The Holy Family, Refugees in a Strange Land
The Gospel reading for today’s Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph has provided the backdrop for recent papal teachings on the Church’s view of immigration. Doing what was necessary for the good of Mary and the baby Jesus, Joseph led his family out of Israel and into the land of Egypt as a migrant refugee. The Church reminds us that Jesus is identified in special way in the face of the immigrant and that all Catholics must respect the dignity of, and work for justice for, all migrants and refugees. We shall be judged according to our love and evangelization.
Instead of my own thoughts, here are some from Pope Pius XII, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI:
The émigré Holy Family of Nazareth, fleeing into Egypt, is the archetype of every refugee family. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, living in exile in Egypt to escape the fury of an evil king, are, for all times and all places, the models and protectors of every migrant, alien and refugee of whatever kind who, whether compelled by fear of persecution or by want, is forced to leave his native land, his beloved parents and relatives, his close friends, and to seek a foreign soil.
For the almighty and most merciful God decreed that His only Son, “being made like unto men and appearing in the form of a man,” should, together with His Immaculate Virgin Mother and His holy guardian Joseph, be in this type too of hardship and grief, the firstborn among many brethren, and precede them in it.
In order that this example and these consoling thoughts would not grow dim but rather offer refugees and migrants a comfort in their trials, and foster Christian hope, the Church had to look after them with special care and unremitting aid. She sought to preserve intact in them the Faith of their fathers and a way of life that conformed to the moral law. She also had to contend strenuously with numerous difficulties, previously unknown and unforseeable, which were encountered abroad. Above all, it was necessary to combat the evil work of those perverse men who, alas, associated with migrants under the pretext of bringing material aid, but with the intent of damaging their souls.
How serious and grave would be the reasons for anxiety and anguish had the Church’s spiritual care been lacking or found wanting in the past or the present!
Pope Pius XII, Exsul Familia Nazarethana
“I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Mt 25:35). It is the Church’s task not only to present constantly the Lord’s teaching of faith but also to indicate its appropriate application to the various situations which the changing times continue to create. Today the illegal migrant comes before us like that “stranger” in whom Jesus asks to be recognized. To welcome him and to show him solidarity is a duty of hospitality and fidelity to Christian identity itself.
Pope John Paul II, Message for the 1996 World Migration Day, no.6
On the occasion of the coming World Day of Migrants and Refugees, and looking at the Holy Family of Nazareth, icon of all families, I would like to invite you to reflect on the condition of the migrant family. The evangelist Matthew narrates that shortly after the birth of Jesus, Joseph was forced to leave for Egypt by night, taking the child and his mother with him, in order to flee the persecution of king Herod (cf. Mt 2:13-15). Making a comment on this page of the Gospel, my venerable Predecessor, the Servant of God Pope Pius XII, wrote in 1952: “The family of Nazareth in exile, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, emigrants and taking refuge in Egypt to escape the fury of an evil king, are the model, the example and the support of all emigrants and pilgrims of every age and every country, of all refugees of any condition who, compelled by persecution and need, are forced to abandon their homeland, their beloved relatives, their neighbors, their dear friends, and move to a foreign land” (Exsul familia, AAS 44, 1952, 649). In this misfortune experienced by the Family of Nazareth, obliged to take refuge in Egypt, we can catch a glimpse of the painful condition in which all migrants live, especially, refugees, exiles, evacuees, internally displaced persons, those who are persecuted. We can take a quick look at the difficulties that every migrant family lives through, the hardships and humiliations, the deprivation and fragility of millions and millions of migrants, refugees and internally displaced people. The Family of Nazareth reflects the image of God safeguarded in the heart of every human family, even if disfigured and weakened by emigration.
Pope Benedict XVI, Message for the 93rd World Day of Migrants and Refugees
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Amen.
Wow, what does this mean? Are we talking about USA immigration? Is this a political statment? Are we talking about illegal immigrants?
