But a Cardinal ought not to regard himself as an ordinary political actor. Mahony ought to have thought about two other consequences of his gesture. First, by implicitly comparing the Church to those at whom the law is really directed, he gives the brazenly cynical traffickers in humanity moral and political cover. They’re simply humanitarians, they can say, just like their brothers and sisters in the Church. Second, by loudly encouraging defiance of this law, he’s undermining respect for law altogether, as well as for the regular process by which law is made. If in fact he and his colleagues recognize the rights and responsibilities of sovereign nations, then they should be careful to acknowledge and uphold the legitimate role of legislators, as well as the duty of citizens to obey the law.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to deny that there is a higher—or natural—law, in the light of which ordinary legislation can be judged. I’m quarreling with Cardinal Mahony’s cheap tactical deployment of it, and the casual defiance of law that it inevitably encourages.
Mahony’s de facto calls for civil disobedience on immigration would be more persuasive if it could be demonstrated that he understood the natural-law basis for the distinction between a just and an unjust law. Unfortunately, there’s little evidence of this; indeed, it is ironic that a famously modernist bishop like Mahony, who normally treats the concept of natural law as a pre-Vatican II relic, suddenly cites it when justifying illegal immigration.
And anybody who thinks Mahony is a sincere advocate for civil disobedience should talk to protesting pro-lifers: Squeamish about getting too close to them, Mahony won’t even let them collect signatures for ballot propositions on his parishes’ property. Notice, too, that he now speaks of compassion as more important than law — but when common sense and basic compassion dictated that he cooperate with the authorities in protecting children from pedophile priests, he didn’t, arguing that his understanding of the law didn’t technically require cooperation.
Michael Baker, an ex-priest caught molesting children, has testified about Mahony’s hypocritical brand of I’m-above-the-law clericalism, recounting that after he offered to turn himself in to the police, Mahony’s chancery lawyer said, "Should we call the police now?" And Mahony’s response was, according to Baker, "No, no, no." Mahony then assigned Baker — over the subsequent 14 years — to several parishes near schools and children.
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Standing against the law, in other words, comes easily to Mahony — not because he grasps a higher law, but because his self-indulgent liberalism is essentially lawless. His left-wing clericalism means that he can ignore justly enacted positive laws with the same casualness with which he ignores inconvenient parts of canon law.
I had to laugh when I heard last week that he in effect called on Los Angeles Catholics to "fast" and "pray" that amnesty be extended to illegal immigrants. This is a cardinal who normally considers such practices ultramontane burdens — a cardinal who waives Holy Days of Obligation when they fall too close to Sunday, because he doesn’t want the faithful to suffer the agony of going to church twice within three days. Yet to advance his chic liberalism he will harness the power of old-time piety and invoke weighty Catholic language he usually dismisses as too sectarian. The Church, he proudly harrumphs against a phantom threat, "is not in a position of negotiating the spiritual and the corporal works of mercy" — a phrase I’ve never heard him utter before
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