Same old open-borders preaching from Pope John Paul III

Echoing his predecessor more than ever, Pope Benedict has told the Vatican’s World Congress on Migrants that mass Third World immigration, and on a global Camp of the Saints scale, is a wonderful “opportunity” for the receiving nations of the West. The immigrants, he said, come from countries where a humanly acceptable life is not possible, and therefore the West has to take them all in, seeing this mass influx as a positive development leading to improved human “understanding” rather than as something to fear.

Hey, what happened to the idea that the Catholic Church is very canny and political about gaining favor and support in this world? Doesn’t the hierarchy realize that their mindless demand for unlimited Third World immigration into the West convinces many people that the Church is an enemy of the West, and that if Christianity mandates national and civilizational suicide, then it’s a bad and false religion and must be rejected? Maybe the princes of the Church just don’t care. Maybe, underneath their Christianity, their deepest commitment is to the religion of liberalism. Maybe, after all, they are just robed versions of George “diversity uber alles” Casey.

Update: In an exclusive interview with a small group of reporters this evening at the Vatican, the Pope said:

Our exploding Third-World diversity, not only in our Church, but in every Western society, is a strength. And no matter how much we are saddened by the fact that millions of Westerners, whose ancestors have been Christian for centuries and millennia, have turned against the Church and Christianity itself because of the Church’s support for the engulfment of the West by a billion needy, dysfunctional, and unassimilable Third World people, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.

Note to reader: the Pope didn’t actually say that. It’s a paraphrase of George Casey on Meet the Press last Sunday.

Gintas writes:

Migration is not a problem, it’s an opportunity for peace and development! (Bolding is mine.)

Pope, migration is opportunity

Vatican City, November 9—Migration is a growing issue worldwide but should be seen as an opportunity rather than a problem, Pope Benedict XVI said on Monday. Addressing the first session of the Vatican’s World Congress on Migrants, the pontiff said migration was ”a bigger issue than ever before, both in terms of size and complexity”. ”It now affects nearly every country in the world and is part of the vast process of globalization,” Benedict said. ”Many migrants leave their countries to escape living conditions that are humanly unacceptable but without finding the welcome they hope for elsewhere”. The pope urged delegates to view migration as a positive phenomenon ”that helps encourage understanding between peoples and builds peace and effective development in every nation”. The Vatican’s ‘migration minister’ Antonio Maria Veglio’ expressed similar ideas, calling for an end to ”fears arising from a view of migration as an unknown quantity and reduced solely to a public order issue to be dealt with through repressive measures”.

- end of initial entry -

Kilroy M. writes:

“Pope John Paul III” ? Please, this is just infantile. You can, as I do, disagree with the Pope’s liberal pronouncements, but you do yourself no credit by that kind of “wit”. Catholicism is a spiritual, not a racial creed, and it is a fact that it is growing in non-white communities. Hence, the head of the Church will say that it is a sign of strength that his religion is not rooted in a declining demographic. To suggest that such pronouncements are a reason why people are turning away from the Church is just a presumption. It is far more correct to blame it on the liberalism of Vatican II, which precipitated all of these trends.

LA replies:

Calm down. “JPIII” simply means that the present pope is following the open borders policy of JPII, a topic I’ve discussed several times. And if you don’t think that the open borders liberalism of the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches feeds widespread hostility to Christianity, you’re wrong. I’m talking all the time to people who believe that Christianity is virtually identical to anti-white liberalism and oppose it for that reason.

Also, people get upset with me from time to time when I speak disrespectully or mockingly of popes. My answer is, when they intrude into the political sphere, when they use their influence as heads of the Church to try to influence the policies of nations, when they tell the nations of the West to commit suicide, they’re not going to get any respect from me. When they enter into the political sphere, they are as subject to opposition as any other political actor.

This entry lists many of my posts on JPII and Benedict XVI, particularly my critical writings on JPII at the time of his death, when the whole rest of the world was worshipping him. Outside of trad Catholic sites, VFR was the only place on the internet that was standing up against the fantasy that JPII was a conservative.

November 11

Rohan Swee writes:

Re Kilroy M.”s comment that “[t]o suggest that such pronouncements are a reason why people are turning away from the Church is just a presumption.” It is no presumption whatever. I said “enough!,” turned my back on, and walked away from the church of my ancestors precisely for this reason. I will not support an institution that holds my people and my culture in contempt, and actively seeks their dissolution. And I know others who have done the same, and say so. I have been shocked by the sheer gloating and anti-Anglo malice exhibited by some Catholic spokesmen over the on-going destruction of Anglo-America effected by our de facto open-borders policy. Enough.

That Catholicism is “a spiritual, not a racial creed, and … is growing in non-white communities,” is a complete non sequitur in this context. How does it follow that if Christianity is Truth for all human beings, that Europeans must cede their nations? Nothing in Catholic dogma demands this destruction of nations. It is nauseating to watch the Church ally itself with kleptocrats domestic and foreign against ordinary Westerners. But hey, what the hell, eh? We’ve been betrayed by every other institution our ancestors built. May as well toss the Church into the bin, too.

(By the way, the comment of Patrick H. on “the liberal religion” post was superb.)

Michael S. writes:

It saddens me as a Catholic to read this.

Fortunately, I am not obliged to accept these pronouncements on faith.

Posted November 14

Michael S. writes:

Rohan Swee writes:

I said “enough!,” turned my back on, and walked away from the church of my ancestors precisely for this reason. I will not support an institution that holds my people and my culture in contempt, and actively seeks their dissolution.

That response would be justified if the Church were a purely human institution. But the Church is not merely an “institution,” though it was instituted by Our Lord Himself. The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, and to leave the Church is to turn one’s back on Christ.

The hierarchy is in serious error on the issue of immigration. But has the Gospel changed? Has the Apostles’ Creed ceased to be true? Is it no longer the case that the Bishop of Rome is the Vicar of Christ? Regarding the question of whether or not to “remain in the Church,” these are the only questions that matter.

November 17

Kilroy M. writes:

I don’t agree with you when you claim that deracinated internationalism is driving people away from the Catholic Church. All of the traditional Catholics that I know are a colourful lot (literally) and don’t believe race has any intrinsic value to a people. “Ordinary” Catholics, on the other hand, are luke-warm participants within the Church because, well, the Church means less and less to them as time goes by—but most of these people are liberals. If the Church took a traditional view of race, they would trip over each other leaving it in droves at a far greater rate. Hence, to me it seems a nonsense to suggest that the Pope’s position on immigration is repelling his flock.

In fact, it is the liberalisation of the Church’s culture that has defined it out of existence; in this context people don’t see any reason for engage with it. For example: why would I respect a priest who wears shorts and sneakers and insists on being called “bob”, or thinks that sin is “all relative, man”? That is what’s hit the Church, not the Pope’s foreign policy pronouncements.

LA replies:

I don’t recall that I said that deracinated internationalism was driving devout Catholics out of the Church. I have no knowledge of numbers on that. What I do know, because I deal with it all the time, is that Christian deracinated internationalism has greatly increased hostility to the Church and to Christianity.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 10, 2009 11:12 PM | Send