Q. 62.  What is the visible church?

A. The visible church is a society made up of all such as in all ages and places of the world do profess the true religion, and of their children.

            - Westminster Larger Catechism

Last week it was announced that the U.S. State Department had adopted a new rule governing the issuance of category B nonimmigrant visas.  The rule, which took effect on Friday, Jan. 24, is aimed at reducing birth tourism.  Birth tourism is the practice of expectant mothers traveling to the United States to give birth on U.S. soil for the purpose of acquiring American citizenship for their children.

For those of us who have advocated for reform of America’s disastrous immigration laws in a way that protects the legitimate interest of American citizens, this was a welcomed, if limited, victory.  It is a welcomed victory in that, in the words of the State Department document outlining the ruling, “This rule will help prevent operators in the birth tourism industry from profiting off treating U.S. citizenship as a commodity, sometimes through potentially criminal acts…”  It is a limited victory in that it leaves open the larger, more important question, of birthright citizenship.  Specifically, the question of to whom birthright citizenship properly applies.

In the opinion of this author, birthright citizenship properly applies only to children born to parents, either both, or at least one of them, possessing American citizenship.  The notion that a child can rightfully acquire American citizenship by virtue of being born on American soil, regardless of the citizenship status of the parents, is foreign both to the Bible and, in the view of this author, to the Constitution.  

Why the Rule Change?

The Public Notice from the Department of State lays out the reasoning behind the rule change, citing concerns about national security and criminal activity associated with the birth tourism industry (Public Notice, page 1)– yes, to the surprise of many Americans there is such a thing as the birth tourism industry.  Further down in the Notice, one finds other good reasons to end the practice of birth tourism.  For example, many times the birth tourists stick American taxpayers with their hospital bills, and this despite their having large sums of money available to pay for the medical procedures.  The notice also cites the defrauding of “property owners when leasing the apartments and houses used in their birth tourism schemes” (Notice, 11).

But for all the problems caused by birth tourism, there was no language that formally prohibited this activity in the regulations that covered visa issuance.

What has Changed? 

Category B nonimmigrant visas historically have been used by individuals engaged in birth tourism.  Such visas are issued by the U.S. to allow foreigners to travel to the United States for the purpose of pleasure, defined or the purpose of visa issuance as, “legitimate activities of a recreational character, including tourism, amusement, visits with friends or relatives, rest, medical treatment, and activities of a fraternal, social, or services nature” (Notice, 2).

The State Department has updated their rules to include language stating, “that the term pleasure…does not include travel for the primary purpose of obtaining United States citizenship for a child by giving birth in the United States” (Notice, 2-3).

In addition to explicitly prohibiting visa issuance for the primary purpose of giving birth in the United States, the new language governing nonimmigrant B visas requires that someone coming to the U.S. for medical treatment, “has the means and intent to pay for the medical treatment and all incidental expenses, including transportation and living expenses” (Notice, 3). 

The White House Statement    

NPR reports that White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham issued a statement calling birth tourism a burden on hospital resources.  She added, “It [the State Department rule change] will also defend American taxpayers from having their hard-earned dollars siphoned away to finance the direct and downstream costs associated with birth tourism.” 

NPR goes on to note that birthright citizenship – birthright citizenship as currently practiced in the U.S. allows that any child (with a few exceptions) born on U.S. soil is deemed an American citizen, regardless of the citizenship of the parents – became an issue in 2015, with then candidate Donald Trump calling for the elimination of it.  Trump also revived talk about birthright citizenship just prior to the 2018 mid-term elections and apparently is now bringing back this issue ahead of the 2020 election.

This observer long has been frustrated by the White House’s inaction on reforming birthright citizenship and cautiously sees the State Department’s rule change as perhaps signaling more aggressive action to come on this issue.

Other Views on the Rule Change

As you may expect, not everyone is happy about these new rules.  According to a report by ABC, Shilpa Phadke, a vice president at the Center for American Progress – a liberal policy think-tank – denounced the change.  “This rule is yet another attempt by the administration to control women’s bodies, driven by racist and misogynist assumptions about women born outside the United States.”

This is a strange charge, as this rule change has nothing whatsoever to do with race, neither is it “misogynistic.”  Rather, the rule has everything to do with preventing the abuse of American citizenship, what the State Department Notice correctly called turning American citizenship into a commodity which serves as a source of profit for those engaged in potentially criminal acts. 

As serious as America’s immigration problem is, Phadke’s reaction points to another problem that may be even more serious: the near total inability of liberal and progressive public intellectuals to talk about matters of public policy in terms other than the shrillest language possible.  It’s not enough for Phadke to disagree with the State Department’s rule change and explain the reasons for her disagreement, but as a good cultural Marxist she feels obligated to impugn the character of those who support the rule change by calling them, in effect, a deplorable basket of racists and sexists.  It’s as if no other explanation for the rule change is possible or needed.  It’s as if Phadke and others of her ilk think all they need to do is shriek “racism!” every time they don’t agree with a given policy and their intellectual work is done. 

Progressive intellectuals of Phadke’s ilk not only contribute nothing positive to public discourse, but actually do significant damage to the country.   Their constant shrieking of “racism, sexism and homophobia” have so poisoned the well of public discourse, that it is nearly impossible for American’s to so much as have a civil discussion about important matters of public policy, let alone propose solutions that address the serious problems facing our nation. 

A Biblical View of Birthright Citizenship    

Birth tourism and the current misinterpretation of birthright citizenship by Constitutional lawyers are closely related, but distinct issues.  The current understanding of birthright citizenship holds that any child (with a few exceptions) born on American soil is deemed an Americana citizen, regardless of the citizenship status of the parents. 

