The official web site of A.H. Lloyd

During the pandemic, many bishops offered a dispensation from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass.  In many cases, this was because local authorities had imposed lockdowns, but there was also a great fear (especially among the elderly) that going out into any kind of gathering could lead to death by the dread disease.

But the Bishop of San Bernadino, Alberto Rojas, is taking this in a different direction, offering a dispensation to illegal aliens who fear arrest and deportation if they go to Mass.

This is a remarkable development.  In recent years, the US Catholic Bishops have been increasingly strident on violating American immigration law.  The continually declare it "broken" without once offering any suggestions for improvement.  This is because they cannot come out and declare that unlimited immigration is their goal because there is simply no doctrinal justification for doing that.  The Church has long recognized the rights of nations and kingdoms to defend their borders and to control who enters and joins their polity.

Much of the Old Testament is about Israel defending itself and trying to keep its identity among a host of larger foreign peoples.  The Catholic Church itself has been instrumental in defending Christian lands from Muslim invasions.  Were these actions wrong?

This also is an amazing declaration of civil disobedience, which normally the Church will authorize only in the gravest of circumstances.  People who enter the country – any country – without permission are breaking the law.  Why is the good bishop protecting them from the consequences of their action?  Again, is the bishop saying that American borders are now a nullity, and that there is a Christian duty to help anyone who wishes to enter?

A great many people – including the USCCB – has convinced itself that unlimited migration is a good thing, and that the clear, document hardships illegal aliens impose on the host nation either do not exist, or are simply a price that must be paid to do good works.  It is robbing Peter to pay Paul.  

Unlimited migration brings a host of diseases from unvaccinated populations, overstrains hospitals and schools, drives up housing prices and crushes wages, particularly among unskilled or semi-skilled laborers.  It benefits the upper classes with cheap servants, boosts profits for the rich, but wrecks the native poor.  It is harder to imagine a more cruel policy dressed up in virtue, but here we are.