Papa Benedetto - States Have Right to Defend Borders, Control Immigration

1st the shocker: The New York Times got something right for once in reporting what Papa Benedetto said.

So what did they get right? The contents of his 2011 Message for the 97th World Day of Migrants and Refugees. The message was dated 27 September 2010 & released on 26 October 2010.

Even the headline was OK: Pope Says States Have Right to Defend Borders.*

VATICAN CITY — States must treat migrants with dignity but have the right to regulate immigration and defend their borders, Pope Benedict XVI said on Tuesday.
The pope made his comments in his message for the Roman Catholic Church’s World Day of Migrants and Refugees, touching on a subject that has caused tensions between the church and governments in European countries, including France and Italy.
He said everyone had the right to leave home to seek better conditions of life in another country.
”At the same time, states have the right to regulate migration flows and to defend their own frontiers, always guaranteeing the respect due to the dignity of each and every human person,” he said.
He said immigrants had the duty to integrate into their host countries and respect their laws and national identities.
The challenge, he added, was to ”combine the welcome due to every human being, especially when in need, with a reckoning of what is necessary for both the local inhabitants and the new arrivals to live a dignified and peaceful life”.

You can read the entire 2011 message here. But as I said, the Times got it right for once by not ignoring what so many Catholics in Name Only/Cafeteria Catholics ignore. I am refering in particular to the responsibility of immigrants to obey the national laws of the country the go to. In other words, to immigrate legally, not illegally (undocumented). The other part is the responsibility of the immigrants to integrate into the society. In other words, become a part of the whole society, not a society within a society.

It will be interesting to see how the CINO gang deal with this year's message, esp since 1 of their biggest allies, the Times, has not cherry-picked it to justify their agenda. Well, maybe I sould say Reuter's got it right since they were the source, but the fact remains that the Times ran it so my point is still valid.

In April when that whole controversy broke out, I put up a post entitled What The Catholic Church Actually Teaches About Immigration. In it I looked at the Arizona law to see how well it lined up with authentic Catholic teaching as opposed to those on the left like Cardinal Mahony who were screaming for open borders & ignoring a lot of other things the Catholic Church actually taught.
Recently, there has been some semi-serious joking among a few of us as to whether the Pope & other Vatican officials are reading our blogs & then taking their lead from what we wrote. What I do want to say is, that what really matters for me is to read something Papa Benedetto or Cardinal-elect Burke wrote or said & know that what I wrote lines up with them. That is they key, I line up with them. It tells me that I am not going off on my own, but rather I am doing my best to study authentic Catholic teaching as well as uphold it.
Unlike Cardinal Mahony & Nancy Pelosi among others.
I do have to add that the whole message of Papa Benedetto's does include a few other things I pointed out but were ignored by the Times/Reuter's article. 1 of those points was about improving things in the countries the immigrants came from so there wouldn't be as much of a need to leave. Again, I am happy to see I got it right last April.

The question is, will those Catholycs admit they were wrong or once again ignore what the Catholic Church actually teaches, my bet is on the latter.

What should happen is that all sides should start from what the Pope said & go from there in dealing with those already hear as well as border enforcement, etc. While prudential judgment may leave some room as to how we go about it, at least we will all be on the same page rather than promoting our own agendas.

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*FYI in this case the term state refers to what is more often called a country these days. But since the USA is made up of States who viewed themselves as states in the other sense as well, it has the double application that makes what is going on in Arizona all the more interesting.