Washington D.C., Mar 30, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In recent months, national debates over immigration and deportation have reached a fever pitch in the wake of President Trump’s election.
But for Archbishop Jose Gomez, both Catholic principles and the history of America as a home to people from a variety of backgrounds means that the immigration debate has higher stakes than just law enforcement or national sovereignty.
“For me, and for the Catholic Church in this country, immigration is about people. It is about families,” the archbishop said in a March 23 talk at the Catholic University of America.
“We are talking about souls, not statistics.”
Born in Monterrey, Mexico, the archbishop explained that he too was an immigrant, even though he has been an American citizen for more than 20 years. He pointed out that his family has been living in what is now Texas since the early 19th Century, and his family’s relationship to both America and immigration reaches back generations.
He also explained that his archdiocese – the Archdiocese of Los Angeles – is not only the largest, with around 5 million Catholics, but the most diverse.
Within the archdiocese, Mass is celebrated and parishioners ministered to in more than 40 languages, from nearly every country in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
“The Church is alive here – and active,” he said. “And we are really a Church of immigrants.”
Nearly one million of these immigrants who live within the Archdiocese of Los Angeles are undocumented.
Archbishop Gomez argued that this issue of large numbers of undocumented persons is something his adopted country desperately needs to address. This is incredibly important, he said, not only for immigrants and their families, but for America as a whole.
“Everybody right now knows that our immigration system is totally broken and needs to be fixed,” the archbishop said. However, while the United States has a right to secure its borders and enforce its laws, it also has to take responsibility for creating and benefiting from the situation that lead more than 11 million people to come to the country without documentation, he said.
“For many years our country did not enforce its immigration laws,” Archbishop Gomez said. “Why not? Because American businesses were demanding ‘cheap’ labor. So government officials looked the other way.”
The archbishop argued that “we need to recognize that we all share some of the blame for this broken immigration system.”
“Business is to blame. Government is to blame,” Archbishop Gomez said. “And you and I – we have responsibility, too. We ‘benefit’ and depend every day on an economy that is built on the backs of undocumented workers. It is just a fact. Immigrants grow our food, they serve us in our restaurants; they clean our rooms and our offices, they build our homes.”
He noted that while undocumented persons may be living here in violation of the law, “we aren’t putting business owners in jail or punishing government workers who didn’t do their job.”
“The only people we are punishing is the undocumented workers,” he charged. “They are the only ones.” While some punishment, such as community service or other requirements to stay in the United States may be appropriate, Archbishop Gomez commented, it is unfair to the families of nearly 11 million people to deport people with families – some of whom have been here for years.
“That is not fair. It is cruel, actually,” Archbishop Gomez said. “These are just ordinary moms and dads – just like your parents – who want to give their kids a better life.”
To balance love, laws, justice, and mercy, Catholics should consider principles that focus on the human person. The first principle, he said, is to recognize that “every immigrant is a human person, a child of God,” regardless of their legal status or background. The second Catholic principle to consider is that”immigration should keep families together.”
Archbishop Gomez pointed out that over a quarter of deportations break up families, and overwhelming majority of these deportations do not apply to violent criminals.
“I do not believe there is any public policy purpose that is served by taking away some little girl’s dad or some little boy’s mom. We are breaking up families and punishing kids for the mistakes of their parents. And that’s not right.”
While some common place policies could quickly resolve the issues surrounding immigration, Archbishop Gomez argued that the real conflict has more to do with ongoing questions about America – questions like what it means to be an American and what America’s mission is in the world.
The archbishop noted that almost all Americans are of immigrant heritage. “But immigration to this country has never been easy.” He pointed out that immigrant groups like the Irish have faced discrimination and hardship.
Yet, the history of America owes much to its immigrant – particularly Hispanic – roots, which long predate the arrival of English settlers, the archbishop said.
“For me – American history begins with Our Lady of Guadalupe,” Archbishop Gomez reflected. Before the founding fathers were born or before the Revolutionary War was fought, Spanish and Mexican missionaries and Philippine immigrants were settling in what is now the United States, celebrating the nation’s first Thanksgiving and establishing churches.”