It is this misinterpretation of birthright citizenship that has opened the door for birth tourism and all the abuses of American citizenship entailed by it.

One way of helping think through the issue of birthright citizenship is to look at it in the context of what the Bible has to say about government more broadly.

Bible scholars acknowledge three types of government:  family, church and civil.  Each of them has its distinct sphere of authority.  Parents have the power of the rod.  The church has the power of the keys.  And civil government, it has the power of the sword.  Although the three types of government have different areas of authority and their own means of enforcing their rules, there are some common threads connecting them.

One thread is that men are given the authority to rule in all three.  The father is the head of the family.  Church officers are men only.  And despite the feminism that in recent times has come to dominate the thinking even of Christians who should know better, authority in civil government is also reserved for men.

But patriarchy is not the only thing the three forms of government have in common.  The method of how one becomes subject to the authority of a particular government is also similar.  To put this in more familiar language, let us ask this question:  How does one become a family member?  The most common method is by being born into it.  That is to say, one becomes a family member and subject to the jurisdiction of it by natural birth. 

There is another way one can become a family member, adoption.  In this case the parents agree to take in the child of another and treat him as if he were their own child. 

Inclusion in the visible church works in the same way as the family.  Children of at least one believing parent are considered to be part of the visible church in the same manner as natural children of parents are considered part of the family.  Of course, birth to believing parents is not the only way one can become a member of the visible church.  A credible profession of faith allows believing adults to receive baptism and inclusion in the visible church as well. 

The same principle that obtains in the case of family and church government also applies to civil government.  How does one become a citizen of a nation?  By birth or by oath of citizenship.  For example, I have my American citizenship by virtue of being born to two parents, both of whom are themselves American citizens.  It is also possible for those subject to the jurisdiction of other nations to become Americans by taking an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. 

Notice that in reference to family and church government, there is no Biblical provision for granting inclusion to a child simply by virtue of where he was born.  Think about it.  What if a woman, for some reason, gave birth on your property?  Would her child, simply by that fact, be considered a member of your family?  Of course not.

Let’s consider another scenario.  Suppose an unbelieving woman were for some reason to give birth on the ground of a church.  Would you say her child should receive baptism and be considered a member of the visible church?  Certainly not!  To do that would be to contradict the Westminster Larger Catechism and the teaching of the Scriptures.  For an infant to receive baptism and be considered a member of the visible church, he must have either both, or at least one, believing parent. 

In like fashion, there is no Biblical provision for the children of a non-citizens to be deemed citizens simply because they happened to be born on American soil.  Such children properly are considered citizens of the nation where their parents have their citizenship. 

A proper, Biblical understanding of birthright citizenship, that it applies only to children having at least one citizen parent, is the ultimate and only permanent solution to the problem of birth tourism.

Secular Arguments for and against Birthright Citizenship Reform

In the July 18, 2018 Washington Post, an editorial by former Trump administration official Michael Anton was published titled “Citizenship shouldn’t be a birthright.” Anton looked closely at the language of those who framed the 14th Amendment – the 14th Amendment is cited as the basis for birthright citizenship for all – and concluded, “The notion that simply being born within the geographical limits of the United States automatically confers U.S. citizenship is an absurdity – historically, constitutionally, philosophically and practically.”  Anton is spot on here.

As you probably expect, critics didn’t take long to pounce on Anton’s argument.  And as you probably guessed, they accused him of, wait for it…racism!  Typical of the attacks on Anton is an editorial, also in the Washington Post, published just a few days after Anton’s titled “Michael Anton and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Racist Argument on Birthright Citizenship.” According to author Daniel Drezner, a law professor at Tufts University, if you oppose granting American citizenship to the child of a Mexican mother who sneaks across the border and gives birth at taxpayer expense, or deny citizenship to the child of a Chinese or Russian or Nigerian mother who lied about her intentions for coming to the United States, you’re a racist, plain and simple.  Actually, since the Russians are white Europeans, the fact that birthright citizenship reform applies to them as well creates a bit of a problem for folks who argue, as Drezner and Phadke do, that racism is at the heart of birthright citizenship reform.  But then, contemporary progressives never let logic get in the way of a good opportunity to virtue signal. 

In a follow up piece to his WaPo editorial titled “Birthright Citizenship:  A Response To My Critics,” Anton observed,

I  expected the reaction to a recent op-ed I published calling for the end of birthright citizenship to be cantankerous. I even expected it to be hysterical—from the Left. I did not expect self-described “conservatives” to be just as hysterical as the Left, and to use precisely the same terms. “Nativist.” “Xenophobe.” “Bigot.” “Racist.” “White nationalist.” “White supremacist.”

Here, Anton describes the phenomenon, long noted by some conservatives, that a good number of well-known conservative lights, when push comes to shove, actually sound more like political liberals than conservatives. 

Conservatism as Antichristianity

Why is this?  Why do conservative stalwarts often sound just like the liberals they ostensibly oppose?  The answer is that both liberalism and conservatism are anti-Christian in their basic philosophic assumptions.  This was John Robbins’ argument in his Trinity Review “Conservatism, An Autopsy.”  Robbins wrote,

Conservatism as a political movement displays as much variety of thought as liberalism. Yet both liberalism and conservatism are united in their Antichristianity. Both are “tolerant,” but neither will tolerate Christianity. It is a mistake to think that conservatives and conservatism, as opposed to liberals and liberalism, are neutral on the issue of Christianity. There is and can be no neutrality. The conservatives seem to recognize this, but unfortunately the Christians do not. Many Christians still believe that politics is an endeavor that can be pursued shoulder-to-shoulder with conservatives. They believe that there is common ground upon which both Christians and conservatives can stand and build-or rebuild-a free society.

