Tim Staples explains the Church’s position on immigration, national security, and how nations should strive as much as possible to help refugees without also sacrificing the best interests of their citizens.
Transcript:
Host: We go now to Karen in Cincinnati, Ohio listening on Sacred Heart Radio. Karen, you are on with Tim Staples.
Karen: Hi! Thank you, and I don’t want this to sound harsh, I don’t mean it to be, but my question is this: I hear a lot of different things on Catholic radio, from the Pope down to priests and everything like that, about how we need to be compassionate to all immigrants, and my question is, I understand that, but I don’t have compassion for illegal immigrants to come into the United States, and get on the welfare system, take jobs from Americans, rape, bring drugs over; and I’m not saying every illegal immigrant is doing this, but people have broken the law. And so I hear the Pope talking about how we need to be all this and that, you know what, he lives a very wealthy life over there in the Vatican. They have billions of dollars, and they have a wall around the Vatican. Why don’t they open that wall and let all these illegal immigrants come into the Vatican and then they can start feeding them and give them them free this and free that, and so I think it’s very hypocritical that they want to tell the United States that they don’t have a right to protect their language, culture, and borders, but yet they protect their little fancy rich life over there.
Tim: Right, well Karen, I think you should inform the Pope that he has billions, he would be happy to hear that. No, actually I know you were speaking kind of in hyperbole there. The Pope actually does not have this massive, you know, amount of cash, like a lot of folks think. In fact, his budget is is not much more than the budget of, say, the Archdiocese of Chicago, or an archdiocese here in in the United States like New York.
But having said that; well, you have to understand, Karen as Catholics we, just like Jesus, have always and will always have a preference for the poor and for those who don’t have anyone to speak for them. This is so close to the Heart of Jesus. Yes, we welcome refugees, we welcome folks who don’t have a place to lay their heads, and so you’re going–Karen, you’re going to hear that from our bishops and from from our Pope that we need to stretch till it hurts, we need to open up our hearts, open up as far as we can, but please Karen, don’t mistake that for saying that the Catholic Church teaches we should not have borders. In fact that’s not what Pope Francis teaches, that’s not what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, in fact the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that nations have a responsibility to enforce their borders and to protect their people.
So Karen, it would be misguided compassion to just open the borders up and say, “Oh no we’re not going to vet anybody;” in fact, that would be sinful irresponsibility when you have folks that, you know, are wanting to come over that border and kill and rape like we just saw in Rockville, Maryland at a high school, you know, an illegal immigrant 18 years old raping a 14 year-old, I mean that whole situation is absolutely horrid, and the Church, please hear me Karen, is not in favor of that.
We are in favor, as Catholics, of a healthy sort of balance between nations having borders, because, look, if you don’t have borders, you don’t have a nation. You can’t have a culture if you don’t have borders, all right, you have to have borders and you have to have security. You have a responsibility–in fact, St. Paul tells us in Romans Chapter 13 verses 1-4 that governments are instituted by God and they wield the sword, and so Paul says, you know, don’t be fearful, just do what’s right and you won’t have to fear the sword coming from the government. But he’s saying that the governments have this authority to protect their people both from enemies within as well as without, that is, in fighting wars as well as policing within the borders of a nation.
So Karen, I think what happens is, in the media there tends to be a lot of hype–of course the Pope is going to speak for those who can’t speak for themselves, immigrants and and so forth, but Pope Francis is not a Democrat and he’s not a Republican. And I think, praise God for that, right, he does not get into partisan politics here. He is basically calling all sides involved to repent, to reach out as much as we can, reasonably, licitly, but Heavens no, don’t throw your minds away; and I’ll take a step further, Karen, I mean, we’re seeing in Europe right now the results of opening up borders without any–“Oh yeah just come on in,” and you’re, you know, you’re reaping the whirlwind as a result.
Hopefully–and you know what, there’s not, you know Cy, there’s not a, you know: “This is how many immigrants you let in. It’s this number, and if there’s one more, NOPE, you’re against the Bible.” Right? I mean, that’s just not the way it works. There will never be an easy “This is how many immigrants, this is how you vet them, this is it,” never. We’re gonna struggle with this, we’re gonna continue to struggle, but I happen to be very sympathetic to your position, Karen, that we cannot be irresponsible in this, but I think we also need to be open to the heart of Jesus who breaks for these children that are homeless sometimes, a parent has been killed in war, and there, you know, there’s all sorts of things that need to be, you know, talked about, Karen. I mean, creating safe spaces in the Middle East for example, you know, is one idea that that may be fantastic, as well as opening our doors with a very good vetting process. But God bless you Karen, I hope something I’ve said has been helpful.
Host: Thank you very much, Karen.