Immigration Reform – God Wills It!
President Barack Obama got some timely help in the immigration fight Sunday, when on CBS’ Face the Nation, Pope Francis’ appointee to the archbishopric of Chicago, Blase Cupich, called Obama’s executive order “an important first step”:
“It’s been too long of a time for people to wait for comprehensive immigration reform. And so we see this as an important first step hopefully to jump start what’s happening.”
Talk about hearing what you don’t want to hear:
NORAH O’DONNELL: What do you think of President Obama’s immigration proposal?
BLASE CUPICH: Well, the bishops of the United States, we’re very much in favor of action being taken to protect people who need to come out of the shadows.
This must horrify Republicans, who have generally counted on the conservative Catholic leadership in this country to support their culture war agenda, though Archbishop Cupich also repeatedly declined Norah O’Donnell’s invitations to attack marriage equality.
It is one thing for 135 legal scholars to say that Obama’s immigration actions are constitutional. That sort of support lacks any emotional level of engagement. It is quite another to find a Catholic leadership that supports a president on an issue they very much want to impeach him for.
Talk about having your legs kicked out from under you. The simple fact is that on immigration they will find no allies in the Church, and for Archbishop Cupich, the executive order, far from being too much, did not go enough:
My concern would be that we would have a policy and procedure that would have a confidentiality provision because if people come out of the shadows and sign up and give their names and information, they want to make sure that that is going to be protected in the future should the executive order change by another administration.
Meaning permanent immigration reform, something Republicans in the House of Representatives have avoided giving America for the past 15 months. You’ll remember they seemed to take particular glee is not moving forward with reform even though it is something the majority of Americans want. At one point, they made clear their failure to move forward was their way of punishing Obama for being “mean to them.”
And not only do Americans want immigration reform, but most Americans support Obama’s executive action. Perhaps worse for Republicans is that 89 percent of Latinos support Obama on immigration. You know this demographic will be voting Democrat in 2016. And now to this broad majority of Americans and overwhelming majority of Latinos, we can add the Catholic bishops:
The aspirations that people have for better life for their children — in which they are reaching out in hope, as many people who have come to this country have — those aspirations were placed in their heart by God. We have to attend to that.
This should not be a surprise to Republicans. After all, Pope Francis early on made clear his own position on immigration and as ChicagoNow’s Teresa Puente reported back in April, “U.S. Catholic officials have launched a national campaign for immigration reform. A group of bishops led by Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley recently celebrated Mass for migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border with Arizona.”
Ironically, this is the same sort of stuff we’re used to getting from Republicans: what God wants. But what God wants here, says Cupich, is immigration reform. And Obama, not the Republican House, is the guy who has done what God wanted done.
Talk about missing out on a chance to score some huge Brownie points with the Big Guy:
This is not something that they’re wanting on their own but God has always called us to a better life, has always called us to experiencing how we can provide for our families in a better way. I think that being the grandson of immigrants I feel that very deeply.
Republicans cannot be enthused by the prospect of more Pope Francis appointees. They have already been greatly horrified to find in Francis a Pope who sounds very much like the president they have spent six years demonizing as an anti-colonialist Muslim terrorist. Calling Obama a Muslim is a tougher sell when the same words are coming out of the Pope’s mouth and the Pope is citing none other than Jesus of Nazareth.
Republicans have spent endless hours trying to use the God of the Old Testament and a weaponized Jesus like a hammer to terrorize American voters, only to find themselves faced by a media-savvy Pope who tweets things like “We pray for a heart which will embrace immigrants. God will judge us upon how we have treated the most needy” (July, 2013).
No. God’s judgment is no longer something which threatens only black Democratic presidents.
It remains to be seen in fear will be enough of a weapon against immigration reform. The best Republicans can do is fill the mainstream media with endless lies, threaten to shut down the government again, call Obama a dictator and a “lawless emperor” – oh, and warn that immigration action will lead to “ethnic cleansing” and “socialism.”