Given conservatism’s anti-Christian philosophical assumptions, it is unsurprising that conservative writers would side with the liberals they supposedly oppose.  Conservatives, like liberals, deny that the Bible is a textbook for political philosophy and instead think that one can oppose liberalism by appealing to natural law or to tradition or to Roman Catholic thought.

The Roman Church-State on Birthright Citizenship

As you may expect, officials of the Roman Catholic Church-State (RCCS) have at various times made known their opposition to the Biblical doctrine of birthright citizenship.  One example of this is a piece posted on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s (USCCB) website titled “The Catholic Church’s Position on Birthright Citizenship.”  Guess what?  The bishops think the current system is great just the way it is, and any attempt to change it would be very, very bad. 

After the usual boilerplate lies about addressing the “legitimate concerns surrounding immigration law enforcement” – despite its claims, the RCCS could not care less about immigration law enforcement actions that promote the well-being of Americans – the bishops get down to business.  They start with the lie that reforming birthright citizenship to exclude the children of foreign nationals “would render innocent children stateless.”

For example, Article 30 of the Mexican Constitution specifically states that children born to Mexican parents in a foreign country are still considered Mexican citizens.  Since the about a third of Anchor Babies – children born in the US to non-citizen parents – are born to Mexican mothers, this provision in the Mexican Constitution seriously undermines Rome’s argument that by reforming its birthright citizenship laws, the US will leave children stateless. 

Closing Thoughts

With all the bad news on the political and economic fronts, to hear that the State Department has taken a concrete step to make birth tourism harder was a welcome breath of fresh air. 

In the opinion of this author, reforming American birthright citizenship law along Biblical lines is the single most important step the federal government can take to address America’s immigration problem.  Ending birthright citizenship for children born in the US to non-citizens is more important then building the wall, reducing refugee numbers, or even removing people in the country on temporary protected status who have been here for twenty years.  Not that those other things are unimportant.  But they do not rise to the level of properly defining how a one becomes an American citizen. 

As with all matters of right and wrong, political or otherwise, the ultimate standard against which all ideas must be measured is the Word of God, the 66 books of the Bible.  Since it is impossible to derive the birthright citizenship for the children of non-citizens from Scripture, Christians can be confident that calling for reform of our current birthright citizenship laws to eliminate granting citizenship to the children of non-citizens not only is not wrong but is, in reality, a positive good. 

Too often, public debates about immigration consider only what is good for immigrants and ignore completely the question of what is good for American citizens.  Birthright citizenship as is currently practiced in the Untied States represents a gross abuse of the American people and turns that which should be highly valued, American citizenship, into a cheap commodity that easily can be acquired by barely disguised fraud. 

The State Department’s move to make it harder to commit birthright citizenship fraud is a welcome move and a big win for immigration sanity, but more remains to be done.

It’s time for a change.  It’s time to reform American birthright citizenship laws.    

Compassion For Whom?

When it comes to writing about migrant issues, most authors write sympathetically about the migrants, while showing almost complete disregard for the populations called upon to support them. 

While I can have compassion for migrants, immigrants and refugees, what about my fellow Americans?  Are they not much more my neighbors than someone from Guatemala?  Do they not deserve my consideration and compassion?

What about Americans who lose their jobs or have their wages lowered because of increased competition from illegal immigrations?  Am I not to be concerned about them?

What about Americans who are raped, killed, and murdered, by those who have no legal standing to be in the United States?  Am I to turn a blind eye to the suffering of the victims and of their families?

It's amazing how little concern the Roman Church-State and the political, intellectual, and business establishments have for the serious plight of large swaths of the American population, some of whose problems are the direct result of the failure of government officials to provide even a minimum level of enforcement of American immigration law, while at the same time presuming to lecture Americans about their lack of compassion for foreigners.

News flash for those concerned about foreign migrants.  Americans are real people too, and they have real problems and legitimate concerns that deserve real attention.

Charity, as they say, starts at home.

Isn't It Racist To Reject Mexican, Guatemalan and Honduran Migrants?

Although SNL doesn't directly call "racist" those concerned about current US immigration laws, it does seem to make allusions to this idea in various places throughout.  On the other hand, it is fairly common for people to invoke the term "racist" when it comes to anyone who questions the reigning immigration orthodoxy that has done so much damage to this country.  As such, it seems good to discuss the race issue here.  .

If you go back and read through all twelve posts in this series so far, you will find that nowhere does this author bring up the issue of race as a reason to oppose mass, taxpayer subsidized immigration, migration and refugee resettlement. 

The reason for this is, in truth, that the ongoing migrant crisis in the United States and in Europe is only superficially about race.  But playing the so-called "race card" very much works to the advantage of the Roman Church-State and others who are fostering the migrant crisis, because it allows them to define their opponents as evil people and shut them up, or at least prevent their arguments from being taken seriously. 

Much more than being about race, the migrant crisis is about economics and politics.  Even more fundamentally, the migrant crisis is about the theological ideas that support the economic and political philosophy of the Roman Church-State and other globalists who have an interest in creating and sustaining the migrant crisis.

To put it another way, the migrant issue is first and foremost about ideas, ideas which are completely unrelated to race.

Throughout Scripture, the consistent message on economics and politics is capitalism and limited government.  Rome, on the other hand, is all about socialism and tyranny.  And it is this conflict - the conflict between the Protestant economics and politics of liberty and those of Romanist tyranny - that is really the issue at hand when it comes to the migrant crisis.

