Pope called for amnesty for all illegal aliens on earth

It just came to my attention that in 1998 the Pope, as reported by the National Catholic Reporter, “called on nations to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants within their borders as a concrete gesture of justice and forgiveness” during the jubilee year 2000. In a speech delivered Oct. 9, 1998 to the Vatican-sponsored World Congress on the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Refugees (reprinted in L’Osservatore Romano, November 4, 1998), the Pope said:

A significant gesture would certainly be one in which reconciliation, a genuine dimension of the Jubilee, is expressed in a form of amnesty for a broad group of these immigrants who suffer the tragedy of precariousness and uncertainty more than others, namely, illegal immigrants.

I found the above quote in an article by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (“Legalization of Undocumented Immigrants,” 2003), which in turn was favorably referenced in another article, written by an American Catholic journalist in November 2004, calling, in the name of justice and mercy, for the legalization of all illegal aliens in America. So the Pope’s sicko leftist statement, made in 1998, has continued to be appealed to by open-borders Catholics over the last six years.

If anyone has a problem with the way I’ve characterizsed the Pope’s views, take it up with him. Tell him not to be interfering in the self-government of every government in the world. If he wants to be respected as the spokesman of Christ on earth, then he should attend to the things of God, not be attempting to impose a destructive leftist vision on earth.

If the Pope called on every government, as an expression of reconcilation and forgiveness, to institute a global redistribution of property among all people, would the Pope’s supporters say that his statement must be treated with deference? If this Pope wants to involve himself in politics, then he has to take criticism for his statements just like anyone else who involves himself with politics. If he wants to be treated as above politics, then he should stay out of politics.

Let’s also recall that this is the same Pope who recently plaintively requested that the European Union in its draft constitution make some acknowledgment of the Christian heritage of Europe. In making that plea, he showed himself to be an utterly typical liberal. As I’ve frequently argued, since liberal principles, if carried out consistently, would wipe out everything of value that exists, from nations and cultures to sexual distinctions, the liberal, when it comes to something that he likes and wants to preserve from liberalism’s depredations (or at least preserve a verbal token of), must make an unprincipled exception to his own liberal principles. Thus the Pope, in pursuance of his liberal principles, tells Europe to open its borders to the non-Christian and Moslem peoples of the world, which would wipe out whatever is left of Europe’s Christian character. Then he turns around and calls on Europe to honor its Christian character.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 09, 2005 01:46 PM | Send