RBWords - Volume 30 - Number 7: July 2017
Something to Think About
r. b. words – volume 30 – number 7 – July 2018
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SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT –
Our national attention is directed in almost every news media nowadays to the immigration challenges facing our nation on its southern border. Although there is the occasional small story, at least down here in Texas, about folks coming across the border from Canada, I am unaware of any initiative to build a wall between us and that nation. Here in Texas, it is a matter of considerable attention because all of Texas’ southern border is shared with Mexico. Particular attention has been aroused by the policy that separated parents from children when they cross the border illegally. This has been denounced in no uncertain terms to such a degree that the government has been judicially forced to reunite these families. It would appear that on our southern border the Statue of Liberty wears the uniform of the Border Patrol. I realize that those brave men and women try to do their duty. What is at issue are the policies and laws that they must enforce, and not their duty. The policy of separating families as a deterrent to illegal immigration crossed a line even in many minds and hearts of those who are very concerned about border security. It should concern any person of Christian faith and probably other religious traditions as well. For us who are Catholic, the Church, from Pope to local parish the values of Jesus’ message in Matthew 25:31-45 are greater than any political policy or politically drawn border. Our faith must shape our politics, not the other way around. Reaching out to the alien in our midst is reaching out to Christ. [Matthew 25:35-36, 40]
The leaders of our church here in the U.S.A. have spoken out very clearly on this matter. If our political views, whatever they may be, on this matter lead us to attitudes and actions counter to the gospel, we are in need of conversion and an examination of conscience in the light of the gospel, not in the light of political immigration policies. IT IS SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
It Has Been Said
This is the poem on the Statue of Liberty:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
? Emma Lazarus
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