The Primacy of Ideas

Immigration is one of the more difficult and scary topics to treat, perhaps especially if you're a Christian.  Even so much as raising the meekest question about the wisdom of bringing millions of welfare migrants into the US is enough to get you called nasty names.  This, in itself, is enough to discourage many writes from broaching the subject.

So how has this author managed to overcome his fear of being called nasty names?  By realizing that the charge of racism is really a red herring designed to put people off the scent.

The proper focus of any criticism of immigration is the philosophy that underlies the errant policy.  In any system of thought, theory comes first, then practice.  If one can refute the foundational theory, he also refutes the practices that are built upon it.

In the case of Rome, its migrant initiatives are built on the unbiblical idea of the Universal Destination of Goods.  God did not give the world to mankind in common as the Romanists would have you believe, he gave it to man severally, beginning with Adam who was owner of the whole world and who passed on his property to his children, who passed it on to their children, and so on and so forth down to the present day.

The correct Biblical view of property holds that ownership, not need, is the only moral title to property.  Apart from taxation to support the legitimate, Biblical functions of government or fines levied as punishment for a crime, the state is not to take property from its citizens.  Further, the owner's use of his property, so long as it is lawful, is not to be interfered with by the state. 

The economic and political ideas taught in Scripture overthrow Rome's false teaching on these subjects.  Since  the Universal Destination of Goods contradicts the teaching of the Bible on property, it is false doctrine and is to be rejected.  And if the Universal Destination of Goods is to be rejected, so too is Rome's migrant policy which is built upon it.

The key to cracking Rome's arguments for mass, taxpayer subsidized, nation breaking immigration policies is to focus, not on people, but on Rome's badly flawed economic and political ideas.

The Abject Failure of American Protestant Churches to Teach Christians About the Identity of Antichrist

When reading through Romanist documents such as SNL, I am struck, in the first place, by just how remarkably evil these writings are.  But in the second place, I'm also struck by the fact that American Christians have almost no idea of the depths of the evil arrayed against them in the person of the pope and the organization of the Roman Church-State. 

Beginning over a century ago, American Christians - an I mean even Christians who would call themselves Bible-believing conservatives - have been subjected to a propaganda campaign telling them that Roman Catholics are Christians, Rome is a Christian church and the pope is their friend, their brother in Christ and a critical ally in the culture war.

All of these teachings are false.

Rome is the greatest enemy of Jesus Christ there is on earth.  The Roman Church-State is Satan's masterpiece, an organization that has managed to bamboozle, so it would seem, even the elect into thinking it a true church of Christ, all the while presenting a false Christ who teaches a false faith-works gospel which saves no one.

Or ask yourself, Christian, when was the last time you heard a Protestant preacher preach about the papal Antichrist?  If you are like most 21st century American Christians, the answer is never.

By way of example, consider the Refugee and Immigrant Ministry Resources page from the Presbyterian Church In America's (PCA) website.

The PCA is America's largest conservative Presbyterian denomination, but its Refugee page encourages members to click on links, not only to the USCCB (highlighted above), but also to Church World Service, an uberliberal, very political, anything but Christian organization (also highlighted).

Why, Oh, why is a putatively conservative Presbyterian church sending its sheep into the arms of Antichrist?!  How is it possible that they have so little discernment?

Another, related problem is the failure of Protestant scholars to critically examine Rome's teaching on migration.  In the experience on this writer, it is almost impossible to find any sound criticism of the Church-State's immigration program from a fellow Protestant. 

In fact, this author is aware of only one other writer who has bothered to critique SNL, a pastor from Wisconsin name Ralph Ovadal.  You may read his 2006 article here.

How is it possible for the professing Protestant church to be almost completely missing in action over the past twelve years on this crucial issue, all the while Rome is hard at work promoting its false ideas? 

For my part, I'm ashamed at the sorry state of Protestant commentary on immigration.  Brethern, it's high time that we got in the fight.

In Closing

When undertaking to write a series such as this, I find that, generally speaking,  I have multiple reasons for choosing a topic.  Such is the case for my decision to write once again on immigration.

In the first place, it's a subject that interests me.  Writing is hard work, and if one is to write consistently well on a subject, a certain amount of native interest is a necessary condition. 

Second, it's an important topic.  For a number of years now, immigration quite rightly has been one of the greatest areas of concern to voters.  Presidents and congressmen come and go, as do many of their policies.  But immigration is forever.  A nation's immigration policy has permanent effects upon the country.  If its immigration policy is a bad one, one that serves the interest of a few while harming those of the general population, those permanent effects will be for the worse for that nation's future. 

Third, immigration policy is an opportunity for Christians to separate themselves from the evil ideas and practices of the Babylonian Harlot Roman Church-State and her Antichrist papal head.  The apostle Paul enjoined Christians to mark those who cause divisions and offenses and avoid them.  In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul commanded the believers to, "have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them."

As Christians we are called to mark, to expose and to avoid the doctrines of false teachers.  And as there is no greater false teacher than the Antichrist papacy, so too is it of utmost importance to mark, to expose, and to avoid his false teachings in every area, including in matters of immigration.  Given how much is riding on the issue of immigration, the need to observe Paul's injunction in this area is even more critical than in many others.

Which leads me to my fourth reason for writing this series, which is to hopefully encourage others to do their own research and writing on the topic of Rome's evil immigration policies.  In my experience, the vast majority of the little written by Protestants on immigration is really just warmed over ideas taken from the writings of the bishops and popes of Rome.

Brothers, this is not how things should be.

As Christians, we should be thought leaders in this area.  Instead we find ourselves shamefully begging intellectual bread from the table of Antichrist.  This has got to stop.

