Expert: George A. Card,sfo, M.I - 12/7/2007

Question
QUESTION: I WENT TO A CATHOLIC SCHOOL WITH WONDERFUL FRANSISCAN PRIESTS. ABOUT A YEAR AGO I WENT TO A 5 DAY PROGRAM RUN BY FRANSISCANSABOUT THE CHURCH IN THE MODERN DAY. IT WAS A "BRAINWASHING" OF LIBERAL VIEWS,MOSTLY ABOUT ILLEGAL ALIENS.WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE FRANSISCANS.ELAINE

ANSWER: Peace

dear Elaine,

    Interesting question. First, I am neither liberal or conservative in my religious doctrine, I am Catholic. Politically I have a conservative streak.
  I am sad say some Franciscans and some other Catholics do blur the difference between Moral laws and Political laws. Political Laws should be based on Moral laws.
  As for the questions related to Immigration. We need to remember a few things when trying to find the answers, that are moral. First Aliens whether legal or illegal, they are humans with rights based on that fact. One right is freedom of migration, despite what governments say. Others rights they have based on their humanity not their statue. The ability to exercise those rights may morally be tied to their political-social status. Governments have rights as well, such as determining how one becomes a citizen and how persons are allowed to exercise their rights.

I have a blog where I try to promote the teachings of Christ and His Church related to Social-Moral questions we face today. Below is a link to it. I suggest visiting it, read its mission statement and perhaps join. I will be starting series in the next week or so on some of questions related to yours. Also recently I posted a brief series what is moral-social doctrine of the Church.

I am interested in knowing where you went for your "retreat", so I can perhaps avoid it or see if the views were political when they shouldn't have been.
         your servant but His first
         George/ravJerome72

my blog: http://ravjerome.multiply.com/
if you don't join perhaps save as a favorite to check out time to time. Besides my Social Doctrine essays, I share my poetry.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: DEAR FATHER GEORGE,
  THANK YOU FOR YOUR ANSWER. I DISAGREE WITH ALMOST EVERY POINT BUT I APPRECIATE YOUR SINCERITY. FRANKLY, I  THINK CHRIST WOULD AGREE WITH ME.
  WHERE DID YOU GET "FREEDOM OF MIGRETION" FROM? I'M NOT AN EXPERT ON THE BIBLE, BUT I DON'T RECALL ANYTHING THAT EVEN RESEMBLES THAT. IT SOUNDS LIKE A RIGHT MADE UP TO SUIT A PROBLEM.
  CHRIST TOOK ACTION WHEN THE MONEY LENDERS WERE ABUSING THE TEMPLE ,WHICH WOULD BE HIS DEVINE RIGHT, I DON'T BELIEVE HE ADVOCATED LAWLESSNESS FOR THE MASSES.RENDER UNTO CAESER ETC.INDICATES TO ME THAT HE BELIEVED IN THE LAW.
   THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS THE POWER AND MONEY TO HELP THE MEXICANS IN MEXICO. WHY HAVEN'T THEY DONE IT? SURE, IT'S A LOT EASIER FOT CALIFORNIA BISHOPS TO STAY IN THEIR AIR CONDITIONED HOUSES AND CITE "HUMANITY" THAN TO HELP THAM WITHIN THE LAW IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY.THAT DOESN'T SEEM VERY CHRIST LIKE TO ME.
  THE RETREAT WAS IN LOUSIANNA BUT THE FRANSICANS WERE FROM ILLINOIS. I WENT TO CATHOLIC SCHOOL IN NEW YORK STATE.

         ELAINE

Answer
Peace

dear Elaine,
 First, I am not a priest or even a deacon. Rav in ravJerome is Hebrew for rabbi. It's a nick name from former cfc students who did a special study of the Old Testament.
  Second, Catholic don't believe the doctrine of Luther called: Sola Scriptura. We believe that doctrine is revealed in Sacred Scripture AND Sacred Tradition as is witnessed to by the Magisterium of the Church.
Now to you question. I agree with you when Christ was indeed against lawlessness. The Church has help the poor in Mexico and elsewhere. In some countries its illegal for the Church and its members to do charity work, as a religious society. In fact, at one time it was illegal to do so in Mexico. Below is part of a series I wrote a while ago. It might give you something of a biblical answer to what you have asked for. I couldn't find part two which had the New Testament as its focus.

