral principles that the Church has the right to teach and demand that Catholic citizens impose on its rulers.
We have to be very careful in this country. I’ve lived in countries where the state was given so many “rights” that in the end, there were very few rights that the state did not take away.
The state has obligations and its only right is to fulfill those obligations. I think that we use the words right and duty interchangeably and we confuse ourselves.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
I doubt they are breaking the law. There is no law that mandates enforcement of all laws. However, I think you introduce a valid point. This action is no more than a bandaid on the injustice in our current immigration laws. They need to be changed, not ignored.
But I never said bishops have no right to speak, about politics or anything else. You are mistaking me, I think, for someone else who possibly did say that.No. My statement was to a question that I raised. Let me go back to that. As I read this thread I’m horrified to see Catholics say that they wish that bishops would stay out of politics or would not express their opinion on this matter or that this has nothing to do with the faith.
My point is that if you want to tell a bishop to shut up, because this has nothing to do with the faith or he has no right to express his opinion, you had better be able to prove that. Otherwise, you can’t tell a bishop to shut up. His role is to govern and to be the conscience of society. He’s not just a sacrament dispenser. He actually has temporal rights that the Church grants to him.
In addition, in our Catholic tradition, we do not tell those above us when they can speak, nor do we tell them what is or is not in their domain. This is a whole new mindset here. For centuries bishops and popes have been telling governments and their citizens their position on thsi or that. For centuries many monarchs and governments tried to quiet the Church and he Church will not be silenced.
At some point, we should learn that it’s not going to happen. Either we accept that our bishops have the right to critique the state and even challenge it or we deny them that right, but then we must leave the Church. We cannot stay in the Church on our terms. As Archbishop Chaput said to the K of C. Itis true that some religious leaders deserve to be called out, because they do some bad things. It is another to be antagonistic and to treat the bishops and the clergy as if we own them.
Disagreements will happen. But intolerance toward the bishops is not acceptable in the Catholic Church. It has never been allowed. Today we don’t have an Inquisition that will go after us, but it doesn’t mean that we’re now free to be intolerant and antagonistic toward them, just because we’re not going to be put in prison.
That’s where I was going with my statement. I hope that I made it clearer and I’m sorry if it came out confusing.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
Your post is filled with generalizations.