Sanctuary?

[BrooklynBoy200]

I was watching the Hunchback of Notre Dam a while back ( i’m not sure why), and like a person runs into the church and asks for sanctuary and the law isn’t allowed to get to her. Like, she can’t be arrested while in the church. Is this still around? Or was that only around because the Church was pretty much the government too?

 

[LilyM]

It wouldn’t happen these days. I don’t mean that anyone would forcibly go into a church and drag someone out - it’s still not a good look.

But churches, if I remember correctly, used to be obliged to give permanent shelter to whoever asked for sanctuary. There are places like Westminster Cathedral in England that I believe had accommodation attached for this very purpose.

These days that wouldn’t happen - they all lock up at night and kick everyone out, so your criminal would simply be arrested at that time instead. Although the church still helps people in need in many other ways of course.

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

I was watching the Hunchback of Notre Dam a while back ( i’m not sure why), and like a person runs into the church and asks for sanctuary and the law isn’t allowed to get to her. Like, she can’t be arrested while in the church. Is this still around? Or was that only around because the Church was pretty much the government too?

Yes that still happens today in some parts of the world like, Chicago.

 

[SamDash]

The concept of sanctuary dates to the Pentateuch.

“Whoever strikes a man a mortal blow must be put to death. He, however, who did not hunt a man down, but caused his death by an act of God, may flee to a place which I will set apart for this purpose. But when a man kills another after maliciously scheming to do so, you must take him even from my altar and put him to death.” (Ex. 21:12-14)(NAB)

“Now these are the cities you shall give to the Levites: the six cities of asylum which you must establish as places where a homicide can take refuge…” (Num. 35:6)(NAB)

“…then the community, deciding the case between the slayer and the avenger of blood in accordance with these norms, shall free the homicide from the avenger of blood and shall remand him to the city of asylum where he took refuge; and he shall stay there until the death of the high priest who has been anointed with sacred oil. If the homicide of his own accord leaves the bounds of the city of asylum where he has taken refuge, and the avenger of blood finds him beyond these bounds and kills him, the avenger incurs no bloodguilt; the homicide was bound to stay in his city of asylum until the death of the high priest. Only after the death of the high priest may the homicide return to his own district.” (Num. 35:24-28)(NAB)

It was recognized by Roman law as early as Constantine, and formalized in English law as early as the 7th century. From the 10th century sanctuary was widely used, until greatly restricted under Henry VIII. It was formally abolished by James I in 1603.

It still exists, but with no formal sanction of law. (Notably, in 2005, Congress passed a law allowing churches a limited ability to recruit illegal aliens for certain activities. The immigrants themselves were not immune from arrest, but the church and its staff were immune from charges of wrongdoing. The law was introduced by Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah at the behest of the LDS).

Churches have given asylum to runaway slaves in the 19th century, Vietnam draft evaders more recently, and I recall a case in the last few years of a church sheltering a soldier who refused to go to Iraq. In the 1980s, the “Sanctuary Movement” was big, with churches protecting Central American immigrants from deportation. Someone has already mentioned the case a few months ago of a United Methodist church in Chicago sheltering a woman who faced deportation.

christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/october/9.35.html
slate.com/id/2147879
law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/crcl/vol38_2/logan.pdf

 

[carmelspirit]

Sorry to say but pseudo-churches like the store-front “Adelberto Church” in Chicago, hide behind their tax-exempt religious organization status to lobby, politic, and electioneer on behalf of illegal aliens and other socialist groups like the SEIU, Pueblo sin Fronteras, the ISO, etc. THis is the church where the twice deported, criminal illegal alien fugitive, Elvira Arellano is hiding out (and I use that term loosely). Any institution that harbors, aids/abets, illegal aliens should lose their tax-exempt status. I’m sure that would stop the sanctuary movement dead in its tracks.

 

[quasimodo]

The USA has no tradition of sanctuary. Your milage may vary in other parts of the world.

 

[Contarini]

Sorry to say but pseudo-churches like the store-front “Adelberto Church” in Chicago, hide behind their tax-exempt religious organization status to lobby, politic, and electioneer on behalf of illegal aliens and other socialist groups like the SEIU, Pueblo sin Fronteras, the ISO, etc. THis is the church where the twice deported, criminal illegal alien fugitive, Elvira Arellano is hiding out (and I use that term loosely). Any institution that harbors, aids/abets, illegal aliens should lose their tax-exempt status. I’m sure that would stop the sanctuary movement dead in its tracks.

