Mexico, Mass Migration, and the Example of Moses Part X: Strangers No Longer, the USCCB's Subversive Pastoral Letter
In last week's post, we began our look at Strangers No Longer (SNL), a 2003 document issued jointly by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Bishops of Mexico.
As the title to last week's and this week's post indicate, SNL is a subversive document. It is subversive in at least three ways. First, in that it is a Marian document, it is subversive of the faith once delivered to the saints. Several times in SNL, the bishops proudly reveal that the satanic Marian cult of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a key reason for their call for mass migration from Mexico, and by implication, from other places into the US.
Second, in that SNL is a clarion call for international socialism, it is subversive of capitalism, the economic system of the Bible. As the Bible clearly teaches throughout the pages of the Old and New Testaments, the ownership of capital goods, that is to say, the means of production, are to remain in private hands. Further, the Bible teaches that title to property, apart from punishment for a crime, is absolute. "Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things," said the vineyard owner in Jesus' parable. Rome, on the other hand, takes a far different view.
Finally, in that it is a globalist document, SNL is subversive of good government. SNL is part of the Babylonian Harlot's multipronged, centuries long attempt to reinstate the Holy Roman Empire, this time on a worldwide scale rather than the regional scale she achieved during the middle ages.
Last week, we looked at the Marian aspect of SNL. In today's installment, I shall discuss the document's socialist subversions.
Socialist Buzzword Number One: The Common Good
When reading through documents related to the Catholic Social Teaching, one quickly comes to realize that Rome's prelates have a strong preference for writing and speaking in buzzwords, "Common good" and "solidarity" being two of their favorites.
Writing in Ecclesiastical Megalomania, John Robbins described the common good as, "the fiction by which the public authorities justify whatever they please to do" (42). Elsewhere in the same book, Robbins commented, "The 'common good' is the great fiction used by the Roman Church-State to justify government control of society and economy" (187).
Robbins continues,
The Catechism of the Catholic Church points out that "Human interdependence is increasing and gradually spreading throughout the world." The unity of the human family, embracing people who enjoy equal natural dignity, implies a universal common good. This good calls for an organization of the community of nations able to "provide for the different needs of man...food, hygiene, education...."
All of this is driven by the theological premise that "The members of mankind share the same basic rights and duties, as well as the same supernatural destiny" (Paul VI, Octogesima Adveniens, 1971).
"Because all men are joined together by reason of their common origin, their redemption by Christ, and their supernatural destiny, and are called to form one Christian family, We appealed in the Encyclical Mater et Magistra to economically developed nations to come to the aid of those which were in the process of development" (John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, 1963) (Ecclesiastical Megalomania,188).
The basic argument of Rome is that, since the human race is one great big happy spiritual family - never mind that business about God's putting enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman - property likewise ought to be shared among all.
The USCCB lays out in very clear terms the importance of the concept of the common good as it relates to matters of immigration, migration and refugee resettlement. "In Catholic social teaching," they write, "individuals do not have the right to use private property without regard for the common good" (Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration and the Movement of Peoples).
Since the common good is such an important concept in Catholic social teaching, it should come as no surprise that it manages to rear its head in SNL. "We observe the struggles of landowners and enforcement personnel who seek to preserve the common good without violating the dignity of the migrant" (SNL, 4) write the bishops in error.
The struggle of property owners and civil magistrates in matters of migration is not concerning how to preserve the common good - nowhere in Scripture is the government called upon to do such a thing - rather, it is about protecting the property rights of private owners. The job of the civil government is to enforce the Second Table of the Ten Commandments, none of which expressly state or imply anything about the common good.
In another place, the bishops write,
The Church recognizes the right of a sovereign state to control its borders in furtherance of the common good. It also recognizes the right of human persons to migrate so that they can realize their God-given rights. These teachings complement each other. While the sovereign state may impose reasonable limits on immigration, the common good is not served when the basic human rights of the individual are violated (SNL, 39).
Here again we see the bishops' error in that they cite the common good, rather than the defense of the property and the lives of a nation's citizens, as the basis for a nation to control its borders.
One interesting implication of the bishops' words here is that private property is not a "basic human right" in the way the migration is. The right to migrate is absolute, whereas the right to own and use property is contingent.
This idea that private property is contingent is another major aspect of Catholic social teaching which will be treated below.
Socialist Buzzword Number Two: Solidarity
Solidarity appears 16 times in SNL, leading one to think that the definition of the term would be relatively straightforward. But such is not the case.
In SNL's third paragraph, we are told that the bishops of the US and Mexico have solidarity. "In the spirit of ecclesial solidarity begun in that synod and promoted in Ecclesia in America, and aware of the migration reality our two nations live, we the bishops of Mexico and the United States seek to awaken our peoples to the mysterious presence of the crucified and risen Lord in the Person of the migrant...(SNL, 3).
"The appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego revealed the compassionate presence of God reaching out to Mary to be in solidarity with and to give hope to a suffering people" (107), write the bishops near the end of SNL.
After considering various uses of the term in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, John Robbins concluded that solidarity is, "a vague assertion of ethical and economic collectivism" (Ecclesiastical Megalomania, 151).
Apart from its use by the Roman prelates, solidarity is a favorite term of secular socialists. For example, socialist Bernie Sanders is recently reported to have, "urged New Hampshire workers to embrace the labor movement's principle of solidarity."