It seems to me that there was nothing that Mary and Joseph did that would be considered illegal. I don’t get the connection. They were rightly in Bethlehem according to the law when they had to flee for the life of their baby. What on earth does that have to do with immigration. Talk about an agenda looking for a discussion. Whew!
Let’s put some perspective on the issue. Suppose that someone breaks into your house. What do you do? Call the poilice? Shoot them? Or do you offer them your checkbook and say have a nice day? If they broke in they most likely intended to steal from you, and may even be willing to kill you. Ask the Washington Redskins about that.
So, what exactly are you saying here? Have you ever seen a real gun before? What would you do if an illegal immigrant pointed one at you? What would you do if they sold your kids drugs? Did it ever occur to you that in some countries illegal immigrants are shot on sight?
Dan,
Take it up with the popes.
Dan,
I have seen a real gun before pointed at me during a robbery. I can guarantee that the robber wasn’t an illegal immigrant. But even if he was, that doesn’t make all immigrants – legal or illegal – gun-toting criminals. First and foremost, all migrants should always be spoken of and cared for as human beings – made in the likeness of God. The present rhetoric among presidential candidates has been shameful recently. I think you need to read again what Pope John Paul stated:
‘“I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Mt 25:35). It is the Church’s task not only to present constantly the Lord’s teaching of faith but also to indicate its appropriate application to the various situations which the changing times continue to create. Today the illegal migrant comes before us like that “stranger” in whom Jesus asks to be recognized. To welcome him and to show him solidarity is a duty of hospitality and fidelity to Christian identity itself.’
Practicing our faith in the way Jesus asked us is not the easiest thing to do. I am thankful for God’s patience with me for falling short of his request.
Dan,
The whole question of immigration in the US has become a hornet’s nest. I don’t want to kick it.
But without aligning myself with any policy I do want make a few simple points.
First, whatever immigration policy the US decides to implement, the intrinsic dignity of the human person must be respected in all instances. There is no choice here. Dignity is intrinsic.
Second, there is the matter of causation. The American consumer has developed a lust for cheap goods. Corporate America has an addiction to cheap labor. Fifteen million immigrants have been swept up into this vortex.
Third, tragedy abounds. It is too sad for words. There are no winners. Only losers.
Fourth, this nightmare will be compounded further if we don’t understand why it came about in the first place and alleviate it within that context.
Fifth, the ethical burden, I am afraid, lies primarily with America.
If I may interject again. Today’s gospel was about Joseph being told by an angel to take his family to Egypt. Imagine – uprooting your family to go to another country in order to protect their safety and wellbeing from a dangerous leader.
Bring that story to today’s timeframe. Where would Jesus been born today? Where would they flee to remain safe from a tyrant? How would they accomplish that today?
The USA is made up of almost completely immigrants. Perhaps we are second, third, or more generations removed, but unless you are a native american you are basically a type of immigrant. So I don’t get what the issue is unless we are trying to defend illegal immigrants. If there is some kind of prejudice or inefficiencies in our immigration system and they can be improved, great! But the conversation going on in this country today seems to be about justifying the illegal immigrants. Those who “broke the law” not only of their own country, but of ours. Should be be merciful? Sure. I think that there are efforts being put forward by the politicians to find some way to firm up the borders but still give the current people a chance to make it right. But to condone people breaking the law does not do anybody any favors and is not a loving and merciful act. Christ doesn’t tell us to go ahead and keep breaking the law.
What I meant by an “agenda looking for a discussion” is just that there are those who want to justify illegal immigrants and the breaking of our laws, and they are making it a mainstream discussion under the disguise of caring for immigrants who are here legally and are willing to do what it takes.
Dan, as many other million of Americans, doesn’t know the difference between the implications for violating a civil law and a criminal law.
I would honestly recommend you, Dan, that you investigate how immigration raids take place and how these people are treated. How they are denied healthcare while in prison and how many have died as a consequence of this negligence. How families are separated just because they wanted to live justly and in dignity.
