WASHINGTON—The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops welcomed the action of President Barack Obama today to defer action to all young people eligible under the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, saying that it would permit young people who were brought into the United States undocumented to come out of the shadows and more fully participate in society.
“This important action will provide legal protection, and work authorization, to a vulnerable group of immigrants who are deserving of remaining in our country and contributing their talents to our communities,” said Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration.” These youth are bright, energetic, and eager to pursue their education and reach their full potential.”
Forgive me for asking, but aren’t these propellerheads the very same bishops who are currently suing the Obama administration for unconstitutionally dictating healthcare policy to Catholic institutions in America?
But on the face of it, the Executive action they’re now applauding is equally unconstitutional. Under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, doesn’t the president have a duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed”? As such, isn’t Obama legally obligated to enforce Federal immigration laws?
Likewise, isn’t setting conditions of citizenship a prerogative which the Constitution reserves for Congress? Article 1 Section 8: “The Congress shall have Power...To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.”
How can the bishops support Obama’s extralegal action in reference to illegal immigrants, only to oppose his extralegal action in reference to religious liberties? Lawlessness is a double-edged sword. If Obama has the right to flout the Constitution in reference to illegal immigration, why not religious liberty? At the end of the day, the bishops are just as unscrupulous as Obama.
Politics is politics. That's the unfortunate start and end of it.
ReplyDeleteHi Steve,
ReplyDeleteYou approach the question from the perspective that the Constitution is the standard by which to judge such ambiguities. The Catholic Church rejects that notion and sets itself as the standard. So if the bishops decry unconstitutionality in their defense and then use it in their offense, it makes perfect sense because they are the standard.
Said standard having been officially pronounced by Leo XIII in 1895:
Yet, though all this is true, it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The fact that Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the fecundity with which God has endowed His Church, in virtue of which unless men or circumstances interfere, she spontaneously expands and propagates herself; but she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority.
LONGINQUA, ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII ON CATHOLICISM IN THE UNITED STATES
You see Steve, obedience to our Constitution is not the goal of Rome. Their goal is that our Constitution obey the Magisterium.
Peace.