Christians have faced martyrdom. Hopefully we could face loss of tax-exempt status if we had to.

Sanctuary is an important part of Christian tradition, and giving sanctuary to “illegal” immigrants (I use quotation marks because an unjust law is no law, and immigration law appears to be very unjust from what I know of it) is probably the most important way in which the tradition can be upheld in our culture.

National boundaries have no intrinsic sanctity for a Christian, though of course we should respect them when doing so does not violate more important principles (of which there are many).

Edwin

 

[carmelspirit]

The United States has the most generous immigration laws in the world and is one of the only nations that allows birthright citizenship. We have over 79 different types of visas and we welcome over ONE MILLION legal immigrants per year. We have several visas for unskilled workers, guestworkers, temporary workers, asylum and refugees. Now what is unjust about that? That even with that over a BILLION people would want to come to the U.S. and because we, like every single nation in the world have to limit the numbers so as not to undermine the opportunities and quality of life for the citizens and immigrants that are already present.

Have you ever read Mexico’s immigration laws? The hypocrisy of Mexico to denounce our laws as unjust, inhumane or unfair is laughable if it weren’t so outrageous. What is unjust, inhumane and fundamentally and morally wrong is for a rich country like Mexico to all but abandon any social, economic and governmental policies that would provide economic and educational opportunities for its vast underclass. The moral vacuum lies with the Mexican government who has cleverly chosen to use and encourage illegal immigration into the U.S. as a substitute for investing in the education, health and welfare of 3/4 of its citizens. The fact that the clergy isn’t putting pressure on Mexico and its counterparts to fix their country and help their own people is quite troubling.

 

[TheApologist]

When I was doing a paper on Medieval Times, I came across Sanctuary in towns.

From what I researched, a criminal could declare Sanctuary in a church for one hundred days and a good citizen would stand outside the church at the time to make sure he didn’t leave. At the end of the hundred days I have no idea what would happen. I assume the reasoning behind declaring Sanctuary is that maybe criminals wanted to find peace with God over his crime in the confessional and peace with God on entering prison(or maybe facing the death penalty) through prayer. Sound good?

 

[Contarini]

The United States has the most generous immigration laws in the world

American nationalists are always proclaiming that the U.S. is the greatest and best and in all ways most wonderful country in the world.

So of course it should have generous immigration laws. It’s silly to go around comparing the U.S. to other countries who do not have the same level of wealth and were not based on immigration in the same degree. I’m not as strongly in favor of immigration in the European context, because there you do have traditional national identities. In the case of Mexicans, the U.S. forcibly conquered a large portion of Mexican territory in the 19th century, and many Mexicans are descended from the indigenous peoples who in North America were genocidally massacred in order to make room for all these immigrants.

However, the justice issue I had in mind has to do with the quota system that unfairly restricts immigration from large countries with great numbers of poor people–such as Mexico.

And then there’s the issue of recognizing people who have lived in this country for years, have worked hard, have children who are citizens, etc.

Anyway, in the context of this thread the point is that the Church has the obligation of granting sanctuary to people in need.

To TheApologist: it’s true that most of the sanctuary stories I can think of ended badly–typically the pursuers eventually found a way of luring the fugitive out of the church and killing them. There are many such stories in Gregory of Tours’ History of the Franks–which is exciting though disturbing reading.

And then there’s St. John Chrysostom and Eutropius. Eutropius was a eunuch who had essentially functioned as the prime minister of the Eastern Roman Empire (and had incidentally tried to violate sanctuary in order to hunt down his enemies). When he fell from the emperor’s favor, he took shelter in the cathedral. Chrysostom gave him sanctuary and refused to hand him over to the emperor’s soldiers, but when next Sunday came he pulled back a curtain to reveal poor Eutropius cowering underneath the altar–and then preached a powerful sermon about the emptiness of human power and the changeability of human life, with the former “prime minister” as his object lesson!

That was a guy who knew how to bishop. . . . .

St. John Chrysostom, ora pro nobis!

Edwin