By Bosco – Irish Sentinel Contributor –
As a Roman Catholic this must be reluctantly said. The overwhelming attitude amongst the leadership in the Church seems to be in favour of porous border controls, not to mention other treacheries. Sadly, we saw charities, those with close connections to the Church, such as Trocaire, stand in collegiality with Marxists and globalists in opposition to a protest led by Irish patriots. Most of the clergy will tend to offer a simplistic approach to migration while promoting it, using various passages of the bible to lend credence to their homily. Even die-hard Marxist atheists will refer to Exodus 22:21 “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt”, Leviticus 19:34 “The foreigners residing among you must be treated as native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God”, or Matthew 25:35 “For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in”.
In Luke 4:7 we can read “If thou therefore wilt adore before me, all shall be thine”, Of course upon first sight we might believe this is a teaching of Christ, how can it not be given it is written in scripture? It is indeed written in scripture, however, the words spoken here are by Satan in his temptation of Christ. The point here is context. In isolation these words can be 1) wrongly attributed to Christ, or (if the speaker were indeed identified as satan) that the words must be followed (i.e to be become a satanist).
Similarly with the present Church, an institution which seems to suggest the defrayment of unconditional charity and in doing so permitting open borders as well as the unbridled welcoming of migrants without consideration. This teaching however is false. In fact, it is unchristian. How do I know? Well, what does the greatest of Church’s doctors, Saint Thomas Aquinas, say about immigration?
In his tome, Summa Theologica, in the first part of the second part, question 105, article 3 (I-II, Q. 105, Art. 3) St Thomas articulates his position and we can find his analysis based on biblical insights that can add to the national debate currently under way.
“Man’s relations with foreigners”, says St Thomas, “are twofold: peaceful, and hostile: and in directing both kinds of relation the Law contained suitable precepts.”
In making this claim, Saint Thomas affirms that not all immigrants are equal. Every nation has the right to decide which immigrants are beneficial, that is, “peaceful,” to the common good (the latter being a term often abused by those in governmental power)/ As a matter of self-defence, the State can reject those criminal elements, traitors, enemies and others who it deems harmful or “hostile” to its citizens. And sadly, history and geography can educate us on the effects of mass immigration into countries like Britain, Belgium, Sweden and Germany. All these countries are experiencing societal upheaval, largely created by those with vested interests (the far left and globalists, who seek to ruin the homogeneity of European nations). We have also seen that many immigrants, even those present over several generations do not assimilate but use the political system, and the treachery of NGOs, to dismantle the native culture through systemic policies of “diversity” (code for native disempowerment).
The notion of peaceful co-existence is, and has always been, nonsense. Cultures vie for dominance and will seek to overthrow the perceived weaker one over time, especially cultures with very little in common. Of all peoples, we Irish should know this. After all, white European Christians from different denominations have been fighting for centuries. We also see evidence of this in Britain where the police abnegated its responsibilities to vulnerable children who were being abused, on the grounds of fearing the attributed label of “racist” when profiling the Muslim grooming gangs of Rotherham etc. We see it in the recent episode of race baiting by a black feminist activist who will court sympathy over a mere question of national origin. We see it in every advertisement leading up to Christmas we will see a manipulated version of the family, presented as multicultural, creating a new “normal” for the ignorant Europeans to accept. These episodes are all means to an end, to destroy the hegemony of the dominant native culture. Of course, we cannot ignore either the recent census figures from Britain which show an alarming rate of native decline. Who can forget either that the most popular boys name for many seasons now in Britain is Mohammed?
The second thing St Thomas affirms is that the manner of dealing with immigration is determined by law in the cases of both beneficial and “hostile” immigration. The State has the right and duty to apply its law and the law, as understood, should exist for the benefit of those who live under it.
St Thomas clarifies the passage in Exodus for us. “For the Jews were offered three opportunities of peaceful relations with foreigners. First, when foreigners passed through their land as travellers. Secondly, when they came to dwell in their land as newcomers. And in both these respects the Law made kind provision in its precepts: for it is written (Exodus 22:21): ’Thou shalt not molest a stranger [advenam]’; and again (Exodus 22:9): ’Thou shalt not molest a stranger [peregrino].’”
