That’s fine, Brother. But the working poor include many more residing in this country than simply immigrants of any origin, of all origins, and of undocumented status. When I see injustice being committed at the expense of other particular poor people (in the distribution of social services which all poor people need), it’s my responsibility to speak up, to make others aware in my sphere of influence, and to try to redress those injustices (also “until the law is fixed”). And unfortunately the bishops conveniently don’t notice, apparently, such injustices being committed, or they don’t believe those injustices are occurring, which is unfortunate if they have not informed themselves.
At my Particular Judgment, Jesus won’t be bringing along stacks of regulations and laws. He will already have “the whole picture.” He’ll have my personal data in front of Him, which is all He needs. He’ll ask me what I did to relieve the suffering of all of my brothers and sisters when I knew of it, not just from the most visible class of brothers and sisters from one hemisphere of the globe, but the less visible poor as well. And if I participated in preferring the migrant poor at the expense of the non-migrant poor, somehow I don’t think that will wash with Him.
You are mistaken on one point. The Catholic Church, especially the religious orders, have done and do a great deal for the poor in this country and aborad, regardless of where they come from. What the bishop is asking for is equity for the poor and what he’s counting on is Catholics, all of us, lay, religious and clergy to come to the aid of the poor, the immigrant and the national. The national cannot be given preference over the immigrant. St. Francis told us that this was immoral. St. Vincent de Paul repeated it. St. John Bosco again said the same thing. Bl. Mother Teresa told us again as did Bl. John Paul II. How many times do we need to hear that this distinction between our poor and the immigrant poor is immoral?
Christ does look at us with a dosier. He does not justify distinctions between the poor anymore than the justified distinctions between the Jews and Gentiles. As Catholics, we have to serve all of them.
As Bl. John Paul said in Baltimore, the American Catholic will be the most severely judged at the final judgement. He pointed out several reasons and among them was the fact that we have been given much and that we still feel entitled to more. What we consider to be just enough, is far above the standard of living in most countries. Maybe our floor can go a little lower. He also said that we use democracy as an end to meet our needs, not as a means to evangelize. We have been given freedom that others wish they had. We use it to get what we want. We don’t use it to change our government and its policies or to make our government work.
I suspect that this is why he is doing the line up of bishops as he’s done in the Provincial Sees of the east coast of the USA. He has put into every Provincial See, the last one being Philadelphia, bishops who have zero tolerance for the US government and its games and bishops who will demand that their people also have zero tolerance. I see as if he’s lining up the chess board. Now, he’s doing the same thing in the southwest. The appointments of bishops for the Provincial Sees are men who have no fear of the government or the people.
There is going to be a point when Catholics in the USA will have to decide whether they are Catholic or patriots. We have a crop of bishops coming up who will not tolerate placing the USA over the Church. The Church allows for patriotism. But patriotism is guided by the Church. It is the Church who says what civil laws are valid and which are not. If they’re invalid, there is no crime in disobeying them. There is, however, a moral obligation on the part of Catholics who have the freedom and the democratic system in their hands to force the arm of government to conform to moral law so that all the poor are served.
Remember, the Church is against welfare states. That’s not how we serve the poor. We provide education and we create jobs. I was thinking about this the other day. I was in the chapel and I asked the Blessed Sacrament, “How much technology is too much? Dear Lord, we are replacing human beings with robots. We are creating unemployment and poverty.”
What inspired me to bring this concer to Jesus was that I had to call AT&T. It took me more than 10 minutes to talk to a human being. I had to talk to robots first. These were jobs that were handled by people who are not unemployed.
We have to fix immigration laws and we have to push our government to do what is the moral thing. Complaining and not saying anything to those who have the power to change things does not work. God will judge us and condemn us for that.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
