By Msgr. James Vanderholt for the East Texas Catholic

The title of this column might win a prize for being a classic example of an oxymoron (a figure of speech in which contradictory ideas or terms are combined).

Political speech and debate have intensified in our country recently. Listen to these carefully. Ideas and programs are suggested which address the national problems and opportunities of our nation. Immigration is one such problem. It strongly influences Texas which is a state that forms part of our national border. How do citizens evaluate such ideas or programs?

The people of Southeast Texas and the Diocese of Beaumont have a special track record on immigration. I refer to the Asian resettlement program of ten or fifteen years ago.

The Catholic Church of Southeast Texas, that is the Diocese of Beaumont, had no Catholic Charities office at that time, nor full time immigration office, personnel, or even budgeted items. Volunteers with the generosity of St. Vincent de Paul, the zeal of the apostles and the faith of St. Thomas Aquinas organized a resettlement program.

The story of the resettlement program in our area won the praise of Pulitzer Prize author Frances Fitzgerald in the New York Times. The cover of Texas Monthly magazine pictured the Statue of Liberty with a play on words from the inscription on that statue. It read, “Send us your tired and poor and we’ll send them to Beaumont.”

What do the past events have to do with today? Then, our local citizens responded to a real need. Today, can we be guided by our Catholic political/social ethics in facing our contemporary issue of immigration?

The Catholic Church has a teaching on political and social ethics. The Church has the right and duty to teach these doctrines. The role/obligation of the laity is the concrete application of the principles. The specific application of the church’s social teaching rests primarily with those who live and work in the specific sectors of human society in which the problems exists.

What is the Catholic teaching on immigration? The main single teaching on Catholic social ethics is the Vatican II statement, The Church Today. It barely mentions the problem. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

“The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin” (2241). The next sentence calls immigration a natural right. This idea was also stated by Pope John XXIII in Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth). It was repeated by Pope John Paul II when he spoke to the United Nations in 1979.

The Catholic vision in that the entire human family forms the family of God. National boundaries are accidents of history and do not represent the eternal plans of God. It requires the cooperation of all to address specific plans to address the opportunities of immigration.

I urge our readers to listen to recent political speakers with ethical ears. Let the teaching of the Catholic Church give you a value system with which to evaluate political programs. Let the teaching of the Church give you a system or direction in applying the social ethics, valid for the whole world, to the concrete reality of the world in which we live.