Here Saint Thomas acknowledges the fact that others will want to come to visit or even stay in the land for some time. Such foreigners deserved to be treated with charity, respect, and courtesy, which is due to any human of good will. In these cases, the law can and should protect foreigners from being badly treated or molested. However, the learned doctor continues when he states “Thirdly, when any foreigners wished to be admitted entirely to their fellowship and mode of worship. With regards to these, a certain order was observed. For they were not at once admitted to citizenship: just as it was law with some nations that no one was deemed a citizen except after two or three generations, as the Philosopher says (Polit. iii, 1).”
Here Saint Thomas recognizes that there will be those who will want to stay and become citizens of the lands they visit. However, he sets as the first condition for acceptance a desire to integrate fully into what would today be considered the culture and life of the nation.
A second condition the good saint illuminates is that the granting of citizenship would not be immediate. The integration process takes time. People need to adapt themselves to the nation. He quotes the philosopher Aristotle as saying this process was once deemed to take two or three generations. Saint Thomas himself does not give a time frame for this integration, but he does admit that it can take a long time. And, as previously stated, we have seen that even three generations of foreign settlement can still yield a threat to the survival of the native culture.
Saint Thomas expands his reasoning stating, “The reason for this was that if foreigners were allowed to meddle with the affairs of a nation as soon as they settled down in its midst, many dangers might occur, since the foreigners not yet having the common good firmly at heart might attempt something hurtful to the people.”
For today’s perpetually offended this may seem ignorant, but it is merely logical. The theologian notes that living in a nation is a complex thing. It takes time to know the issues affecting the nation. Those familiar with the long history of their nation are in the best position to make the long-term decisions about its future. It is harmful and unjust to put the future of a place in the hands of those recently arrived, who, although through no fault of their own, have little idea of what is happening or has happened in the nation. Such a policy could lead to the destruction of the nation.
As an illustration of this point, Saint Thomas later notes that the Jewish people did not treat all nations equally since those nations closer to them were more quickly integrated into the population than those who were not as close. Some hostile peoples were not to be admitted at all into full fellowship due to their enmity toward the Jewish people.
The good doctor however notes that this is not a rigid prohibition when he declares “Nevertheless it was possible by dispensation for a man to be admitted to citizenship on account of some act of virtue: thus it is related (Judith 14:6) that Achior, the captain of the children of Ammon, ‘was joined to the people of Israel, with all the succession of his kindred.’”
Aquinas, is aware that exceptions can apply based on the circumstances. However, such exceptions were not arbitrary but always had in mind the common good. The example of Achior describes the citizenship bestowed upon the captain and his children for the good services rendered to the nation.
It is clear, from the intellect of Aquinas, that immigration must have two things in mind: the first is the nation’s unity; and the second is the common good.
Immigration should have as its primary objective tend towards integration, not disintegration or segregation. The immigrant should not only desire to assume the benefits but the responsibilities of joining into the full fellowship of the nation. However, it must be pointed out that many of the migrants coming to Ireland are motivated simply by self-interest. Absolutely no regard is given to the people of Ireland, where the billions of funds necessary to be defrayed to grant newcomers to ours shores, shelter, food, and health care. The fact is, most, if not all the migrants will obtain from the system, not provide to it, therefore the central sources used for their care, will not be magnified by their arrival but depleted, meaning Irish people, who might have received help or assistance, will have to forfeit a right they ought possess ( to be treated equally before the law), abrogated to fund the new arrivals.
Saint Thomas teaches that immigration must have in mind the common good; it cannot destroy or overwhelm a nation, and this is what is happening before our collective eyes.
Another point that is often ignored by Church leaders is the role of subsidiarity, a staple doctrine within the Church. Here, the local is preferred over the non-local. The local of course starts with oneself (an unhealthy mother after all will be unable to attend her children), then comes immediate family and then, like the ripples of the tiniest tides caused by a drop of a stone in a body of water, the energy moves outwards, a centrifugal force as you will, affecting the local community, then national interests and then further across borders.
Duty is an important concept in Christian ethics. Parents owe a duty to their children, grown up children owe a duty to care for elderly parents. The duty extends outwards from immediate family, to extended family, locality and then nation, then international community. If a parent, say John has only enough money to care for his ill child, Conor, and next door, Mark, who also has an infirm child, Dennis, then if John were to abdicate his duty towards his own son by assisting his neighbours child, this is not charity. This is neglect and the violation of duty.