Finally, I write what I do because I'm a patriot.  The Lord has blessed us with this wonderful country, but I fear we do not appreciate what we've been given and find ourselves very nearly at the point of losing it.

As a Christian, I realize that this world is not my home, that I'm a stranger and pilgrim on the earth. 

But even so, Christians are called, as were the exiled Jews in Babylon, to pray for the peace of the city.  For in the peace of the city, we, as they did, will find peace. And as was Daniel, so too are Christians called to provide Godly counsel to that end.

It is this author's prayer that this series of articles will contribute to that cause.

(To be continued...)         

We seek to measure the interests of all parties in the migration phenomenon against the guidelines of Catholic social teaching and to offer a moral framework for embracing, not rejecting, the reality of migration between our two nations.

- USCCB and the Catholic Bishops of Mexico in Strangers No Longer

Over the past three weeks (please see here, here and here), this author has examined in some detail the document Strangers No Longer (SNL), authored jointly by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and  their counterparts in Mexico.  The main purpose of SNL, as the quote at the top of the page indicates, is to bring to bear the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church on the issue of migration between Mexico and the United States. 

The three preceding posts on SNL represent my attempt to demonstrate some of the serious, antichristian ideas in the document.  To that end, I have analyzed the errors in three broad categories, noting that SNL is 1) a Marian document, 2) a socialist document, and 3) a globalist document. 

After considering the express and implied propositions found in SNL, it is this author's conclusion that the ideas put forth by the bishops in SNL are not only harmful to the people of the United States, but destructive to the point that they imply the end of the United States as an independent nation.  Further, it is this author's contention that the implied collapse of the US is not some accidental by-product of the ideas found in SNL, but actually one of the bishops' intended effects.     

That said, today I would like to turn my attention to a few additional issues in SNL.  These are issues that may not fit neatly into one of the three categories listed above - Marian, socialist, and globalist -  but which nevertheless are worthy of commentary.

Birthright Citizenship    

In paragraph 67, the bishops write, "Family unity also is weakened when the children of immigrants are left unprotected.  In the United States, birthright citizenship should be maintained as an important principle in U.S. immigration law."

This author could not disagree more vehemently.  Birthright citizenship as it is practiced in the US represents a gross cheapening of American citizenship and is an outrageous abuse of the American people.  Birthright citizenship is an enormous scam.

Earlier this year, and in a previous series on immigration, I explained that, according to the Bible, there are two, and only two legitimate ways for someone to acquire citizenship:  1) Be the child of parents, at least one of whom is a citizen, and 2) By taking an oath of allegiance, which in the US means taking an oath of allegiance to the Constitution.

Why do I say this?  For a longer version of the answer, please see here.  The shorter version runs this way.  According to the Westminster Confession of Faith, "The visible church...consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children" (WSC XXV.1). Baptism is the means by which the party baptized is admitted into the visible Church (WSC XXVIII.1). Baptism - that is to say, the sacrament indicating one's membership in the visible church - is to be administered to two classes of persons:  1) Infants descending from parents, either both, of but one of them, professing faith in Christ and obedience to him 2) adults who make a profession of faith in Christ of obedience to him (Westminster Larger Catechism, 166).  

To put these ideas in less formal language, baptism is a sign of one's membership in the visible church, and that sign is administered to the infants of at least one believing parent and to adults who profess their faith in Christ. 

To put it still another way, one becomes a member of the visible church (n.b. I do not say one is saved, only that one becomes a member of the visible church) either by being born to parents, at least one of which is a member of the visible church, or by an outward profession of faith as an adult. 

So much for church membership.  But what does this have to do with national citizenship?  In my opinion, quite a lot.  For the same God who ordained church government also ordained civil government.  Because of this, the Bible's definition of church membership can be applied with equal force to the question of determining who's a citizen. 

Translating the language of the Westminster Standards into the language of civil government, we can say that the Bible's teaching on the question of who is properly to be considered a citizen is as follows:  1) Adults who have taken an oath of citizenship and 2) the children descending from parents, either both, or at least one of whom, is a citizen. 

On this analysis, it is no more appropriate to call a child born on US soil to non-citizen parents - their immigration status notwithstanding - an American citizen than it would be to baptize, and declare a church member, an infant born to unbelieving parents on church property.

Throwing Shade on the Border Patrol

The document points the finger at the US Border Patrol as being as an abusive group, the agents of whom "perpetrate abuses and who are not held accountable by the U.S. government.  As back up, the authors of SNL argue that only a few of the reported cases of reported abuse by the Border Patrol led to government prosecution.

One problem here is that SNL refers to a 2001 report by the Catholic Legal Immigration Network.  Given the report was produced by an agency of the Roman Church-State, it is fair on those grounds alone to question its honesty.

By way of example, a recent article on the Catholic Answers website titled "Is Sex Abuse a Catholic Problem?" concluded, unsurprisingly, that, no, the rate of sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church is comparable to that found in other organizations, including Protestant churches.  Citing the John Jay report, the article concluded that, not only were the number of sexual abuse cases no more than those found among Protestant ministers, but there actually were fewer.

What the article doesn't tell you is that the John Jay report, according to the report's Executive Summary on page 3 of the report, was "authorized and paid for by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops." 

So, at least if we're to believe Catholic Answers, a report bought and paid for by the USCCB concluded that, compared the competition, Roman Catholic priests are no more likely, and perhaps are less likely, to abuse children, and further, we're supposed to accept the report's findings at face value.

Sorry, but with such recent headlines as this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this floating around, color me skeptical. 