New socialist darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called for, "Solidarity with Puerto Rico" as part of her Congressional campaign.
Solidarity is, in short, part of the argot of collectivists. Especially, it seems, those who belong to what is commonly considered the political left.
In SNL, the bishops make it very clear that they stand in solidarity, not with the citizens of the receiving nations who will foot the bill for Rome's migrant program, but with the migrants who will impose the tax burden on those citizens.
We speak to the migrants who are forced to leave their lands to provide for their families or to escape persecution. We stand in solidarity with you...Faith in the presence of Christ in the migrant leads to a conversion of the mind and heart, which leads to a renewed spirit of communion and to the building of structures of solidarity to accompany the migrant...We stand in solidarity with you, our migrant brothers and sisters, and we will continue to advocate on your behalf for just and fair migration policies.
One of the interesting aspects about the bishops' virtue signaling is that they never mention the costs of all this solidarity. Reading SNL, one could easily come away with the impression that allowing open migration into the US from Mexico and other points south not only will not be a burden to the American taxpayer, but a positive economic boon.
In one of the more honest statements on immigration from a Roman Catholic prelate seen by this author, Giulivo Tessarolo, editor of the commentary on Exsul Familia, the Church-State's most comprehensive statement on migration, wrote, "I took cognizance of a significant social fact of our time; that, due to enormous financial implications, the phenomenon of emigration will find some relief only in the English-speaking countries.
Tessarolo admits openly what the US and Mexican bishops will not: that their program will cost a fortune, which fortune will be borne by the already hard pressed American citizen.
In short, the bishops get the primp and preen in the international spotlight as if they were great humanitarian benefactors, all the while sticking American taxpayers with the bill. You didn't expect the Holy Mother Church to actually spend its own money bailing out the migrants, did you?
As the saying goes, that's nice work if you can get it.
The Universal Destination of Goods
Foundational to all of Rome's calls for socialism - including immigrant, migrant and refugee socialism discussed in SNL - is the Thomistic notion of original communism, a concept Roman Catholic thinkers refer to as the universal destination of goods. "The Church recognizes that all the goods of the earth belong to all people" (SNL, 35), is one very clear statement of this principle.
It probably comes as a shock to many Americans, even American Catholics, that Rome has a very different view of private property than exists in the popular mind of the formerly Protestant West. But Rome has made it very clear that property rights extend only so far. Ultimately, according to Rome, the only moral title to property is "neither possession, nor creation, nor production, nor gift, nor inheritance, nor divine commandment," (Ecclesiastical Megalomania, 31), but need.
The philosophic basis for the universal destination of goods is the Church's erroneous teaching that, when God created the earth, he gave it to man collectively. Since private property is the result of later, man-made positive law, and not part of the original divine law, need is the only ultimate, moral title to property.
According to Rome, if you need something, you have the right to take it. Yet where in Scripture is there any evidence for this? There is none.
Further, there is at least one passage that explicitly teaches the opposite. "Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry; but if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house" (Proverbs 6:30, 31).
The thief needed, or at least thought he needed, to steal to satisfy his hunger. But as this passage makes clear, what he truly needed to do was to obey the eighth commandment. This is plain from the fact that Proverbs, although recognizing the mitigating factor behind the thief's actions, in no way calls for the thief to be let off the hook.
When Rome demands that governments of receiving nations take property from citizens and turn it over to migrants, however dire their straights, Rome is an accessory to theft, the migrants who receive the loot are in possession of stolen property, and the government officials who do the Rome's wicked bidding are themselves guilty of theft. The injured parties are the citizens who are forced at gunpoint to turnover their property to others who have no right to it.
Closing Thoughts
When the Israelites' journey in the wilderness was coming to a close, Numbers chapter 20 records for us that they came to the border of Edom. Before entering Edomite territory, Moses sent emissaries to the king of Edom, saying, "Thus says your brother Israel...Please let us pass through your country. We will not pass through fields or vineyards, nor will we drink water from wells; we will go along the King's Highway; we will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through you territory" (verses 14 and 17).
Note well Moses did not think he had the right to barge into Edomite territory. This was true, even though the Edomites were a close kindred people descended from Esau (Thus says your brother Israel).
Rather, Moses went out of his way to emphasize that Israel would respect the property of the Edomites - "We will not pass through fields or vineyards;" that is to say, we won't steal your food; "nor will we drink water from wells;" that is to say, we won't steal your water.
If ever there was a group of migrants who would have had the right to pillage food and water, it would have been God's chosen people on their way to the promised land. Yet from the text of Scripture we get not so much as a hint that it ever entered Moses' mind to plunder the Edomites' property. On the contrary, he went to great lengths to emphasize that Israel would not steal Edom's food and water or make themselves a nuisance.
This raises the question, If Israel did not have the right to plunder the Edomites, what right do Honduran, Guatemalan and Mexican migrants have to plunder the American taxpayer? And rest assured, plunder they will, all with the blessing of the Antichrist papacy and prelates of the Woman Who Rides the Beast.
The answer to that question is, None whatsoever.
Rome's arguments that migrants have a rightful claim on the property of the citizens of the United States of America is an evil fiction, built on a foundation of the vain imagination of Thomas Aquinas and his scholastic disciples.
It is high time for American Christians to say so.
(To be continued...)