Trump keeps on making his campaign promises to deport illegal immigrants. But, of course, several self-described Christian leaders are outraged.
Mariann Budde, the Episcopalian “bishop” who reportedly owns a$ 2 million D. C. mansion, has drawn much attention to herself due to her lecture at the Washington National Cathedral. ” I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared today”, Budde said to Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance at the annual meditation company, adding that” the vast majority of refugees are not thieves” but are” good relatives” and members of religious areas.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops ( USCCB) is in agreement with Budde. Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso released a statement in response to Trump’s professional directions regarding laborers. He rolled out the common tropes, saying that “describing all illegal immigrants as’ thieves’ or ‘ invasions,’ to deprive them of protection under the law, is an anathema to God”. Seitz also argued that the 14th Amendment requires heritage membership, which is untrue, and that deporting those who have broken only immigration rules is an injustice. The bishop also managed to belittle the idea of a integrated, American identity.  ,
Let’s just say that the Catholic priests were paid by the Trump administration for nearly half a billion dollars to practice laborers. The issue raised by Budde, the USCCB, and several other so-called ministers is: Is deporting illegal creatures un-Christian? And the answer is: of course no.  ,
To get un-Christian, imprisonment would have to be harsh, implacable, or both — and none of those are the situation.
Deportation is certainly not an act to righteousness because every improper is, by definition, a criminal, despite Seitz’s try to muddy the waters. It is the old action/reaction paradigm: Break the law, pay the price. In light of how other nations punish illegal aliens, the price is very low. For instance, if you are found to be illegal in Mexico and are sentenced to up to two years in a Mexican prison ( which is not a retirement community like its American counterpart ), you can also be fined up to three million yen in Japan.  ,
Deportation is just punishment for illegal aliens in any nation, but it is especially relevant in a republic where the citizens ‘ social contract and rule of law are supposed to be strong and inseparable. The social compact is shattered if illegal immigration is not justly punished because the just decisions of virtuous people who govern themselves under God are abused and thrown into the trash, making republican self-government a joke. The very idea of equality under the law is butchered and replaced with a postmodern caste system by allowing millions upon millions of people to openly flout the law and then receive better treatment than actual citizens.  ,
” But Christians are called to be merciful”! The Budde disciple and USCCB water carrier will scream in sync. ” God is love! Blessed are the merciful! Welcome the stranger” ! ,
It is hilarious to see so many people suddenly turn up preaching on the subject of everlasting illegal immigration after having revised the Bible and even labeling God “nonbinary” The easy rebuttal to this shrieking is Matthew Peterson’s line:
The passage in the Bible where Jesus declares that if you don’t agree with the wealthy and powerful corporations who want cheap labor, votes, and power and allow millions of unidentified people to illegally enter your nation, you are a bad person who hates his neighbor.
The deeper rebuttal is this: For our contemporary understanding of piety, pietas, which is not just the fancy Latin, is a sin. Not deporting illegal aliens is a sin. The traditional Roman virtue of pietas, which is most beautifully illustrated in Virgil’s Aeneid, extends far beyond being religiously devoted on Sundays. It is the virtue through which the divine, yes, but also the state, the homeland, the ancestors, and the family are honored and the duties owed them fulfilled. It is the bone-deep understanding that a nation is more than just an idea and that people are not just a morphous pile of Lego bricks that can be thrown out on Thursdays.
It is also the knowledge that we are a part of this state, this homeland, and this people because of our birth and our citizenship. This, in turn, places certain duties and responsibilities upon us, the primary one being a primordial loyalty to and love for those elements — people, heroes, language, history, traditions, norms, and institutions — that belong to us because we make up a particular country and nation.
This is exactly what Vance was saying when he recently remarked that placing your family and fellow Americans before global strangers turns on the ordo amoris, the Christian concept of hierarchy among the people to whom we owe our charity, in its place.
Some will argue that coming from the Roman Republic, pietas is un-American and un-Christian. But Virgil and The Aeneid were profound influences on the Founding Fathers, the early republic, and the American spirit in general. And since the same people who adored The Aeneid were also devout Christians, and because God is ultimately the Creator of all nations and the ruler of their boundaries ( Acts 17: 26-27 ), the notion that pietas is anti-Christian ishes out.  ,
If pietas loves what we own more than what does not, we sin against it by doing the opposite. Allowing the so-called “law-abiding undocumented immigrants” to stay in our country with just a slap on the wrist before a yellow brick path to citizenship is opened for them would accomplish this. It would not be a case of welcoming a stranger, but rather placing the stranger first among all others. It would be a statement that the laws we passed through our elected representatives are unimportant, and that Americans ‘ expressed ( and just ) desire to be a law-abiding republic of Americans is unimportant. It would be used to inform Americans that their suffering has been completely unreported, they have been fired from their jobs, or their communities have experienced fundamental changes without their knowledge.  ,
Some will still insist that pietas must be replaced by their definition of charity. But, even here, the sinners against pietas run into a brick wall. Both charity and society have their own hierarchies and structures. More injustice is created when we disobey those orders and impose impunity on others. A man is not charitable if he makes his kids sleep in the basement so that illegal aliens can sleep in their bedrooms. The bishops are not only looking for good press and a profit-making bottom line, either.  ,