And if it's fair to question the Church-State's bought and paid for report on the Church-States obvious and serious problem of child abuse, it's also fair to question their reporting on abuse by the US Border Patrol, an agency whose activities Rome very clearly despises, if for no other reason than the agency's efforts prevent Rome from inflicting even more damage on the US than it already does.

The Implied Costs of SNL's Recommendations

The bishops wax grand eloquent on the rights of migrants and the obligations of receiving nations to take care of them.  Noticeably absent from SNL is any discussion of the costs associated with the bishops recommendations.  

According to paragraph 33, the bishops, having examined the Social Teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, deduced five principles, "which guide the Church's view on migration issues."

For example, Principle II teaches that, "The Church recognizes that all the goods of the earth belong to all people."  As has been mentioned elsewhere, the is an expression of a Thomistic principle known as the Universal Destination of Goods (UDG).  In short, the UDG states that need to the only moral title to property.  If someone needs your supposedly surplus property, he has a right to take it.  The UDG is one of the key philosophical principles underlying the Church-State's incompetent political and economic teachings.

The UDG also underlies what the Church-State says about national borders.  According to the Church-State, nations have the right to control their borders until the pope says they can't. 

The church recognizes the right of sovereign nations to control their territories but rejects such control when it is exerted merely for the purpose of acquiring additional wealth .  More powerful economic nations, which have the ability to protect and feed their residents, have a stronger obligation to accommodate migration flows (36, emphasis mine).

But while the Church-State is quick to lay obligations on the United States, more to the point, while the Antichrist pope and his henchmen in the USCCB and the Conference of Mexican bishops are quick to lay enormous tax obligations on the American people, they are coy about the costs of their program, never quite getting around to mentioning them. 

The only honest assessment of the costs of Rome's migration demands this author has seen from a Roman prelate come from the pen of Giulivo Tessarolo, editor of Rome's commentary on Exsul Familia, the 1952 Apostolic Constitution on Migration by Pius XII.  There, Tessarolo wrote, "due to the enormous financial implications [of Rome's demands on behalf of migrants], the phenomenon of emigration will find some relief only in the English-speaking countries" (13). 

Of the Pharisees Jesus remarked, "[T]hey bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers" (Matthew 23:4).  In like fashion, the bishops, cardinals and popes of Rome love to go on and on about their compassion for the poor of the world, but they want you to foot the bill. 

The Matthew 25 Argument

The bishops invoke Matthew 25 to bolster their argument.  They write,

St. Matthew also describes the mysterious [the bishops here, as is their wont, misapply the term mysterious] presence of Jesus in the migrants who frequently lack food and drink and are detained in prison (Mt. 25:35-36).  The "Son of Man" who "comes in his glory (Mt. 25:31) will judge his followers by the way they respond to those in need:  "Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brother of mine, you did for me: (Mt. 25:40).

Though they don't quite get around to saying it outright, the implication behind the bishops' argument is that, if you don't support their program, you're one of the goats on Jesus left hand, whom he sends to hell for their refusal to give to those who were hungry, thirsty and in need.

Sounds convincing, right.  Well, not so fast.  There's a principle of Biblical interpretation known as the analogy of Scripture, or the term I prefer, comparative exegesis, which is found in Westminster Confession of Faith I.9.   So just what is comparative exegesis?  The Westminster Confession reads, "[W]hen there is a question about the true and fell sense of an Scripture...it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly."

Jesus very clearly enjoins his disciples to be generous and help those in need, but what did he have in mind?  Was Jesus thinking, as the bishops seem to be, of welfare state handouts, the money for which is forcibly extracted from taxpayers by the government and distributed to those deemed in need, or did Jesus have something else in mind?

Consider the parable of the Good Samaritan found in Luke 10 and ask yourself where did the Samaritan get the funds to pay for his charitable act?  Did he go demand his neighbors cough up the money to reimburse him for the cost of the bandages and oil.  Did he demand the state pay for his transporting the wounded Jewish man on his donkey, or for the cost of the inn, or for the delay the whole affair caused him? 

Of course not.  The Samaritan fully bore the costs of his good deed. 

Christian charity is always and only about giving of one's own resources, not one's neighbors. 

Forcing others to pay for one's charitable work is not Christian charity at all, it is theft.  And theft is condemned in the Eighth Commandment.

For this reason, the bishops appeal to Matthew 25 to bolster their case for international socialism (theft), is not only wrong, but is itself a sin, in that it makes them guilty of misinterpreting, misapplying, and perverting the Word of God, which is a violation of the Third Commandment (Westminster Larger Catechism, 113). 

Rome loves to lecture people about welcoming the stranger, but deliberately blurs the important distinction between Christian private charity, which is always voluntary, and the sort of welfare state socialism promoted by its migrant policy.  They are very different things.  

(To be continued...)

The Vatican called on Monday for sweeping reforms of the world economy and the creation of a ethical, global authority to regulate financial markets...The Vatican called for the establishment of a "supranational authority" with worldwide scope and "universal jurisdiction" to guide economic policies and decisions. Such an authority should start with the United Nations as its reference point but later become independent and be endowed with the power to see to it that developed countries were not allowed to wield "excessive power over weaker countries. "Vatican urges economic reforms, condemns collective greed" - Reuters, 10/24/2011

One of the great frustrations this author has with the way news is covered is the abject failure of the press - and by the press, I mean both the mainstream legacy news organizations as well as the alternate, independent journalists who do their work on blogs, YouTube channels and podcasts - to relate the various political activities of the Roman Church-State to its overarching goal of establishing a new version of the Holy Roman Empire, this time one worldwide in scope.

