The Holy Family WERE NOT Illegal Immigrants!!!!!

It seems that the in thing this year among the leftist PC Cafeteria Catholic Crowd this year is to portray the Holy Family's journey to Egypt as their being illegal immigrants who might have been persecuted for being so.

This is patently a LIE plain & simple!!!!!

Those who are propagating this lie are doing so with the motive of trying to make it sound like if you are against illegal immigration you are not a good Catholic. Besides the fact that this stand is clearly in conflict with the official teachings of the Church on immigration as found in both the Catechism of the Catholic Church & the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. But that is for another post.

Before I get into why what they are saying is a batch of lies & 1/2 truths I have to comment on the very process they are using. 1st of all by lying they are clearly breaking the Commandment against bearing false witness. Then there is the old ethical fact that the ends don't justify the means when the means are immoral as they clearly are in this case.

The basic story going arround is that the Holy Family were in a foreign country, Egypt, without papers, unable to speak the language & occasionally as people looked on as taking jobs from local workers.

1st of all, Egypt was not a foreign country. Egypt was a part of the Roman Empire, just like Galilee & Judea. At no time were there any limits on the ability of people to travel from 1 province to another. I remember being taught in grade school that this fact was a part of what aided in the ease of the spread of the Gospel. & since these priests, bishops & other scholers had to have been taught this somewhere along the way, they know what they are saying isn't true.

As for the language barrier, what barrier? It is another well known fact that pretty much everyone in this part of the Roman Empire spoke at least 2 languages, their own ethnic language & koine Greek. Even in Rome most people knew Greek. Don't forget, Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans in Greek, not Latin. From an cursory reading of the New Testament, it is clear that Jesus knew Greek from the fact that he was able to talk with those who were not Jewish & probably didn't know Hebrew or Aramaic. Ditto with Paul & Peter's preaching outside of Judea. Especially given the fact that St. Joseph was a tekton (carpenter, builder), it is clear he had to know Greek to deal with the variety of customers. So, there was no problem with language when he went down to Egypt.

Also, given the fact that there was a lot of travelling from 1 province to another, it is doubtful that the Holy Family was looked on as unwelcome. & while it is possible that St. Joseph did work to earn a living, again given his skills, he was probably welcome, not resented.

& even though it is clear from Scripture that the Holy Family wasn't well off, at this point in time they did have the gift of gold given them by the Magi. It very well could have been enough to help them survive while in Egypt.

Immigration is an important issue for today. & we need to be sure the laws are fair & just, & in line with Catholic teaching. But, there is no way this package of lies can in any way be used to justify absolving those who have broken America's immigration laws. & those who are spreading them, know that. May God have mercy on their souls for the fraud they are promulgating.