Can I blame the Catholic Church then?

The LAT offers us a guest editorial from L.A.'s own Cardinal Roger Mahony entitled "A Nation That Should Know Better":

It appears fashionable these days, and almost politically correct, to blame hard-working immigrants, especially those from Mexico and Central America, for the social and economic ills of our state and nation. Anti-immigrant fervor on TV and radio talk shows, citizens attempting to enforce immigration laws and the enactment of restrictive laws, such as the Real ID Act, are evidence of this trend. Some of our elected officials are joining the parade, going so far as to call for the closing of our southern border...

It isn't "anti-immigrant" to support enforcing our laws. His first sentences are basically a strawman argument; perhaps he should do some more research into what people like, for instance, Lou Dobbs are saying rather than misrepresenting their complaints.

And, of course, the last sentence is a swipe at Gov. Arnold. Yet, oddly enough, Arnold made it clear that he was referring to securing, not closing the border.

That makes this the third instance I've spotted in which Arnold's comments have been deliberately misrepresented. The other two were from Antonio Villaraigosa and Pilar Marrero, both fine company.

Needless to say, the editorial goes downhill from there, and he ends up supporting "immigration reform" (you know, the "up is down, down is up" variety).

Now, of course, the reader is left wondering, "Why would a high-ranking member of the Catholic Church support the massive importation of millions of people from overwhelmingly Catholic countries?" I would be shocked and horrified if anyone dared suggest that the good Cardinal was trying to increase the size of his flock, and was using deliberate misinterpretations, strawman arguments, and Orwellian newspeak to do it. Why, it's inconceivable!

This section is titled "Thinking out loud." Perhaps the Cardinal should have thought about this some more.

Comments

It seems that what passes for thinking among the current crop of Catholic bishops involves using only the most shop-worn leftist cliches. Why is he so unconcerned about the democratic rights of US citizens to have their democratically enacted immigration laws enforced? People like this seem to have ideology of the Animalist revolutionaries of Orwell's Animal Farm completely internalized: "four legs" (brown and usually poor) good and two legs(white and comparatively affluent) bad. Marxism in its crudest form.

If immigrants can't be blamed for anything they do wrong, then they have been classified outside the category of morally reponsible beings, and outside humanity. If this be Catholic, down to hell with their bestiality. It is similar to the line about immigrants being here only to work, as if anyone, or any human, could be here to work only, and nothing else. Why do they classify their immigrant subjects as being outside humanity; here only to work, and not capable of being blamed morally for anything they do wrong, any more than a robot or an animal can be?