We go to Tom in Los Angeles, California listening on the mighty 930 AM
Immaculate Heart Radio. Tom you are on with Trent Horn, what's your question?
Yeah, I'll try to be succinct, and I hope you'll let me finish before you answer. I
appreciate, you guys are extremely wise. I have a problem with the institution of
the Catholic Church being intertwined with government politics, and I think
that, you know, God set up His Church, and God set up governments, and the role
in my view, of what is my understanding, is that God set up governments for one
purpose: To dole out justice. And, you know, and then the Church is a separate
entity, it's His body of Christ, okay. Now, you're talking a lot about immigration.
It's a classic situation where I think the Catholic institution has
really let God down. Because I'm not talking about legal immigration, I'm not
talking about people who are here, as, you know, because they're fleeing war, I'm not
talking about--and I'm for immigration, I'm for NEAT immigration. What
I'm not for, and what I think God is not for, is illegal
immigration, because illegal immigrants are here, and what
they're doing is it's a form of theft. Okay
Tom, hang on, just a quick sec, I really tried to let you finish because you asked me
to let you finish, but it seems like the point is, you're objecting to the
Catholic Church being so connected to politics. Is that about right, Tom?
Yeah, and, well, with the illegal immigrants, like I went
to the Catholic Church Sanctuary in East LA and there's prayers, they were
asking Trump to do the right thing and let the government--because there's a lot
of the illegal immigrants in that particular Church-- all right hang on Tom,
let's let Trent give it a shot. Yeah Tom, we've gone over the issue of immigration,
I think, to its satisfaction, throughout this hour, so I don't want to
belabor the point more, that the Church teaches that nations have a right to
control and protect their borders and they also have a right to care for
migrants as best that they can. And so you're correct, illegal immigration is a
crime, and that crime needs to be managed in a way that respects the dignity of
the person and the common good of society. I don't think anyone disagrees
with that. But your point, though, about, "Well, the Church is too intertwined in
politics," that the state exists to dole out justice, and the Church does
its thing apart from that, I don't think that means that the Church has no
involvement with the state whatsoever, and here's my question: If the state is
doing something unjust, should the Church do something about that? Yes. Okay,
we have common ground there, great. And also--but the problem is, the Catholic
Church, to me in my mind, is bigger than the government, and I think that
when people are praying the rosary or praying to Mary to let the government
do the right thing, I think what the priest should be saying in the prayer
should be, "God, Mary, please," you know, "forgive me for doing something illegal,
and let me have the strength to go back and do things right, because I am taking
money, and I'm taking resources from so many, we've got--" Okay, you gotta let Trent address it.
Yeah let's...okay. I think what I've been hearing a lot in the in
the calls this hour is an interesting animus towards those who have immigrated
illegally to our country. And I certainly understand the hardship that
many people face in that regard, the example of ranchers who suffer violence
or damage to their lands. Obviously those things would be wrong, and breaking a
country's laws, there should be consequences for that,
I certainly agree. But...well, one, hearing that, another--and once again, if someone
wants to correct me later, that's fine--my understanding is that that immigrants
actually pay, they still pay a fair share of taxes back in to the countries where
they work, providing for their economies through things like sales tax, other
things like this, and don't collect certain government benefits because of
that. But that's a separate issue. That's a separate issue. It seems to me that
what I'm hearing from the callers is, "Well if the Church was really Christian,
it would tell immigrants to immediately self-deport, or encourage their
deportation." And that's not a teaching of the Church. That's up to people to
discuss and dialogue about whether that is the most prudent solution for those
who exist, you know, those who live illegally in a certain country. That
is one solution, but it's quite forceful to say, "Well, if you were truly Christian,
you would promote that solution." Well, you know, when I look at Jesus in the
Gospels, and the love he calls us for others, you know, I don't see that.
What I see is the understanding of what St. Paul says in Galatians 3:28, is that in
Christ there's neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, neither male and female,
we're one in Christ Jesus. And so what we have to understand, then, is to
to respect the dignity of other people, not to infringe on our property rights,
not to flagrantly violate the sovereignty of different nations; but at
the same time, to simply label a group of people as just, you know, "ne'er-do-wells," as
just a scourge, and to remove them will solve our problems, I'm very skeptical of
that approach as well. But once again, that doesn't go back to the main
teaching of the Church, which I've reiterated several times in this
broadcast. These are issues of reasonable disagreement about immigration policy
Catholics can have and do have, and we should continue to have that dialogue,
but let's let's not cut it short by saying, "Well, my way on this prudential
judgment is the Catholic way, and that's it." Sorry,
the Church gives us these general principles on issues like immigration,
then we have to do the hard work of seeing how they apply, and respect the
dignity of all people, regardless, as I said before, of their legal or
residential status.