This past weekend something incredible and sad happened in the Chambers of the United States Congress. One would think you went back into time and was present in the 1920's or the the 1870's. Representative Tom Tancredo in a SPEECH on the U.S. House floor engaged in Pope and Catholic bashing that we saw in the bad ole days. Tancredo thankfully is on his way out. I was not shocked by this. For two years there have many of us pleading to people that even if they oppose immigration reform to please not associate with Tancredo and his ilk. Their agenda is far more than illegal aliens. It is quite radical.
Tancredo did this on purpose in a sad attempt to get him publicity. His anti Catholic thoughts as well as those that of the top Brass at F.A.I.R , C.I.S., and other John Tanton groups are well known and have been tracked. Tancredo is preparing himself for some talk show gig after he leaves congress this year. His crowd that is playing too is shown here in these sad comments. Lou Dobbs of CNN and Mark Krikorian of C.I.S.(more on him later) are all part of the same crew that engage in this stuff.
Transcript:
REMARKING ON THE POPE'S VISIT AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION -- (House of Representatives - April 17, 2008)
[Page: H2472] GPO's PDF --- The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. TANCREDO. Madam Speaker, I rise today to also welcome Pope Benedict XVI to the United States and to Washington, D.C., and congratulate him for delivering an important message on the role that faith plays in the lives of every believer.
Mr. TANCREDO. Madam Speaker, I rise today to also welcome Pope Benedict XVI to the United States and to Washington, D.C., and congratulate him for delivering an important message on the role that faith plays in the lives of every believer.
Over the years, the Vatican has been a strong voice for religious freedom, for human rights, and was an invaluable partner in defeating Communism during the Cold War. The Catholic Church has long been a source of charity and benevolence helping some of the world's most vulnerable people in some of the world's most dangerous places.
However, as President Bush welcomes Benedict XVI to Washington this week, Americans might be surprised to know that the Pope isn't here just to minister to his flock. He's here to lobby for amnesty for illegal aliens. According to news reports, the Pope met with President Bush yesterday to add his voice to the open border lobby by encouraging the President to give the 20 to 30 million illegal aliens in this country a free pass to stay here.
Now, I'm not taking issue with the Pope's moral authority. I respect his views on the threats of Islam, the sanctity of human life. But I don't think it's in his job description to engage in American political activities.
Worse yet, the Pope chided America, insinuating that immigrants are subject to ``violence'' and prevented from leading ``dignified lives.'' Madam Speaker, I would like to know what part of our American lax immigration policy is ``violent.'' I fail to see how accepting more refugees than any other Nation while providing free health care, free education, free housing and free social service benefits to millions of illegal aliens in this country is in any way degrading to them or undignified.
I would like to remind the Pope that America has long been dedicated to the principle of the rule of law, and there is absolutely nothing inhumane about American immigration statutes or the robust but civilized enforcement of it.
But perhaps the Pontiff has made these comments with a motive more broad than simply spreading the gospel. It's no secret that the Catholic Church has been having difficulty maintaining its membership levels and a growing number of religions are competing for parishioners.
Indeed, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that the ``Catholic Church has long been losing members and as much as a third of the native-born Catholic population is diminished. Meanwhile it has gained members among foreign-born (mostly Hispanic) residents.''
Madam Speaker, it's possible and unfortunate that the Pope's immigration comments may have had as much to do with spreading the gospel as it does recruiting new members to the Church.
I regret that the Pope used some of his time with the President to engage in faith-based marketing trying to attract new parishioners instead of preaching amnesty for illegal aliens to try and enlarge the size of the global Catholic congregation. I would urge the Pope to subscribe to the wisdom of one of his cardinals, Cardinal Biffi. A few years ago, the cardinal told The Times of London, ``Countries can choose to let in whoever they want. There is no such thing as a right of invasion.''
