The healing of a bleeding woman, Rome, Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter. / Credit: Wikimedia Commons
ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 12, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).
The book “The Example of the First Christians,” published in 2023 by the University of Navarra, examines the early followers of Jesus of Nazareth, whose lives continue to inspire and resonate with Catholics of all times, including today.
The book’s author, Gabriel Larrauri, explained to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that although people and circumstances change over the centuries, those who trusted in the words of Jesus and in the transmission of his message through the apostles “experienced a situation similar to the current one, and they faced its risks with complete naturalness.”
Larrauri summarizes five hallmarks of early Christian living that continue to be applicable to Christ’s followers today.
1. Total commitment
For the author, the first followers of the Gospel message “are proof of how the world can be transformed.”
They were “normal people who knew how to be heroic, men and women who in their ordinary lives achieved extraordinary things and left a profound mark on the history of humanity.”
2. Coherence and courage
For Larrauri, those who formed the first communities of followers of Christ “are like lights that come from afar and that illuminate us today.” Specifically, “considering their fidelity and their courage can help us a lot.”
The author pointed to “their example of transforming the world from within, without living apart, shutting themselves off or evading the daily reality of the society in which they lived.”
Just like today in some contexts, the first Christians were few in number, lacked human wherewithal and didn’t have, at least for a long time, great thinkers or important public figures, Larrauri explained.
Coherence and courage are the key to understanding how “they were not intimidated” in the midst of a social environment marked by “indifferentism” and a lack of values, “similar in many ways to what we are facing now.”
3. Countercultural
The third quality the first Christians had that Larrauri highlighted is the ability to face persecution. “The Church upholds a lifestyle that must be lived against the tide,” which is why “being a Christian today can be described as risky.”
In fact, according to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Christianity “is the most persecuted religion in the world,” Larrauri noted, and so “having the first Christians to look to helps us face these circumstances.”
Knowing their example, “even going so far as to give their lives to remain steadfast in their faith, can fill us with strength,” the author pointed out.
4. The Eucharist
From the beginning, the celebration of the Eucharist “played a central role” in the life of the first Christians. “It is wonderful to see the faith and love with which the first Christians treated Jesus in the Eucharistic bread,” Larrauri noted, adding that “it is moving to see how we continue to celebrate the same Mass that was celebrated in the first century.”
5. Loving others
In addition to all this, there was the mutual love, brotherhood, and care they had for each other. For Larrauri, “perhaps the greatest characteristic of the life of the first Christians was how they knew how to love one another. This was to be the sign by which the pagans would recognize them.”
Loving one another as Jesus Christ did “is the legacy they have left us and what we must transmit. It’s not just about philanthropy or humanitarianism: They are willing — as Tertullian said — to give their lives for others,” Larrauri explained.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Dainelys Soto, Genesis Contreras, and Daniel Soto, who arrived from Venezuela after crossing the U.S. border from Mexico, wait for dinner at a hotel provided by the Annunciation House on Sept. 22, 2022 in El Paso, Texas. / Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
CNA Staff, Sep 9, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Long a champion of immigrants, particularly those fleeing war-torn countries and impoverished regions, Pope Francis last month delivered some of the clearest words in his papacy yet in support of migrants — and in rebuke of those who turn away from them.
“It must be said clearly: There are those who work systematically and with every means possible to repel migrants,” the pope said during a weekly Angelus address. “And this, when done with awareness and responsibility, is a grave sin.”
“In the time of satellites and drones, there are migrant men, women, and children that no one must see,” the pope said. “They hide them. Only God sees them and hears their cry. This is a cruelty of our civilization.”
The pope has regularly spoken out in favor of immigrants. In June he called on the faithful to “unite in prayer for all those who have had to leave their land in search of dignified living conditions.” The Holy Father has called the protection of migrants a “moral imperative.” He has argued that migrants “[must] be received” and dealt with humanely.
Migrants aboard an inflatable vessel in the Mediterranean Sea approach the guided-missile destroyer USS Carney in 2013. Carney provided food and water to the migrants aboard the vessel before coordinating with a nearby merchant vessel to take them to safety. Credit: Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Catholic Church has long been an advocate and protector of immigrants. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) notes on its website that “a rich body of Church teaching, including papal encyclicals, bishops’ statements, and pastoral letters, has consistently reinforced our moral obligation to treat the stranger as we would treat Christ himself.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that prosperous nations “are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin.”
Popes throughout the years, meanwhile, have expressed sentiments on immigration similar to Francis’. Pope Pius XII in 1952, for instance, described the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt as “the archetype of every refugee family.”
The Church, Pius XII said, “has been especially careful to provide all possible spiritual care for pilgrims, aliens, exiles, and migrants of every kind.”
Meanwhile, “devout associations” throughout the centuries have spearheaded “innumerable hospices and hospitals” in part for immigrants, Pius XII said.
Implications and applications of Church teaching
Chad Pecknold, an associate professor of systematic theology at The Catholic University of America, noted that the catechism “teaches that nations have the right to borders and self-definition, so there is no sense in which Catholic teaching supports the progressive goal of ‘open borders.’”
“There is a ‘duty of care’ which is owed to those fleeing from danger,” he told CNA, “but citizenship is not owed to anyone who can make it across a national border, and illegal entry or asylum cannot be taken as a debt of citizenship.”
Paul Hunker, an immigration attorney who previously served as chief counsel of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Dallas, agreed.
“States have to have responsibility for their own communities, they have to look out for them,” he told CNA. “So immigration can be regulated so as to not harm the common good.”
Still, Hunker noted, Catholic advocates are not wrong in responding to immigration crises — like the ongoing irregular influx through the U.S. southern border — with aid and assistance.
