Next to the Wall Street Journal’s virtual advocacy of dismantling the border altogether, the Catholic bishops are probably the most influential pro-immigration lobby in the country. This is not unrelated to the fact that the overwhelming majority of immigrants from Latin America are Catholic. The alliance of corporate America and the Catholic bishops on this question throws into a cocked hat the conventional notions of what is liberal and what is conservative.
…..One thing is for sure: The Catholic Church, at least 30 percent of whose members in this country are Hispanic, will continue to champion the cause of immigrants. This is true because of the present circumstance and probable future. The message of John Paul II’s Synod of the Americas in 1997 suggests that the future is going to be, more and more, that of one continent called the Americas. Needless to say, not all the people of the U.S. share that vision. It seems probable that some new law will be adopted in this political season (what season isn’t political?), and just as probable that it will be riddled with the contradictions that will keep this pot boiling for as far as anyone can see into the future.
The text of John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation: Ecclesia in America
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