The Biblical Theology on Immigrants and Foreigners
(with an Old Testament Focus)

Our focus will be narrow, as we consider a complex bundle of Old Testament texts, namely the biblical laws relating to the various types of foreigners in ancient Israel. Like all collections of legal material, these texts are complex and at times confusing to us.

Certainly the nation of Israel needed some legislation to know how to deal with such people. Israel occupied a central position in the Ancient Near East, had a policy of preserving the nation's integrity and identity, and, owing to the volatile and at times barbaric nature of the ancient world, was continually confronted with the presence of foreigners in the land.
Old Testament law distinguished between the native Israelite and various types of foreigners. The key word is the Hebrew term ger which is variously translated in English versions of the Bible as stranger, sojourner or alien. There are two types of strangers:
the assimilating stranger, who chose to fit in with Israelite culture and religion. (The Greek Old Testament translates it with proselutos, from which we get the word proselyte.)

The non-assimilating stranger, who though having settled in the community chooses to retain an independent sense of identity. This type can be broken down again, into the individual immigrant who is taken into an Israelite home as a guest, and at the other end of the spectrum, the tribe of foreigners who settle in Israel in a clientele relationship to the Israelites. The Hebrew word nokrim, usually translated strangers, are the true foreigners who live in their own country outside the land of Israel.

In short, biblical law is remarkably generous towards and supportive of the strangers in Israel. It is acknowledged that such people have no power, and are frequently poor and needy. Yet they are accorded fair and hospitable treatment. Whether assimilating or not, strangers were protected from abuse, especially abuse stemming from patriarchal authority, protected from unfair treatment when employed by Israelites, and protected from unfair treatment in the courts, including justice at the city gate.

They were also offered various degrees of social inclusion depending on the willingness to assimilate.

For example, aliens, or proselytes, to use the Greek term for an assimilating alien, were allowed to participate in the major Israelite feasts, including Passover and the Day of Atonement. They had equal access to the cities of refuge and, in the post-exilic period, even had the prospect that they might inherit land.

Basically, strangers were to be treated as native-born Israelites with only a few qualifications.

The non-assimilating strangers were not prohibited from eating anything found dead (Deut 14:21; cf. Lev 17:15 which apparently refers to the assimilating stranger). A second difference is more profound: assimilating strangers were not considered Israelites in the full ethnic sense, probably in recognition that their ancestors did not experience the saving events of the Exodus and Passover.

The motivation supplied to secure Israelite compliance to these positive and politically enlightened laws are the reminder of the Israelites' ancestors' time as slaves, that is strangers, in Egypt. For example, Exodus 22:21 states: 'Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.' The same logic is inherent in the so-called golden rule, Jesus' summary of the Law and the Prophets, 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' As Exodus 23:9 puts it, the Israelites 'know the heart of the alien', seeing they were once aliens themselves.

The example of God is also cited as a motivation, as in Deuteronomy 10:17-19: 'The Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, he shows no partiality, . . . and loves the alien.'

Most remarkably of all, in the same chapter where the famous and often quoted 'love your neighbour as yourself' appears, in Leviticus 19 the Israelites are commanded to 'love the alien' (v.34). The definition of the neighbour to be loved extends it seems to the foreign immigrant, without the restriction that they be of the less objectionable assimilating kind.

At face value, the biblical laws relating to the stranger in the land of Israel model a generous and hospitable approach to the foreigners in the midst, without insisting on assimilation.

In Israel's case this was motivated by the personal experience of once being strangers themselves, a motivation which may have a broader application than first appears in the light of New Testament teaching on all Christians as aliens and strangers.


         your servant but Christ's first
         George/ravjerome72