Using Fr. Serra for a Political Agenda

Archbishop Gomez: Junípero Serra's Canonization Is Message for ImmigrantsIn this interview with ZENIT, Los Angeles...

Posted by Zenit News Agency on Thursday, May 7, 2015

Related:

Cardinal Wuerl Speaks on Serra's Significant Role in Life of AmericaAhead of Blessed's Canonization Taking Place in His Diocese in September, Washington DC's Cardinal Speaks on Setting Record Straight

Posted by Zenit News Agency on Monday, May 4, 2015

Pope Asks Junipero Serra to Lead Him As He Embarks on Trips to North, South AmericaBefore 'Apostle of California's'...

Posted by Zenit News Agency on Monday, May 4, 2015

Scenes from the historic visit of Pope Francis to the NAC, on the occassion of the Day of Reflection on Blessed Junipero Serra.

Posted by Vatican Radio - English Section on Wednesday, May 6, 2015

TAC News

Post by Thomas Aquinas College.

Post by Thomas Aquinas College.

None Dare Call It Treason?

The Roman Catholic recreation of the proposition nation.

Saw this book on display tonight.

Immigration and the Next America: Renewing the Soul of Our Nation by Archbishop José Gomez



What does Archbishop Gomez endorse specifically in this book? Any talk of assimilation and what is required to make it happen? Does he sound like an ethnonationalist who seeks benefits for his people at the expense of another group? Or at the minimum, without any duty to assimilate, being permitted to carve out their own place if they so wish?

Conquest by another name? He may deny that it is his intention to advocate it, but what of 'unintended' consequences? Is he that naive?

A Test for America

One man's mission to renew America's soul By looking at immigration’s past, Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles conceives its future by Gretchen R. Crowe
Gomez's "Immigration and the Next America" by Michael Sean Winters
Immigration and the Soul of America by Elise Hilton
Read: Immigration and the Next America by Meinrad Scherer-Emunds
Immigration And the Next America: Renewing the Soul of Our Nation by Mark and Louise Zwick
The Catholic Spirit
Archbishop Gomez writes book on immigration, discusses America’s Catholic heritage
Archbishop Jose Gomez's vision of 'Immigration and the The Next America'

An endorsement from Archbishop Chaput.

I am reminded of Paul Gottfried:

Even more importantly, says Ryn, Catholics recognize in Straussians figures who share their own “alienation” about living in a predominantly Protestant country. As Canadian philosophy professor Grant Havers documents in a forthcoming book about the studied avoidance by Straussian interpreters of America’s Protestant heritage, Straussians provide a narrative about the American founding that make ethnic Catholics feel secure about their Americanness.

According to the Straussians, America was founded on secular, materialist and democratic principles, but in no way on Protestant ones. Thus, if the Straussians try to de-Christianize and de-ethnicize America, they also conveniently cover up the Protestant aspects of a specifically American tradition.

Catholic Straussians (of whom there are many in Conservatism, Inc.) feel safe living in a “propositional nation” and “global democracy” in which they don’t feel threatened by the real American Protestant (and/or Northern European) American past, extending back to the colonial period. It’s more convenient to jettison such associations for the vision of a constantly changing hybrid society that is held together by universal, egalitarian propositions.

Archbishop Gomez on VDare's Radar

Los Angeles’ Mexican Archbishop Is a New Spokes-priest for Amnesty

Mass in Recognition of All Immigrants, Homily by Archbishop Gomez (7/21/2013)

Divided Loyalties in the Name of Being Pastoral

The Catholic Bishops and Immigration Reform by Christopher Manion

He links to a letter written by "the Archbishop of Los Angeles and 32 other Hispanic Bishops in the United States" and published in December 2011. (There is probably a Spanish version online as well - you can find it here.)

Promoting the new myth regarding America:
"We who are citizens and permanent residents of this country cannot forget that almost all of us, we or our ancestors, have come from other lands and together with immigrants from varioos nations and cultures, have formed a new nation."

Using migration in an equivocal manner. (It is not understood, within political discussions, as simply locomotion.)
"We see Jesus the pilgrim in you migrants. The Word of God migrated from heaven to earth in order to become man and save humanity. Jesus emigrated with mary and Joseph to Egypt, as a refugee. He migrated from Galilee to Jerusalem for the sacrifice of the cross, and finally he emigrated from death to life in the resurrection and ascention to heaven."

No discussion of the duties of immigrants, legal or illegal, to the United States and its citizens, or the importance of commitment and assimilation.

Related:
Justice for Immigrants
NCReg article on the letter

Another on Archbishop Gomez

Is the Rule of Law Immoral? Ask Archbishop José Gomez! by Christopher Manion

Archbishop Jose Gomez Advocating... Immigration Reform!

Did you think it was something else? A Time for Immigration Reform

We want reforms so that immigrant families can remain together. We want reforms so that migrant farmworkers and others are not exploited. And we want reforms so our brothers and sisters can live with the dignity that God intends for them.

But that does not mean that they should be put on the automatic path to citizenship. They should recognize the debts that they owe American society and work to redress the imbalance, and the question of whether they should be allowed to become citizens should be decided by the local community, which will judge whether they have assimilated and are have embraced a new identity and loyalty.