Madam Speaker, the United States already has a legal immigration system unparalleled in its generosity. In the meantime, we assist illegal aliens, and those affected by them, by reimbursing hospitals for costly illegal emergency room hospital visits, providing free public education to illegal alien children. I would challenge the Pope to name any other country on Earth that demonstrates this kind of compassion on such a large scale.
I hope, Madam Speaker, that the American people will welcome the Pope with open hearts and open arms but that they will reject his demand to replace our efforts to achieve genuine border security with a faith-based immigration system.
Good Grief. First lets us state the obvious fact. No one at the Vatican is thrilled with illegal immigration. The fact is these people are already Catholic. When they come to the United States many of them for various reasons will leave the faith or become EVANGELCIALS. The U.S. Catholic Church has a vocation crisis and is ill prepared for these new comers. We are trying to do the best we can in line with the principles of the Gospels. These new immigrants, illegal and legal, do not exactly contribue a lot to the collection plate when they show up either. That is to be expected. No Tancredo is doing a line here to appear to anti Catholic conspiracy theories that often I hate to say appear on many forums.
I often rant against Kathryn Jean Lopez who is a contributor to the National Review and their blog. She is a Catholic and on the issue of Immigration reform and other issues I have sent emails to her pleading that she give the Catholic and indeed other Conservatives views a fair hearing.
She very much opposed Immigration reform as was was promoted by Bush, McCain, Lott, Brownback, and other Republicans. However she wrote a very good piece today Deport Such TalkTom Tancredo rushes to unnecessary outrage... She has the Pope's full statements and takes Tancredo to task. If you think I am some open border Republican then perhaps her comments will have more credibility to you
During the last two years , I have pleaded with Conservatives that in this hard immigration fight that we police our own. That we recognize that people have other agendas besides just the problems of illegals. To be careful of who we are lying in bed with.
Why is Mrs Lopez a tad shocked perhaps of the monster that we helped create. At the National Review and on the Corner is Mark Krikorian. He was head of C.I.S which is a John Tanton Group. A couple of months ago he used the same rhetoric and thankfully was taken to task by the NRO people. He said:
Another Job Americans Won't Do? [Mark Krikorian]
Maybe this helps explain the RC bishops' support for open immigration, contrary to the views of those in the pews:
Among U.S. adults, about the same percentage — 24 — call themselves Catholic as in the past, but that statistic masks significant turnover. The percentage has held up primarily because of the huge number of recent Latino immigrants, who are largely Catholic, the survey found. Sixty-eight percent of people raised Catholic still identify with their childhood denomination, compared with 80 percent of Protestants and 76 percent of Jews.
02/26 07:38 AM.
Thankfully some of my fellow conservatives responded:
Gospel Truth [John J. Miller]
Wow, Mark, that's a rather astonishing thing to say about Catholic bishops. I know you don't like it when they support generous immigration laws. That's fine. You don't have to. You don't have to like what they say about abortion, birth control, the death penalty, or anything else for that matter. But do you seriously think that when they talk about immigration, their main inspiration is demographic? Or were you just trying to take a gratuitous swipe at their faith?
02/26 09:53 AM.
Wow, Mark, that's a rather astonishing thing to say about Catholic bishops. I know you don't like it when they support generous immigration laws. That's fine. You don't have to. You don't have to like what they say about abortion, birth control, the death penalty, or anything else for that matter. But do you seriously think that when they talk about immigration, their main inspiration is demographic? Or were you just trying to take a gratuitous swipe at their faith?
02/26 09:53 AM.
Catholics and Immigration [David Freddoso]
Mark: The idea that the bishops would advocate a particular position on immigration for the sake of "organizational continuity" is fairly obtuse. In fact, it's really, really obtuse. The Catholic Church has been around for 2,000 years despite periods of massive public unbelief and even active persecution. The Pew survey isn't about to bring it all crashing down around us.