Dan,
Your problem is that you don’t question the law, you take it at face value. The law is supposed to serve man and it does not supercede the person. It is lawful to apply the death penalty to human beings. It is also lawful to have an abortion.
You need to start asking the right questions instead of just looking at the problem on the surface. Put the person first and the law second.
I favor illegal immigration when it is really the result of extreme duress as it is when women are being raped and killed in Dafur by muslim janjaweed. The neighboring country should understand their breaking of their borders to escape such depraved men. This has little to do with Mexicans who have the excess money to pay smugglers to get here and who buy houses and trucks once here.
A Pope like John Paul II cannot be trusted on such issues since he has stated in Splendor of the Truth section 80 that deportation is intrinsically evil which is absurd and I invite anyone to try and move into Vatican City or into the August only mansion of the Popes at Castel Gandalfo. Email me as to whether you were deported or not. I’ll be waiting breathlessly.
Dan,
Legal or illegal, the immigrant deserves the care and respect. The pope’s are not reducing this to politics as you seem to be doing.
Bill,
Pope John Paul II was reiterating the teaching of the Second Vatican Council on deportation. But based on your frequently misguided criticism of John Paul II, I suppose you are likewise incredulous with regard to the Council.
Dan,
How do 15 million “illegal” immigrants eat and find a place to live in the U.S.? Do they bring money with them and subsidize their living from their own savings? Or do they find jobs in the U.S.? It would appear to be the later.
So rather than defining the issue as one of “illegal immigration”, why not choose a phrase that more aptly describes what is really going on: corporations and/or small businesses “illegally” hiring cheap foreign labor?
The phrase “illegal immigrant” has been coined to place the entire burden on the foreign worker whereas the burden more accurately rests with the employers who hire them. Lacking jobs, these “illegally hired foreign workers” would not be able to stay in the U.S. Nor would they be inclined to come to the U.S. in the first place, particularly as stories began to circulate that they were unable to find a viable means of subsistence once they arrived in the U.S. Wouldn’t you agree with this logic?
Like I said above: “The American consumer has developed a lust for cheap goods. Corporate America has an addiction to cheap labor. Fifteen million immigrants have been swept up into this vortex.”
The ethical and legal burden is primarily ours. We should frame the issue to reflect its reality.
Michael
I actually like most of Vatican II but its comments on deportation as “shameful” which John Paul tweaked upward into “intrinsically evil” were not de fide….indeed came from a pastoral not dogmatic document. And separately, I believe John Paul was a saint but not based on his papacy whatsoever but based on his enduring the death of all his family by the time he was 22 and then not despairing but actually working harder for God who permitted such deaths to happen to that family….and then later his facing of sickness also was something that spoke volumes to each of us as to how to handle old age when we get there. In theology he was breathtaking on the salvation of non Christians in Redemptor Missio. But he utterly failed to do a real emergency anything about priest sex abuse when the ten years prior to him had over 500 alleged cases and his first ten years had the same rate since he was about other things like TOB of all things while children needed him to use what the canons gave him…..”power” that is “supreme” and “immediate” over “groups of churches”. He coddled them….coddled their enablers like Cardinal Law at the very end….and coddled murderers through his letters to stop their executions while not writing simultaneously to the victims’ families and not writing to countries to really punish criminals if in fact they were not going to execute them.
But all this is intellectual. Try breaking into Castel Gandalfo where John Paul installed a pool during his reign or break into Vatican City and claim squatters’ rights …..and let me know if Pope Benedict deports you. And he will deport you. I promise you. And Catholic apologetic machine will find another name for your deportation as he does so….I can imagine it all now in future texts…… ” a certain deranged Michael Joseph who had claimed the right to live in Vatican City was gently escorted past its boundaries and back into Italy by Swiss Guard and given sufficient lira to find lodgings in Italy and the Pope prayed for him that very night.”
No….he was deported….if you are going to do it….be truthful about it.