By the way

I note that the group that was the audience for Archbishop Gomez's speech probably does not offer great opposition to immigration "reform" or immigration, legal or illegal. So why preach to the choir? Besides the Uhmerican Catholic version of the proposition nation, Archbishop emphasizes that the fiction of the Judeo-Christian tradition is its foundation:

And that vision is Jewish and Christian in origin. It is a vision that we find on the first page of the Bible and it continues through the Law of Moses and the writings of the prophets and it continues in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the writings of the first Christians.

America's "creed" is based on the biblical teaching that human life is sacred and has great dignity — because God made men and women in his own image. It gets expressed this way in the Declaration of Independence — that all men and women are created equal by God and endowed with God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

This Judeo-Christian creed has helped make America home to a flourishing diversity of cultures, religions and ways of life. As a result, we have always been a nation of nationalities. E pluribus unum. One people made from peoples of many nations, races, and creeds.

Are they persuaded by such appeals? There are a few orthodox pro-life rabbis who might do so, but I suspect for most Jews in positions of power or authority this is laughable. If we commit the sin of idolatry to a mere man, why would they want to be associated with Christianity or Christian teaching? (For the Jews who take their religion seriously.) As for those who are religious liberals, they are probably aware that Christianity had been opposed to liberalism for some time, and any recent and apparent capitulation to liberalism is a sign of weakness.

Archbishop Gomez Continues His Advocacy

The liberal Catholic version of the Proposition Nation.

Archbishop Gomez's Address to Jewish Leaders on Immigration Reform

This issue of immigration is crucial to us. It's also important to me personally. I was born in Monterrey, Mexico and lived there until after I graduated college. So I am an immigrant and also a naturalized American citizen. I still have family on both sides of the border.

I am also the chairman of the U.S. bishops' committee on migration, so I am active on this issue at a national level. Basically, the bishops have for years now supported a comprehensive reform of our immigration policies that secures our borders and gives undocumented immigrants the chance to earn permanent residency and eventual citizenship.

And I feel like we are seeing movement on this issue. Finally. For the first time in years.

I was just in Washington two weeks ago for a meeting at the White House with President Obama — along with other religious leaders. The Jewish faith was represented by Mark Hetfield, president of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. I think we all walked away from the meeting feeling like the President agreed with our concerns. So now is the time to get this done.

The question for us is what's our role in immigration reform, as religious people? I think it's this. I think our role is to be the voice of conscience and vision. That's what's been missing in the debate so far. If immigration was only about finding technical solutions, about fixing a broken system, then I think the system would probably have been fixed already.

The real problem is that immigration is a question about America — about our national identity and destiny, about the national "soul." What is America? What does it mean to be an American? Who are we as a people and where are we heading as a country? What will the "next America" look like? What should the next America look like?

We can't try to answer all those questions tonight. But we can start to think about them.

It was a British writer, G. K. Chesterton, who said, "America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed."

He was right. Every other nation in history has been established on some "material" foundation. On the basis of a common set of borders or territory. Or on the basis of race or ethnicity — the same kind of people all live there.

But America was founded on something else. America was founded on a vision.

And that vision is Jewish and Christian in origin. It is a vision that we find on the first page of the Bible and it continues through the Law of Moses and the writings of the prophets and it continues in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the writings of the first Christians.

America's "creed" is based on the biblical teaching that human life is sacred and has great dignity — because God made men and women in his own image. It gets expressed this way in the Declaration of Independence — that all men and women are created equal by God and endowed with God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

This Judeo-Christian creed has helped make America home to a flourishing diversity of cultures, religions and ways of life. As a result, we have always been a nation of nationalities. E pluribus unum. One people made from peoples of many nations, races, and creeds.

One of the problems we have today is that we've lost our ability to talk about issues in religious and moral terms. We are becoming a more and more secular society. And that makes it hard to talk about the values and commitments we find in America's founding documents.

Think about the great movements for change and social justice in America — the anti-slavery movement, the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the culture of life movement today. These would be unthinkable without our nation's sacred Judeo-Christian heritage.

There's a reason for that. Because in our system of democracy, human rights don't come from government, they come from God. The best expression of that is John F. Kennedy's inaugural address: "The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God."

So if we are not allowed to talk about God anymore in our politics or civic life then it becomes very hard to talk about human rights and human dignity.

And I think that's one of the problems we are having in this immigration debate. We have lost sense of the "humanity" of the men and women and children who are living in this country illegally.

That worries me as a pastor. I'm worried we are losing something of our national soul.

America is a great nation. At home and abroad. In times of war and in times of peace. Americans can be found wherever people are poor and suffering — lending a hand, saving lives, building communities, bringing people hope.

Two from California Catholic Daily

California Catholic Daily: “An amazing, an amazing, simply amazing father to us all”
Archbishop Gomez gives emotional farewell to San Antonio; reception Mass slated May 26 in Los Angeles

And: Serious Spiritual Direction
From Argentina via Michigan to California

Another group dedicated to giving the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola? I have to ask: how is their liturgy? The order is into Gregorian chant apparently.

Related links:
Miles Christi (Argentina website)