Whether people like it or not, Ireland has many people living on the margins. The same charities that would stand shoulder to shoulder with radical communists during protests, charities who employees are paid exceptionally well to fail, and fail they do, consistently, yet would condemn Irish men and women who often fund the same charities, demonstrate abject hypocrisy as they pretend to care about the dispossessed whilst all the while ignoring the dispossessed, the dispossessed Irish they make their ample livings on the back of.
Returning to Matthew 25:35 “For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in”. Many of those entering the country are neither hungry nor thirsty. 25% of the population in Nigeria for example subsist on under $300 a year. Research suggests that over 95% of Nigerians who enter Europe do so by airplane, the cost from Nigeria to Europe is about $600. This means that majority of Nigerians coming to Europe are middle class, able to afford the flights. Over $20 Billion is remitted to Nigeria from their diaspora, by middle class Nigerians who have made their way to Europe, sending large volumes of money back to relatives, invariably of the same social class, therefore widening the gulf between rich and poor in Nigeria. The left and the NGO sector are facilitating this inequality.
In a documentary recently, a Georgian admitted that he came to Europe based upon the idiotic terms and conditions of asylum that grant him free food, shelter and health. The reality here is that while Irish mothers and fathers are struggling this Christmas, the Irish establishment, including, sadly, members of the Catholic hierarchy are perpetuating a fraud, some more complicit than others.
The truth is, the Irish people have no moral obligation to self-interested foreigners until every Irish man, woman and child is properly cared for, and when they are cared for, their lot should be improved again and again. Whilst one Irish person is suffering it means we have abdicated our moral duty and our Christian ethic, and suffer those Irish will, as people who make money from other’s suffering (NGOs and Charities, those, who have a proven record of failure e.g,the homelessness crisis for example has worsened, all the while their CEOS and other executives receive lucrative salaries) pretend to care about the people they care very little for; those we owe an immediate duty towards, the Irish.
The Catholic Church has been the victim of a coup d’état for decades now, where exceptionally effeminate men have taken control, promoting their own agenda of woke politics, which is only successful in driving real men further away from the faith. This is not fiction and I refer you to ex-communists like Bella Dodd who testified before congress of her own role in seeding the Church with communists to destroy the faith from within. Communist Antonio Gramsci recognised this too with his agenda of “marching through the institutions”, an attack from within. While this may be their objective, many Irish people, who seem to believe that these traitors in mitres truly represent the faith, such traitors are nothing but wolves in sheep’s clothing, and the calumniators have been deceived. The only way to truly defeat the false shepherds is not to be deceived into leaving Christ for Judas.
Just as Irish martyrs of the past did, great men of faith, men and women who defended Ireland, and the Irish people and their religious belief, we should look at them as exemplars, these are the people we should equate with our faith. The men and women today who seek to defend our land, many secular and many non-Catholic even are no different in kind to those men and women we all grew up admiring, men and women of courage and virtue, who defend Ireland today yet our are we now to assume that the British colonialisation of our land in the past was merely a collection of migrants who were hungry and thirsty requiring shelter, or what they were, an invasion intent on control of our people? For todays progressives, progressives who seek to create a man made utopia but with every step taken straddles towards hell on earth, seek to deceive a highly ignorant, indifferent and malleable population to fail to witness in means, a mere change in tactic, culminating in the same outcome in the past an invasion and plantation aimed at destroying what this present generation have absolutely no right to give away- our nation. Our nation, and its survival belongs to, what Chesterton called, the democracy of the dead, as well as those yet to be born.
Finally, it must be reiterated that there is a civil war waging in the Catholic Church. That “Catholic” leadership and “Catholic” NGOs and charities, that push globalist causes that are prudential political decisions and not religious and therefore not binding on the faithful, are presenting a false vision of the Church that borderlines on treachery. Unfortunately, many who have left the faith of their fathers, for whatever reason, and now who hold an animus in that direction, allow themselves to believe that these political statements that favour regime policies are infallible dogmatic claims, Some, perhaps can be considered as thus (the ten commandments imperatives), but these too are taken out of context and misapplied to the facts, and others are simply political preference as previously stated.
Many faithful Catholics are dismayed by this treachery in the Church, but treachery is as old as Judas’s in the garden of Gethsemane. Evil exists everywhere, in our GPs surgeries, our schools even in our families, all places we might assume reside the good. Therefore, it is not incongruent that evil would also exist where Christ is most present, in His Church.
So I offer this to our readers, don’t be fooled, join the fight and I am certain we, through the grace of God, will be victorious in the end.