Policraticus is right. These comments from the Popes have to do with how the Church ought to respond to migrants, not with how the State should deal with immigration. The statements aren’t about politics, and viewing them in that light will only lead to confusion.
Gerald,
I agree that the American consumer is an accomplice to the crime, no doubt. I believe that as part of the program companies that participate and encourage illegal immigration should be panelized as well. As long as we condone doing things wrong they will never be done right. If drugs are being smiggled into the country for example, the consumer is every bit as guilty as the smuggler and dealer. Crime is crime.
Katerina,
I am willing to question the law to the end that the law can be changed. I am not for breaking the law simply because I don’t like it. Let me ask you a question. Why did Jesus allow himself to be put to death on the cross? Why didn’t he break the unjust law that was putting an innocent man to death?
You know as Catholics we talk a lot about suffering, but when it actually comes to doing it everybody wants to break the law instead. Is that the Christian model?
Granted, mercy is necessary and we should always act with mercy, but as I said before, what is merciful about conding the breaking of the law? There is a difference between forgiving penetant people and condoning willling criminals. If there are a lot people that are fleeing to the USA because of hardship in their own country, then yes, we should do something to help where we can. But what we have in this country now is not that. We aren’t “helping” people when we teach them that breaking the law is not only OK, but we even give them the sense that they are entilted to our graces. Grace is never an entitlement. It is always a matter of love freely given.
I am willing to question the law to the end that the law can be changed. I am not for breaking the law simply because I don’t like it.
Don’t you think Civil disobedience ought to have a place of honor in Catholic thought? Rosa Parks, it is worth remembering, broke the law by failing to show proper racial subservience.
Is it possible that laws whose object is to prevent immigration from Mexico and Latin America are unjust?
Quick story: When I was in the Army and stationed in El Paso, Texas, I took a walk one day to a suburb in the southwestern corner of the city. There, I saw a view I will never forget: I looked through someone’s side yard, over their back yard swimming pool, and saw, maybe a mile away, Mexicans living on the opposite slope of the Rio Grande valley, in shacks and cinderblock houses, no electricity, no sewage system…and it occured to me how strange it was. Only a mile or so separated American opulence and Mexican poverty, just because some people had decided that there was a notional thing called a “border” between the two places. It gave me a distinct feeling of metaphysical dread: here was glaring, concrete injustice, unrepented – unexamined, even.
Matt
You mean like the pool that John Paul had installed at Castel Gandolfo….
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2005-04-02-pope-sportsman_x.htm
Or is that Papal pool more moral because one cannot see the poor from Castel Gandalfo….which means that: morality of purchases of pools increases in virtue the more the pool is not in view of the poor.
Bill – If your point is that the Pope ought not to live in such splendor, I suppose I would agree – a life of vowed poverty would be a much better pastoral example, especially for the rich world.
Bill,
When a law is unenforceable, something significant is indicated. Prohibition, Drug Laws, and Immigration Laws — all have shown themselves to be unenforceable. Attempts to force compliance tears at the essential fabric of society. There is a practical limit to criminalizing behavior.
In 1981, there were 170,000 incarcerated in US prisons. Today, there are 2.5 million! Clearly, something is out of balance. The Soviet Gulag never had more than 2 million.
The War on Whiskey, the War on Drugs, the War on Immigrants — all these wars are a little goofy, to my way of thinking. They either reflect attempts to change behavior without comprehending the causes of behavior; or, they reflect attempts to impose fundamentalist sentiments on an entire population.
It would appear there is a lack of “proper proportionality” between “means and ends” in all these Wars. Perhaps Matt is suggesting something that needs more serious thought. It may be that these types of laws are indeed unjust, at least to the extent that their enforcement lacks “proper proportionality” between “means and ends.” Like it or not, the ends do not justify the means.
Matt
We intersect to a degree (and that is all one can hope for). Prudhon’s “property is theft” is not me though…. post 18 years old and despite Sartre and a Jesuit prep school.