Now when one begins talking about the push for world government, it's not uncommon to be charged with "fear mongering" and "pushing conspiracy theories." But Rome's lust for world government, while certainly a conspiracy, is perhaps the least secret, most openly admitted conspiracy in history. Many people suppose that, if the Vatican really did want world government, you'd have to go looking for proof in some musty, dusty ancient codex buried deep in a monastic library in some exotic location.

The truth is that proving Rome's desire for world government is, as they say, like shooting fish in a barrel.

Take, for example, the passage quoted at the top of this post. It's from a 2011 Reuters article about a new document issued by the Pontifical Council For Justice And Peace, the full title of which is Towards Reforming The International Financial And Monetary Systems In The Context Of Global Public Authority (emphasis mine).

Far from hiding its desire for one world government, the Vatican comes right out and says it. In fact, it's actually shocking to this author just how open Rome is about its goal.

Writing in the American Conservative, columnist Rod Dreher, a man who apparently is, or at least was, unaware of Rome's power lust, expressed his own shock at the Vatican's comments. He noted,

Lord have mercy. What was once only in the febrile prophetic imagination of Jack Chick and Hal Lindsey is now a press release from the Vatican. A friend (who is not Evangelical) writes:

This is going to FREAK the evangelicals out. But it makes me wonder what the heck is going on in the minds of these Vaticanites! Don't they have a clue how the world will preceive (sic) this? One world authority?? Really?

Count me with the Evangelicals. It freaks me out too, and will freak out many Orthodox Christians (Dreher was raised Methodist, converted to Roman Catholicism in 1993, and in 2006 converted to Eastern Orthodoxy) I bet it has the same effect on not a few Catholics as well. Maybe Malachi Martin wasn't such a conspiracy freak after all...

Dreher got it exactly right. His comments are remarkable, if for no other reason than they are the clearest example this author has seen of a big name columnist actually understanding the plain language of the Vatican and the implied worldwide tyranny of its words. But while Dreher nailed it at first, it appears that someone got to him. For in an apparent addendum to his original article he to some degree walked back his original comments. He wrote,

OK, let me take a second stab at this thing.

First, I don't think there's anything intentionally malicious about this document. It does not have magisterial authority, so it doesn't set out the Church's authoritative teaching on faith and morals. No Catholic is required to believe any of this.

News flash for Rod Dreher, the Pontifical Council's document says nothing new about Rome's lust for world government. It simply represents a reiteration of many, similar calls, both direct and by implication, made by the popes of Rome. As such, Dreher's shock at the Vatican's statement really is a commentary about his ignorance of Rome's long standing powerlust. The Vatican wasn't saying anything new in 2011 that hadn't been said many times before, or since for that matter. It's just how Antichrist rolls.

As proof of this, consider what John Robbins wrote in the chapter titled "World Government" in his 1999 book on the political and economic thought of Rome, titled Ecclesiastical Megalomania, "What the Roman Church-State accomplished on a small scale during the Middle Ages is what it desires to achieve on a global scale in the coming millennium" (187).

To back up his claim, Robbins quotes Gaudium et Spes, one of the major documents to come out of the Second Vatican Council.

It is our clear duty, therefore, to strain every muscle in working for the time when all war can be completely outlawed by international consent. This goal undoubtedly requires the establishment of a universal public authority acknowledged as such by all and endowed with the power to safeguard on the behalf of all, security, regard for justice, and respect for rights (emphasis mine).

Now ask yourself, is there any significant difference between the 2011 statement from the Pontifical Council calling for a "supranational authority" with worldwide scope and "universal jurisdiction" and what was said the Gaudium et Spes in 1965? There's none apparent to this author.

This demolishes Dreher's argument that Catholics are not required to believe the statements from the Pontifical Council calling for world government. Unless, of course, Dreher wants to argue that Catholics are not required to believe Gaudium et Spes when it too calls for a "universal public authority." I doubt he's willing to do this.

By now you may be asking yourself what any of this has to do with the migrant caravan. It may appear that I've gone off on a bit of a tangent and forgotten the purpose of this post.

Far from it. I brought up the world government stuff to set up my main point. You see, Rome takes a multipronged approach to bringing about world government. Just as it attempted to use the public's anger about the 2008 financial crisis to further its goal of establishing a "supranational authority with universal jurisdiction," in like fashion it uses immigration, migration, and refugee resettlement as the means to the same end.

Although Rome's call for world government in Strangers No Longer (SNL) is muted by comparison to what one finds in Gaudium et Spes and the 2011 document from the Pontifical Council, nevertheless the idea is clearly implied. Let's take a look at it.

SNL is a Globalist Document

Several times in SNL, the USCCB and the Mexican bishops attack the idea of the nation state.

Paragraph 30 of SNL directly quotes the explicitly globalist Exsul Familia Nazarethana
(EFN), the 1952 Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius XII which has been called the Church's Magna Carta for Migrants. For my earlier comments on this remarkably evil document, please see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The bishops write,

While recognizing the right of the sovereign state to control its borders, Exsul Familia also establishes that this right is not absolute, stating that the needs of immigrants must be measured against the needs of the receiving countries:

Since land everywhere offers the possibility of supporting a large number of people, the sovereignty of the State, although it must be respected, cannot be exaggerated to the point that access to this land is, for inadequate or unjustified reasons, denied to needy and decent people from other nations, provided of course, that the public wealth, considered very carefully, does not forbid this...

Pope John XXIII placed limits on immigration, however, when there are "just reasons for it." Nevertheless, he stressed the obligation of sovereign states to promote the universal good where possible, including an obligation to accommodate migration flows. For more powerful nations, a stronger obligation exists (emphasis mine).

