Canonical Penalties For Border Patrol Agents

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Bishop Weisenburger of Tucson, Arizona raised the issue of canonical penalties for U.S. border patrol agents for simply doing their jobs. I find his statement to be puzzling since the U.S. Bishops have never brought this penalty up with regards to the hundreds of U.S. politicians who are in favor of abortion which includes high profile ones like former Vice President Joe Biden and the Democratic Majority Leader of the U.S. House Of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.
 
Cordelil said:
Bishop Weisenburger of Tucson, Arizona raised the issue of canonical penalties for U.S. border patrol agents for simply doing their jobs. I find his statement to be puzzling since the U.S. Bishops have never brought this penalty up with regards to the hundreds of U.S. politicians who are in favor of abortion which includes high profile ones like former Vice President Joe Biden and the Democratic Majority Leader of the U.S. House Of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.
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If he’s in favor of canonical penalties for pro-abortion political figures, then I support him.

If he’s against canonical penalties for pro-abortion political figures, then I do not support this.
 
What are the canonical penalties which Bishop Weisenburger of Tucson, Arizona has spoken about ?
 
It’s lawful for a nation to manage its borders.

I’m sure it’s been going on longer, but I specifically remember back in 2013-2015, there was a big surge of unaccompanied minors. They had to set up camps for them to see if there would be an adult relative to sponsor them/release them to. A lot of these kids came from Honduras/Guatemala/El Salvador, which means it would be reasonable to estimate a trip of at least 2000 miles, and is at least the distance from Washington, DC to Salt Lake City.

Yes, splitting families is a different thing from unaccompanied minors. But if someone’s a genuine asylum seeker, you seek asylum at the first border you cross, at the port of entry-- not travel 2,000 miles through someone else’s country(ies) and seek asylum where you want to.

We (the Dept of Health & Human Services) have resettled 7,635 kids from El Salvador/Guatemala/Honduras between 10/17-12/17. That’s almost 8k kids in a three-month period, and we spent $1.4 billion to accommodate nearly 41k unaccompanied minors in 2017 . O_o

I think perhaps the Mexican and Central American bishops need to start looking into canonical penalties for people who promote all the gang violence that are causing people to flee those countries in the first place…
 
phil19034 said:
If he’s in favor of canonical penalties for pro-abortion political figures, then I support him.
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Aren’t there already penalties for them? Namely that they are not in a state of grace and therefore not eligible to receive the Eucharist?
 
phil19034 said:
If he’s in favor of canonical penalties for pro-abortion political figures, then I support him.

If he’s against canonical penalties for pro-abortion political figures, then I do not support this.
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I do NOT support this either way. Even reading that statement is making me angry. (Not yours, Phil, but the suggestion that they should face penalties for doing their job.) Before I get too worked up, though, I would like to see a link to what the Bishop actually said. Perhaps it was taken out of context.

Do people even have an idea of how hard a job being a Border Patrol agent is, or how risky, not to mention thankless (even more than I previously thought, obviously)? Do they or the bishop even know what they do? Wow. Are we going to start placing penalties on “regular” police who separate mothers from children when mothers get arrested or incarcerated? This whole thing is so politically charged, it’s ridiculous.

ETA: But yes, I agree with the above point that it would be very hypocritical to start targeting border police when most bishops aren’t doing anything about “Catholic” politicians who support abortion and so forth.
 
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Some of these bishops…

They certainly seem to be in bed with the DNC as they will speak about subjects like immigration until they’re blue in the face, but abortion and the sanctity of marriage will have to take a back seat for some reason despite how much more these are pressing matters and dogmatic teachings of the Church.
 
Thing is, it is not a zero-sum game.

You, I, a Bishop, can oppose both abortion AND breaking up families. We can oppose both rape AND murder.
 
Sorry - I can’t get rid of my ad blocker to access the article. Would you mind describing what this link contributes to the discussion?
 
gcshapero said:
They certainly seem to be in bed with the DNC as they will speak about subjects like immigration until they’re blue in the face, but abortion and the sanctity of marriage will have to take a back seat for some reason despite how much more these are pressing matters and dogmatic teachings of the Church.
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They’re one with Christ, which is why they’re standing up for this current crisis.

When you have the heart of Jesus, and his blood shed on the cross flowing through your veins, you will have the same compassion He did for the masses.
 
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TheLittleLady said:
Thing is, it is not a zero-sum game.

You, I, a Bishop, can oppose both abortion AND breaking up families. We can oppose both rape AND murder.
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Yes.

But are we really “breaking up families,” or is it a temporary situation necessitated by their parents’ (or other accompanying adult’s) actions and limited current availability for housing centers? I do wish people would read the article above before jumping on the bandwagon that is currently being promoted by the media. Not to mention blaming the Border Patrol agents for the situation.
 
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I’ve read many, many pages of ink on this topic.

The bottom line is I agree with our Bishops.
 
EnglishTeacher said:
Another perspective:
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While it is very true that the ultimate fix is in the hands of Congress, the executive branch is responsible for enforcement. President Trump’s administration can do just as Presidents before have done and choose to limit enforcement in favor of keeping families together as much as possible.
 
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Outrageous! I guarantee if this goes into effect, more Catholics will leave the church!
 
Thanks for sharing the article.

Looking at the two issues, performing an abortion and unjustly tearing children away from their families are both acts denounced the bishops. And while it’s obviously worse to crush children in utero than take them away from parents, both involve direct, material cooperation with evil.

This is different from holding “pro-choice” or pro-family-separation opinions, or even voting for legislation that upholds either one. Both are evil, per our Church, but their cooperation with evil is formal, not material.

So if clergy is willing to deny Eucharist to those engaging in formal but not material cooperation with evil - e.g. Pelosi and Biden - it would only make sense to deny it to border patrol agents, even if they pull the Eichmann Defense.

So I don’t think that likening this situation to pro-abortion rights politicians is a good analogy.

If at least one bishop is considering canonical penalties, is he suggesting that the action is a mortal sin? I’ve never heard of canonical penalties for venial ones . . .
 
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I don’t think it will; it sounds like he was basically throwing it out there as an suggestion. But the lack of judgment and knowledge he demonstrates, both about the situation and the “culpability” of the Border Patrol agents, by proposing such a nonsensical idea, is disturbing.
 
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