If Popes were to come from the religious orders who actually do take the vow of poverty (diocesan clergy do not…hence Benedict’s Prada shoes and Gucci sun glasses…his pen and watch are not certainly designer so far) and if such vowed men actually obey it like the Trappists, Carthusians and Camaldolese and Carmelites of the Strict Observance….that might be a tonic to the modern world. It would at least give more credibility to anti materialistic and anti capitalistic sermons by Popes….those servants of the servants who actually have servants and chefs. But historically those actually lean people of the Church have often fled the papacy…..when they thought they would be forced to be Popes. Were one of them to rise to that office, he might just sell the Castel Gandalfo and give the proceeds to Uganda where there are 12 million HIV orphans malnutritioned….Castel Gandalfo which was originally purchased by a Pope who enriched his relatives with the cardinal hat….. but did do somethings for God along with that. In those centuries, Popes often came from the wealthy families and brought that taste with them. It would be as though present Popes came from the Gucci or Prada families or Ferrari families.
Try to think though how Asians feel when they are told to wait years for legal entrance to the US and they see Bush letting in Latinos because he has Latino relatives that he probably does not want to offend and he has small business friends who he does not want to offend….while legal immigrants wait in Taiwan, Ukraine, South Korea etc.
Gerald
Totally enforceable by fining heavily any business who hires an illegal and enforce it fast. Overnight it would be solved. In fact if you fined criminals and made them work off their rent,food and medical and dental in prison by doing factory work 10 hours a day…(still less work than many of our execs do)….the prison population would also fall overnight. But if you tell thugs that effectively their punishment is to work 4 hours and then hang out in cell and never worry about bills, medical and dental and buying weights at Modell’s…well then, you are going to have prisoners galore. And if they stab someone who stole their coffee, they simply receive more time in that context….well then…stabbing is pretty consequent free for someone who does not think past the next year.
Bill,
Prohibition didn’t work. Forty years of ruthless drug enforcement hasn’t worked. Thirty years of ruthless immigration enforcement hasn’t worked. So the solution is to become more ruthless?
Are you sure?
Gerald
Perfectly sure. There is nothing ruthless about making murderers etc. work and pay the victims’ families and pay for their own food and dental and medical etc. And there is nothing ruthless about fining small businesses heavily …that hire illegals. If such things are ruthless to you, I would suggest that you are using the word “ruthless” in such a way as to leave nothing left to Webster’s Dictionary as to their finding a term for the behaviour of the Khymer Rouge and of Vlad the Impaler.
Bill,
The original question was in reference to Matt’s query whether immigration laws — I added Prohibition and drug laws to the mix — were just. I suggested they might not be predicated on my understanding of proper proportionality.
Now you’re talking about making murders, etc. work and pay the victim’s families and provide for their own keep.
As for Webster’s, well, I’m afraid that book allows for greater creativity than you have suggested. People who are arrested in this country are often treated ruthlessly, like it or not.
As for using the term “ruthless” to describe police brutality and brutal acts of the Khymer Rouge, check out the difference between analogical and univocal. The use of the term in the first instance does not contradict its use in the second, or vice versa.
I detect a Voluntarist/Nominalist strain in your argumentation. Am I correct about that?
[Blackadder]: Policraticus is right. These comments from the Popes have to do with how the Church ought to respond to migrants, not with how the State should deal with immigration. The statements aren’t about politics, and viewing them in that light will only lead to confusion.
On that note, it’s worth noting that in the same address John Paul II goes into closer detail of the Church’s responsibility towards immigrants, which
(if I read correctly) seeks to work with the State, and not to encourage an open violation or ignorance of the law:
Illegal immigration should be prevented, but it is also essential to combat vigorously the criminal activities which exploit illegal immigrants.
The most appropriate choice, which will yield consistent and long-lasting results is that of international co-operation which aims to foster political stability and to eliminate underdevelopment. [...]