Basically, the bishops and the Roman Church-State are saying that, the United States and other independent nations have the right to control their borders, until we say they can't. Then they have to listen to the voice of the Holy Mother Kirk and acknowledge their obligation to provide sustenance - i.e. rob their citizens - for as many migrants as we say they have to.

To put this another way, the nation state is no longer the highest civil authority. Rather, the Church is. Or to put this still another way, the Woman Who Rides the Beast is calling for world government with itself in the driver's seat and able to order mere national governments around, the expressed will of the electorates of those nations notwithstanding.

In the 2013 book On "Strangers No Longer", a collection of essays celebrating the 10th anniversary of SNL, Mark Ensalaco whined about the fact that politicians actually were listening to the voice of their constituents rather than to the bishops. He complained, "The bishops appealed for a civil debate about this urgent matter to no avail. It was as if their words fell mainly on flinty ground or among thorns where they withered in the white heat of politics or were strangled by politicians' worldly concerns about their electoral prospects (251).

What offends Ensalaco so much that he denigrates it as "politicians' worldly concerns about their electoral prospects" (187) would better be called elected officials simply doing the job they were put in office to do. But then, it's not surprising that a representative of the tyrannical Roman Church-State would be offended at the idea of elected representatives who actually represent the wishes of their constituents. Quite obviously, he prefers the Roman system where when the Pope says "jump," the only proper response is to ask, "How high, your Holiness?"

It is difficult to communicate to the reader the full extent of Rome's visceral hatred for independent nation states that refuse to confirm to its will, but perhaps the following quote may give him some sense. Writing in his papal bull Zelo Domus Dei in reaction to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, a treaty that permanently curtailed Rome's ability to meddle in the internal affairs of the allied nations and established the modern world order, Pope Innocent X raged, calling the provisions of the treaty, "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time" (Larry Jay Diamond; Marc F. Plattner, Philip J. Costopoulo (2005). World religions and democracy, 103).

Now why didn't Innocent X tell us how he really felt about Westphalia?

Innocent X's epic rant on the Treaty of Westphalia must be understood in light of how the popes of Rome view themselves and their Church. According to Rome's teaching, the papacy has a triple power, being "the father of kings, governor of the world and Vicar of Christ." To such an exalted being, one simply does not say "no." And when he says you have an obligation to take in migrants and pay their freight, well, it's not yours to question why.

Diamond, Plattner and Costopoulo continue,

The Church tended its enmity well into the nineteenth century, when it condemned international law as a "Protestant science" [for once, the Church is actually right about somthing; the creation of  a humane system of international law that respects the territory and the property of the citizens of nation states is one of the great political achievements of the Reformation] and censured the works of the Dutch philosopher Hugo Grotius, often considered the intellectual godfather of international law.

Westphalia drew the Church's scorn because it inflicted a mortal wound on the Respublica Christiania, the vision of society that the Church carried forward from medieval Christendom (103).

When the bishops demand in SNL that the United States - the US is the special object of scorn in SNL - accede to their arrogant demands to accept as many migrants as the bishops think right, they are not doing something novel, rather, they are simply bringing to bear Rome's megalomanical, medieval mindset on the modern problem of Mexican migrants coming to the United States.

Rome continues its assault on the Westphalian World Order it began in SNL paragraph 30 (cited above), repeatedly stating there are limits to the authority of national governments to control their borders. And this while Rome never mentions any such limit on its own power.

The church recognizes the right of sovereign nations to control their territories but rejects such control when it is exerted merely for the purpose of acquiring additional wealth [Question: How does the Church determine when this is the case?]. More powerful economic nations, which have the ability to protect and feed their residents, have a stronger obligation to accommodate migration flows [First, nations don't feed their residents, the citizens feed themselves by the product of their own labor; Second how is Rome's declaration that wealthy nations have "a stronger obligation to accommodate migration flows" different from the Marxist doctrine of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need?] (36).

The Church recognizes the right of a sovereign state to control its borders in furtherance of the common good [What about the state's obligation to, as Paul put it, "punish evildoers and praise the good?" While this is the Biblical purpose of government, Rome's collectivist notion of "the common good" is put forth as the civil magistrate's reason for being.]. 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 [Obviously, Rome does not consider the right to property as a "basic human right," since it advocates national governments taking property from their own citizens and bestowing it upon its favored migrants] (39).

By now, I hope the reader has a sense of just how contemptuous Rome is of the concept of independent - specifically independent of Rome's control - national governments. Rome pays lip service to the authority of national governments, but, in the end, their authority extends only so far as the bishops, cardinals and popes of Rome say it does.

Closing Thoughts

While nowhere in Scripture are church officers given control over national governments, the Bible does speak about a false church that assumes such prerogatives. That false church in Revelation 17 is called Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth. In contrast to the true church of Jesus Christ, the Bride of Christ, this false church delights in fornication and is drunk with the blood of the saints.

In the opinion of the reformers and of this author, Mystery, Babylon the Great is none other than the Church of Rome. As Rome reigned over the kings of the earth in the first century, so she wishes to do so in the 21st.

In the view of this author, SNL lays  the intellectual groundwork for Rome's attempt to break the United States both financially and, by flooding the historically Protestant US with migrants loyal to Rome, culturally as well.  This is the same playbook Rome is using to break the historic nations of Europe, the only difference being the European migrants are largely Muslim.

Once Rome has destablized the US and the nations of Europe by making them financially insolvent and politically ungovernable, it will take little effort to absorb them into a new, globe spanning Holy Roman Empire. In the opinion of this author, this is precisely Rome's end game for the migrant crisis.

(To be continued...)

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...)