After all, how does that all stack up when compared to what God wants?
And I guess if socialism is so bad we can close the Interstate system and ground the snow plows in order to soothe Republicans’ hurt feelings in the face of such federal tyranny, but those immigrants are here, and it seems very unlikely they will be going home.
They will become Americans instead, and the one legitimate Republican fear will become reality: they will become Democrats. But this is something Republicans have done to themselves. They could have supported immigration reform. They could have passed immigration reform. But they chose to fear monger instead, and to demonize a growing demographic.
Worse, they have now arrayed themselves against what they claim is their own religion. It is one thing to call Obama’s use of scripture “repugnant” and “out of bounds,” as Fox & Friends did recently, but the same language cannot be used against the Pope, and unfortunately for Republicans, the Pope and his bishops seem to be reading the same Bible as the president.
Photo from the National Catholic Reporter
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
It is better we not get too giddy about this. The US Church knows perfectly well that it must prey upon the ignorant, the desperate, and the dispossessed for fresh meat. Where better to troll than among our cross-border populations.
And in the meantime, an Episcopal bishop is calling Obama a sodomite for deporting illegals and separating families. Totally ignoring the fact Obama is trying to end that practice
Religion and conservatism. The biggest jokes ever foisted on the known universe
Until the Catholic church in this country decides to minister to it’s people rather than play conservative political games, they will be a threat to all non-Catholics. Francis is trying, but sweeping the American college of bishops clean of the empire builders is what is needed. It’s good that the church will champion immigration reform, but there may be a twist in that rope around election time…
I wonder… does the church support Muslims who come here illegally?
Or Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Polynesians, or any other non Spanish speaking non catholic type peoples
Keep in mind the catholic bishops are not entirely selfless here. They know the American catholic church is slowly dying. One way for them to fill the pews is to bring in fresh souls in the form of Hispanics from Mexico and Latin America who are overwhelmingly catholic.
such hate from everyone. and at this time of the year… sad. so very, very sad.
And? Show us how you spread love. We support the Bishop, we support not breaking families up, and you call it hate?
And that is the prime motivator here. You are right
The Catholic church is against birth-control, is to have many more good catholic parishioners, to keep the Church going. The more children, the more to brain-wash during parochial school educations.
This a lesson the religious right learned well from the Catholics. Can anyone say vouchers v. public educations????
Most Republicans consider themselves Christian, but their actions speak for themselves. They are Christian in word only and do not practice its tenets. They cherry pick verses from the Bible in order to spread their hatred, not their virtues. They are pretenders and nothing more. Your soul is reflected in how you treat others, especially the poor and homeless. Christians are supposed to be selfless, not selfish. Too many Republicans are of the “I got mine. You’re on your own” mind.
They are ‘Christian’ the same way Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain were ‘Christians.’ 1492, they expelled all the Moors and Jews from Spain. Not their property or money, just the humans.
Then came the Inquisition……
Yes, the same christian kings that enslaved and killed the indigenous population of Latin America, and sucked the silver and gold of Mexico and Peru.
The church and the royalty in the same bed, both sucking the blood of the people.
Now it is the top 1%, same folks…
Many of them have turned away from the Church too. I think it’s more of ending people’s suffering.
It’s a matter of historical record that the Church responds to change. As A.H. Armstrong wrote in 1984:
The choice of the way of intolerance by the authorities of Church and empire in the late fourth century has had some very serious and lasting consequences. The last vestiges of its practical effects, in the form of the imposition of at least petty and vexatious disabilities on forms of religion not approved by the local ecclesiastical establishment, lasted in some European countries well into my lifetime. And theoretical approval of this sort of intolerance has often long outlasted the power to apply it in practice…In general, I do not think that any Christian body has ever abandoned the power to persecute and repress while it actually had it. The acceptance of religious tolerance and freedom as good in themselves has normally been the belated, though sometimes sincere and whole-hearted, recognition and acceptance of a fait accompli.
That is what we are seeing here.