Paul Hunker, an immigration attorney and former chief counsel of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Dallas, says Catholic advocates are not wrong in responding to immigration crises — like the ongoing irregular influx through the U.S. southern border — with aid and assistance. Credit: Photo courtesy of Paul Hunker
Many Catholic organizations offer shelter, food, and legal assistance to men, women, and children who cross into the country illegally; such groups have been overwhelmed in recent years with the crush of arriving migrants at the country’s southern border.
“It’s the responsibility of the federal government to take care of the border,” he said. “When the government has created a crisis at the U.S. border, Catholic dioceses are going to want to help people.”
“I completely support what the Catholic organizations are doing in Mexico and the United States to assist people who are there,” Hunker said. “The people responding are not responsible for these crises.”
Latest crisis and legal challenge
Not everyone feels similarly. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation of multiple Catholic nonprofits that serve illegal immigrants in the state. Paxton alleges that through the services it provides to migrants, El Paso-based Annunciation House has been facilitating illegal immigration and human trafficking.
A lawyer for the group called the allegations “utter nonsense,” though attorney Jerome Wesevich acknowledged that the nonprofit “serves undocumented persons as an expression of the Catholic faith and Jesus’ command to love one another, no exceptions.”
There are considerable numbers of Church teachings that underscore the need for a charitable response to immigrants. In his 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris, Pope John XXIII argued that man “has the right to freedom of movement and of residence within the confines of his own state,” and further that “when there are just reasons in favor of it, he must be permitted to emigrate to other countries and take up residence there.”
In the encyclical Caritas in Veritate, meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 acknowledged that migration poses “dramatic challenges” for nations but that migrants “cannot be considered as a commodity or a mere workforce.”
“Every migrant is a human person who, as such, possesses fundamental, inalienable rights that must be respected by everyone and in every circumstance,” the late pope wrote.
Edward Feser, a professor of philosophy at Pasadena City College in California, noted that the Church “teaches that nations should be welcoming to immigrants, that they should be sensitive to the hardships that lead them to emigrate, that they ought not to scapegoat them for domestic problems, and so on.”
Catholic teaching does not advocate an ‘open borders’ policy
Yet Catholic teaching does not advocate an “open borders” policy, Feser said. He emphasized that the catechism says countries should accept immigrants “to the extent they are able,” and further that countries “may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions.”
There “is nothing per se in conflict with Catholic teaching when citizens and politicians call on the federal government to enforce its immigration laws,” Feser said. “On the contrary, the catechism backs them up on this.”
In addition, it is “perfectly legitimate,” Feser argued, for governments to consider both economic and cultural concerns when setting immigration policy. It is also “legitimate to deport those who enter a country illegally,” he said.
Still, he acknowledged, a country can issue exceptions to valid immigration laws when the moral situation demands it.
“Of course, there can be individual cases where a nation should forgo its right to deport those who enter it illegally, and cases where the manner in which deportations occur is associated with moral hazards, such as when doing so would break up families or return an immigrant to dangerous conditions back in his home country,” he said.
“Governments should take account of this when formulating and enforcing policy,” he said.
The tension between responding charitably to immigrants and ensuring a secure border was perhaps put most succinctly in 1986 by the late Father Theodore Hesburgh, who served as chairman of the U.S. Select Commission for Immigration and Refugee Policy that was created by the U.S. Congress in the early 1980s.
“It is not enough to sympathize with the aspirations and plight of illegal aliens. We must also consider the consequences of not controlling our borders,” said the late Father Theodore Hesburgh, who served as chairman of the U.S. Select Commission for Immigration and Refugee Policy that was created by the U.S. Congress in the early 1980s. Credit: Photo courtesy of University of Notre Dame
Writing several years after the commission, Hesburgh explained: “It is not enough to sympathize with the aspirations and plight of illegal aliens. We must also consider the consequences of not controlling our borders.”
“What about the aspirations of Americans who must compete for jobs and whose wages and work standards are depressed by the presence of large numbers of illegal aliens?” the legendary late president of the University of Notre Dame reflected. “What about aliens who are victimized by unscrupulous employers and who die in the desert at the hands of smugglers?”
“The nation needn’t wait until we are faced with a choice between immigration chaos and closing the borders,” Hesburgh stated nearly 40 years ago.
Rep. Virginia Foxx speaking on EWTN Pro-Life Weekly, May 30, 2019. / Credit: EWTN Pro-Life Weekly
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 8, 2023 / 18:30 pm (CNA).
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce announced the launch of a formal inves… […]
1 Comment
All are standard except Countercultural when compared with the mission of V II to engage the world. The latter remains a worthy effort, the former takes on a radical priority because of the remarkably evil cultural changes that occurred during the decades since.
The art required is being within an antichristian culture as a moderating element to the violence, sexual depravity without adding to hostility and violence. Perhaps meeting this latter challenge may occasion the confrontational martyr spirit of our early Church. Laurari’s work suggests this. That’s how deep the moral differences are since we’re living within a return to paganism of the worst kind. Laurari advises coherence and courage, which we can be assured bring us Christ’s consolation.
All are standard except Countercultural when compared with the mission of V II to engage the world. The latter remains a worthy effort, the former takes on a radical priority because of the remarkably evil cultural changes that occurred during the decades since.
The art required is being within an antichristian culture as a moderating element to the violence, sexual depravity without adding to hostility and violence. Perhaps meeting this latter challenge may occasion the confrontational martyr spirit of our early Church. Laurari’s work suggests this. That’s how deep the moral differences are since we’re living within a return to paganism of the worst kind. Laurari advises coherence and courage, which we can be assured bring us Christ’s consolation.