With unemployment rising and a U.S. debt-crisis looming, Americans haven’t had much good news lately. But there is one bright spot on the policy front: Illegal immigration from Mexico has virtually stopped. Less than a decade ago, a half-million Mexicans were coming to the U.S. illegally every year, accounting for 60 percent of all illegal … Read more
The United States is a country that has been peopled largely by vast surges of migration — from the British Isles in the 18th century, from Ireland and Germany in the 19th century, from Eastern and Southern Europe in the early 20th century, and from Latin America and Asia in the last three decades. Going … Read more
When a Roman general returned victorious from a war against an enemy of the Republic, he was typically granted a “triumph”: a lavish, bloodthirsty, pagan version of a ticker-tape parade, which centered on long lines of enslaved captive enemies marching in chains behind his chariot, and climaxed with the butchery of their general before throngs … Read more
This story from last week about New Hampshire Republican lawmaker Martin Harty is despicable: Barrington Republican Martin Harty told Sharon Omand, a Strafford resident who manages a community mental health program, that “the world is too populated” and there are “too many defective people,” according to an e-mail account of the conversation by Omand. Asked … Read more
One hundred and seventy five years ago, on March 6, 1836, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Colonel W. B. Travis, and about 180 other brave men were killed trying to defend the Alamo. Their deaths have come to symbolize courage and sacrifice for the cause of liberty, and the call to “remember the Alamo” survives even today. … Read more
With apologies to Christine O’Donnell, I am not you. I didn’t grow up in places where Mexicans were a distant if ominous threat. I can’t say that I came of age only speaking English, that I feel totally grounded in this country (even though I was born here), or that I never helped anyone who … Read more
Last week, an earnest Catholic commentator over at the Catholic Key Blog mourned the fact that House Democrats had spoiled the chances for “immigration reform” by linking the issue to unrelated matters that scared off supporters, tainting the sacred cause of extending amnesty to illegal immigrants by wrapping it up in a rainbow flag, then … Read more
In case you missed it, Deal did a brief interview Friday with the Dallas Morning News on the subject of Catholic teaching and immigration. It’s a short piece, but informative, and included this interesting exchange: [D]oes a government have a moral right to set limits on the kinds of people who enter? Kinds of people? … Read more
In New York City, if you ask someone his nationality, there’s only one way he’s going to answer “American”: If he’s black. Everyone else I’ve ever known will volunteer something like, “Irish, County Mayo,” “Half-Irish, a quarter German, a quarter Polish,” or “Sicilian — you got a problem with that?” You see, we keep track … Read more
The phrase “Après moi, le déluge” is attributed to Louis XV on his deathbed. Fifteen years later, in 1789, the French Revolution confirmed his prediction: “After me, the flood.” Whether the king felt a sense of foreboding of things to come or simple indifference, the expression seems an apt description of where our nation stands … Read more
One of the most exasperating bits of exegetical trendiness to afflict first-world Catholics for the past 30 years or so has been the endless recirculation, like a bad penny, of the True Meaning of the Miracles of the Loaves and Fishes homily. It goes like this: Jesus found Himself in the wilderness with a … Read more
On the heels of the health-care debate comes a potentially more contentious furor over proposed immigration legislation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who helped secure abortion funding in the health-care bill, is now telling us the bishops came to her and said, “We want you to pass immigration reform.” But Pelosi wants help from the bishops: … Read more
One thing we Catholics have known since almost the beginning: Most statements in the Bible can be misread, misapplied, and torn out of context to serve as the pretext for hysterical balderdash. Martin Luther famously used his private reading of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans to invent a whole new theology of salvation, … Read more
By now, it seems that pretty much everyone has heard about Arizona’s controversial new immigration law. Protests are springing up around the country, threats of boycotts and lawsuits are coming from various groups, and politicians from across the spectrum (including notable figures like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jeb Bush ) are condemning the legislation. And as … Read more
Listening to the radio the other day, I heard a professor from one of America’s more distinguished institutions of higher learning explain what is motivating the “angry mobs” who have been raucously denouncing President Obama’s health-care plans: racism. When asked for evidence, the professor offered this: Some of the angry people made it plain that … Read more
Early in the morning of December 12, 2006, 25 unmarked cars filled with federal agents pulled up in front of the Swift & Co. plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, to arrest illegal immigrants. “Operation Wagon Train” was part of a six-state effort to crack down on Swift, which was known to be employing undocumented workers … Read more
The immigration debate is singularly polarizing in our political climate today. From cries for “compassionately conservative” acceptance of those immigrants doing the jobs “Americans won’t do,” to Tom Tancredo’s insistence that “the pope’s immigration comments may have less to do with spreading the gospel than they do about recruiting new members of the church,” the … Read more
My piece last week on immigration flowed from my longstanding policy of spreading oil on the waters — then setting them on fire. Dozens of thoughtful responses offered a wide array of views on how to strike a Catholic balance between Church and state, mercy and justice, globalism and patriotism. But the most important question … Read more
Sometimes the Church’s public face in a given country can make you proud, and sometimes it has to make you a little sick. American Catholics can justly take satisfaction that our bishops were almost alone in beginning the fight against abortion; the Southern Baptist Conference, of all things, at first backed Roe v. Wade, and … Read more
Sen. John McCain reached out to Catholic voters yesterday in Philadelphia at a gathering of Catholic lay leaders and clergy. The meeting, held at the venerable Union League on South Broad St., is one in an ongoing series being held nationwide by McCain and his Catholic surrogates — Sen. Sam Brownback, Gov. Frank Keating, … Read more