The Church acts in continuity with Christ’s mission. In particular, she asks herself how to meet the needs, while respecting the law of those persons who are not allowed to remain in a national territory. She also asks what the right to emigrate is worth without the corresponding right to immigrate. She tackles the problem of how to involve in this work of solidarity those Christian communities frequently infected by a public opinion that is often hostile to immigrants.
The first way to help these people is to listen to them in order to become acquainted with their situation, and, whatever their legal status with regard to State law, to provide them with the necessary means of subsistence.
Thus it is important to help illegal migrants to complete the necessary administrative papers to obtain a residence permit. Social and charitable institutions can make contact with the authorities in order to seek appropriate, lawful solutions to various cases. This kind of effort should be made especially on behalf of those who, after a long stay, are so deeply rooted in the local society that returning to their country of origin would be tantamount to a form of reverse emigration, with serious consequences particularly for the children.
4. When no solution is foreseen, these same institutions should direct those they are helping, perhaps also providing them with material assistance, either to seek acceptance in other countries, or to return to their own country . . .
Gerald
No…you must strain to get there…in any instance, commanded actions that are ruthless denote a ruthless policy. But ruthless actions of individual police aside from their standing orders fail at being part of the government’s system.
And consider that your apparent choice for president at your website…Obama…..may in fact be ruthless unconsciously since he voted against a ban on partial birth abortions which are objectively ruthless as a process that takes children apart after crushing their brains and that is equal for me to the Khymer Rouge actions. Now frankly… I do not understand where you are coming from at all on matters of ruthlessness.
As a point of history, the Holy Family in Egypt probably were not among strangers. There were plenty of Jews in Egypt. Philo says that Alexandria “had two classes of inhabitants, our own nation and the people of the country, and that the whole of Egypt was inhabited in the same manner, and that Jews who inhabited Alexandria and the rest of the country from the Catabathmos on the side of Libya to the boundaries of Ethiopia were not less than a million of men.” Of course both Judae and Egypt were ruled by the Romans, with Herod being a client king.
Bill,
It would be instructive for you to review the training manuals used at the police academies. Too often, the ruthless acts of police are not the acts of rogue policemen. They reflect deliberate policy and training. Sadly, the exception when it comes to the use of violence is not always the bad apple. More often than not, it is the good apple!
You say: “… that is equal for me to the Khymer Rouge actions.” Quite a statement for an educated Catholic!
To repeat: “I detect a Voluntarist/Nominalist strain in your argumentation. Am I correct about that?”
Gerald
Partial birth abortion equals murdering an adult……that is quite educatedly Catholic even if one goes centuries back to the delayed ensoulement of the later Jerome, and the later Augustine…both with their newly found “formed” foetus theory after seeing the Septuagint rendition of Exodus 21:22…. 21:22 “And if two men strive and smite a woman with child, and her child be born imperfectly formed, he shall be forced to pay a penalty; as the woman’s husband may lay upon him, he shall pay with a valuation.23 But if it be perfectly formed, he shall give life for life,24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”
After which both men pulled back from an earlier position of contraception as murder and Jerome then writes very differently in a later letter…. Epistle 121.4 to Algasa
“…seeds are gradually formed in the uterus, and it is not reputed homocide until the scattered elements receive their appearance and members”.
Even if one goes there which was the most liberal time of Catholicism on that exact issue…late term abortion is still ruthless and murder…even given the Septuagint passage and the pull back of those two men (both positions by the way…contraception as murder and ensoulement as delayed paradoxically end up in the 1566 Trent catechism and thus contradicting each other therein….the delayed ensoulement in the section on the Incarnation and its contradictory contraception as murder in the section on Matrimony where it cites a passage from the Vulgate which scholars have now removed due to Jerome seeming to have added a passage which eternalized the “children or lust” dichotomy that not even the modern Popes would accept and which he could have gotten from a bad latin manuscript of which there were many at his time…..which he was commissioned to correct with one version.