Immigration: The Christian Perspective
"By her nature, the Church is in solidarity with the world of migrants who, with their variety of languages, races, cultures and customs, remind her of her own condition as a people on pilgrimage from every part of the earth to their final homeland. This vision helps Christians to reject all nationalistic thinking and to avoid narrow ideological categories. It reminds them that the Gospel should be incarnated in life in order to become its leaven and soul, also through a constant effort to free it from the cultural incrustations that inhibit its inner dynamism...In following the Master's example, the Church too lives as he did in the world with the attitude of a pilgrim, working to create communion, a welcoming home where the dignity conferred by the Creator is recognized in each human being...
In a time and age when many Western Christians readily defer to the law of the land before considering fully the law of love, the Church unequivocally announces her solidarity with even illegal or undocumented migrants. Every human person, regardless of legal or economic status, is a brother and neighbor to the Christian: ...for her part, the Church, like the Good Samaritan, feels it her duty to be close to the illegal immigrant and refugee, contemporary icon of the despoiled traveler, beaten and abandoned on side of the road to Jericho (cf. Lk 10:30). She goes towards him, pouring "on his wounds the oil of consolation and the wine of hope," feeling herself called to be a living sign of Christ, who came that all might have life in abundance...For the Christian, every human being is a 'neighbour' to be loved."
-Pope John Paul II, 1999.
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Since we can so easily forget that our duty as citizens is comprised within and subsumed to our prior ambassadorial duties to Christ and the international community of His universal Church, here it is: clear, Christian commentary on one of the trickiest issues of our day, from our friends at Evangelical Catholicism. The authors have compiled their posts on the topic together into one post with characteristic efficiency- get it here, where you will find the following options:
posted by MM at 6:57 AM
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