“Something we should think about: the first non-indigenous language spoken in this country was not English. It was Spanish. We need to really think about what the means,” he said.
What it means, in his opinion, is that we “can no longer afford to tell a story of America that excludes the rich inheritance of Latinos and Asians.”
Conceptions of American identity that don’t incorporate the rich history of these groups, he said, are not only incomplete and inarticulate, they are not as well-set to adjust to the changing landscape of the United States. America is changing, and if America wants to be great, he argued, it needs to speak to the conscience and realities of the United States.
“That is what’s at stake in our immigration debate – the future of this beautiful American story,” Archbishop Gomez concluded. “Our national debate is really a great struggle for the American spirit and the American soul.”
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Relative to the Eucharistic Congress—and the sacramental Real Presence—and of possible interest to those who possibly disdain this even and such faith…Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI’s posthumous book offers words to be pondered even by indifferent Nones (spiritual but not religious!) and even scientistic atheists.
Regarding “transubstantiation” and the Aristotelian—and prescientific—”substance” and “accidents,” from Benedict’s chapter on “The Meaning of Communion”, this:
“In order to explain this [the definition of ‘transubstantiation’], the philosophical category of ‘substance’ was employed, saying that the substance is taken away, as noted, and replaced with another, while the accidents of the bread and wine remain. Over the course of the development of philosophical thought and of the natural sciences, the concept of substance changed essentially and, likewise, the concept of what, in Aristotelian thought, had been designated an accident.’
“The concept of substance, which previously had been applied to every reality that subsists in itself, was more and more often used to refer to what is physically ungraspable, such as molecules, atoms, or elementary particles—although today we know that even these are not ‘substances’, but rather structures of relations [!]. This gave rise to a new task for Christian philosophy. The fundamental category of all reality in general terms is no longer substance, but, rather, relation. In this regard, we Christians can say only that for our faith God himself is relation, relatio subsistens. The fundamental category of a philosophy that corresponds to the findings of today’s natural sciences is identical to the fundamental category of the faith: God is relatio subsistens [….]” (Benedict XVI, “What is Christianity? The Last Writings,” Ignatius, 2023, pp. 155-174).
(Relatio subsistens? God is not to be objectified as yet another ex-isting thing among all other created things, but IS the sub-sisting and freely creating Being in action.)
And, the revealed “circumincession”—the absolutely simply theological doctrine of the reciprocal “existence” in each other (!) of the three persons of the supernatural Trinity—is like the finite human mind lately discovering that physical reality, too, is relational rather than ye olde “substantial.” For example, that under “quantum entanglement” a “subatomic” event in one part of the universe cannot be described independently of the simultaneous state of the other subatomic relations billions of miles and years distant—irrespective whatever time requirement might otherwise be presumed by the constant speed of light.
SUMMARY: at the consecration, the ordained priest speaks the words of the incarnate Jesus Christ, “THIS is my Body;” and not “this bread is my body.” Maybe one of the speakers at the Eucharistic Congress will dip into Benedict’s providentially well-timed and posthumous book.
A fascinating comment on the Holy Eucharist and being. Aristotle’s term substance or being as a category relates to material existence, explained in terms of form and matter, substance and accidents. God who is unconditional being cannot be relational to other things. Although your rendition here requires much thought, what Benedict says on a new philosophical understanding is subject to questioning [the comparatively ancient transubstantiation is simple and sufficiently clear for human understanding]. You allude to this in parenthesis and state it well (Relatio subsistens? God is not to be objectified as yet another ex-isting thing among all other created things, but IS the sub-sisting and freely creating Being in action.)
Being as Being simply understood as First Principle for the human intellect is sufficient. Deeper awareness or intellectual knowledge is gained spiritually as God is pure spirit different in kind from matter and matter based conceptions. When I speak the words of consecration I know God works a spiritual reality changing the visible tangible reality in my hands into himself. It’s the supreme moment in my life realizing what occurs is both mystery and miracle of love.