CrossCurrents A Catholic Reflects on Faith in Our Times

Bernard F. Swain, Ph.D. www.CrossCurrents.us

Hospitality – or Hostility? (Part 2)

Last week I described the attacks on Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles, attacks triggered by his opposition to the immigration legislation now before Congress. I read many Catholic bloggers upset that Cardinal Mahoney would support amnesty for illegal immigrants, as well as guest worker programs and granting visas to family members separated by immigration status. At the root of all this, I observed a basic “attitude-gap” between many Catholics and their Bishops.

I say this because so much of the dialog was less about real issues than it was about personalities and assumptions and opinions.

Bloggers have called Cardinal Mahoney “a disgrace to the Catholic faith” labeled him “useless and morally bankrupt,” classified him as an “open-border, left-leaning cleric.” After characterizing his behavior as “antics,” another concluded: “Mahoney’s lost his way.”

These attacks are not anti-Catholic. Indeed, many of them are by Catholics whose operating attitude is that “Mahoney does not speak for the Catholic Church.” In other words, many people believe the Cardinal is pursuing an inappropriate personal or political agenda.

In this debate, attitude is everything, and the gap is wide.

To understand this gap, we need to examine the tradition of Catholic thinking on immigration. That thinking regards immigration as a fundamental human right that civil laws cannot deny (even though countries have a sovereign right to regulate immigration and control borders). Nor is this merely the personal opinion of Cardinal Mahoney alone; nor is he merely “the top dog of the left-leaning National Conference of Catholic Bishops,” as one commentator claimed. Rather, the pro-immigration position is the constant and longstanding teaching of the universal Catholic Church.

So: What is the Catholic Tradition on immigration? We can begin at the beginning.

In the Old Testament, God urges his Chosen people to befriend strangers:

You shall treat the stranger who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you, have the same love for him as for yourself; for you too were once strangers in the land of Egypt. (Lv. 19:33-34).

In the New Testament, the Holy Family itself became immigrants in Egypt to escape danger at home. Jesus' own teaching makes it clear that hospitality is a key virtue: “I was a stranger and you invited me in.” (Mt. 25:36)

Catholic Social Doctrine on immigration begins with Benedict XIII’s 1891 recognition that every family has the right to a dignified life, and the right to migrate to sustain one's family. Pius XI affirmed the same idea 40 years later, and in 1952 Pius XII underscored the Church's commitment to "pilgrims, aliens, exiles and migrants of every kind." He also put limits on a government’s rights to control its own borders:

The sovereignty of the State, although it must be respected, cannot be exaggerated to the point that access to this land is, for inadequate or unjustified reasons, denied to needy and decent people from other nations.

In 1963, John XXIII’s “Pacem in Terris” sharply re-stated this human right to immigrate:

Every human being has the right to freedom of movement and of residence within the confines of his own country; and, when there are just reasons for it, the right to emigrate to other countries and take up residence there.

John-Paul II made Catholic teaching even more specific by referring to the situation of the Church in America. In his 1999 document Ecclesia in America, he even addressed the issue of undocumented immigrants, calling leaders to recognize the rights of immigrants and their families “even in cases of non-legal immigration.”

In 2003 the Bishops of the U.S. and Mexico produced their joint pastoral letter on immigration, “Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope.” (find it at http://www.nccbuscc.org/mrs/stranger.shtml) They called on all Catholics to extend hospitality, not hostility, to immigrants, and summarized Catholic teaching in five principles:

1.Persons have the right to find opportunities in their homeland. Work that provides a just, living wage is a basic human need.

2.Persons have the right to migrate to support themselves and their families. Persons who cannot find employment in their country of origin to support themselves and their families have a right to find work elsewhere.

3.Sovereign nations have the right to control their borders. But this right is limited, not absolute. More powerful economic nations have a stronger obligation to accommodate migration flows.

4.Refugees and asylum seekers should be afforded protection. Migrants have a right to claim refugee status without incarceration and to have their claims fully considered by a competent authority.

5.The human dignity and human rights of undocumented migrants should be respected. Regardless of their legal status, migrants, like all persons, possess inherent human dignity that should be respected.

In 2005, the Bishops of Arizona (where immigration numbers are highest) issue their own pastoral letter on migration, “You Welcomed Me,” which reaffirmed these principles (http://www.catholic.org/pastoral_letter/migration_en.php).

Conclusion. It is impossible to examine the position of U.S. Bishops on immigration in any fair, objective way without concluding that they’re on firm ground. Their teaching reflects sources as old as the Old Testament and New Testament, as well as the consistent and clear social doctrine the church for more than 100 years.

In other words, Cardinal Mahoney is far from alone in his pro-immigration attitude. On the contrary, he reflects a general consensus within the American hierarchy, as well as a general historical consensus within Catholic teaching from its origins in the Old and New Testaments. Anyone else pushing an anti-immigration position (or even making a sharp distinction between legal and illegal immigrants) will find little support in Catholic teaching.

Underlying all this tradition, of course, is the basic principle: that immigration itself is a human right, not a crime, so governments never have an absolute right to restrict it. So whatever our opinions about particular pieces of legislation, the challenge among Catholics is to build a consensus about basic Catholic teachings and principles. That’s why the Bishops talked about a “conversion of the attitudes based on Catholic principles.”

One cannot read the attacks on Cardinal Mahoney and other American Bishops without getting the distinct impression that attitude is exactly the problem here.

Most of the anti-immigrant writers have the attitude that illegal immigrants are freeloaders seeking “big bucks” by breaking the law; their undocumented status is their own fault. Whereas Catholic teaching is built on the assumption that people do not leave their homeland unless they are already distressed and in need; if millions remain undocumented for years, it is the fault of unjust, inhumane law.

Catholic teaching sees immigrants, whether legal or illegal, whether documented or undocumented, as people in need of hospitality and charitable service. They are, in fact, the strangers who come among us to pose the great moral challenge:

Do we respond with the hospitality that reveals the presence of Christ in these strangers? This is what happened to Jesus’ disciples on the road to Emmaus: they only recognized Him in the breaking of the bread.

Or do we respond with a hostility that abandons our age-old spiritual legacy of welcoming those whom the world rejects?

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2006

Send Your Comments and Questions to bfswain@juno.com

Dr. Swain’s opinions do not represent the views of this parish or any other official body.

Bernie Swain has devoted more than 30 years to adult spiritual formation in dioceses in the US, Canada, and France. Since 1991 he has maintained a private practice as trainer, teacher, and consultant to leaders in parishes and other religious organizations. He holds degrees in theology and political science from Holy Cross, Harvard, The University of Paris, and The University of Chicago.

His writings include Liberating Leadership (Harper & Row, 1986) and more than 200 articles in periodicals such as The National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, The Miami Herald, The Catholic Free Press, The Pilot, Harvard Theological Review, and Liturgy.

A lifelong layperson, he lives in Boston with his wife and three children. Visit his website at:

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