Moreover, immigration is a real loser for the Catholic Church from a financial perspective, more than it is for other churches. You argue consistently that Hispanic immigrants are a drain on the state. Do you think they have hidden caches of gold that they plunk down on the plate every Sunday? It costs money to run their churches — money they don't have. Catholic schools educate many thousands of students who can't pay the full price, many of them children of illegal immigrants. And Catholic hospitals...well, you get the picture.
A much better explanation is that Catholic clergy are accustomed to dealing with scores of Hispanic immigrants — many illegal — on a daily basis, because they are Catholics and they go to Catholic churches. The priests see that they are human beings. They deal with these people's immigration and non-immigration related problems. They visit their families. They say masses for their dead parents. They hear their confessions. Later, those priests become bishops, and they make pronouncements. It's as simple as that.
It doesn't mean they're necessarily right on immigration or that they can claim expert status on the topic. But the human aspect of the issue is often more persuasive than perfectly valid objections to illegal immigration based on law and order, economics, national security, etc.
There isn't some dark, hidden motive here, just people being people, and treating others as they'd hope to be treated in the same situation.
Mark: The idea that the bishops would advocate a particular position on immigration for the sake of "organizational continuity" is fairly obtuse. In fact, it's really, really obtuse. The Catholic Church has been around for 2,000 years despite periods of massive public unbelief and even active persecution. The Pew survey isn't about to bring it all crashing down around us.
Moreover, immigration is a real loser for the Catholic Church from a financial perspective, more than it is for other churches. You argue consistently that Hispanic immigrants are a drain on the state. Do you think they have hidden caches of gold that they plunk down on the plate every Sunday? It costs money to run their churches — money they don't have. Catholic schools educate many thousands of students who can't pay the full price, many of them children of illegal immigrants. And Catholic hospitals...well, you get the picture.
A much better explanation is that Catholic clergy are accustomed to dealing with scores of Hispanic immigrants — many illegal — on a daily basis, because they are Catholics and they go to Catholic churches. The priests see that they are human beings. They deal with these people's immigration and non-immigration related problems. They visit their families. They say masses for their dead parents. They hear their confessions. Later, those priests become bishops, and they make pronouncements. It's as simple as that.
It doesn't mean they're necessarily right on immigration or that they can claim expert status on the topic. But the human aspect of the issue is often more persuasive than perfectly valid objections to illegal immigration based on law and order, economics, national security, etc.
There isn't some dark, hidden motive here, just people being people, and treating others as they'd hope to be treated in the same situation.
To see why many of us conservatives are concerned go see this article that has been reproduced here. You lay down with dogs you get fleas. Tancredo's anti Catholic and conspiracy statements made on OUR HOUSE OF REPRESENATIVES is just part of the fall out .
I stand by what the Wall Street Journal and their March 15, 2004 editorial by Jason Riley, a senior editorial page writer when he said:
“So determined is conservatism’s nativist wing that it’s even made common cause with radical environmentalists and zero-population-growth fanatics on the leftist fringe. The Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Center for Immigration Studies may strike right-wing poses in the press, but both groups support big government, mock federalism, deride free markets and push a cultural agenda abhorrent to any self-respecting social conservative.
FAIR’s founder and former president is John Tanton, an eye doctor who opened the first Planned Parenthood chapter in northern Michigan. By Dr. Tanton’s own reckoning, FAIR has received more than $1.5 million from the Pioneer Fund, a white-supremacist outfit devoted to racial purity through eugenics.Board members of FAIR actively promote the sterilization of Third World women for the purposes of reducing U.S. immigration prospects. And if anything disturbs the good doctor more than those Latin American hordes crossing the Rio Grande, it’s the likelihood that most of them are Catholic, or so he once told a Reuters reporter.
CIS, an equally repugnant FAIR offshoot, is a big fan of China’s one-child policy and publishes books advocating looser limits on abortion and wider use of RU-486. CIS considers the Sierra Club, which cites “stabilizing world population” fourth on its 21st century to-do list, as too moderate.
And like FAIR, CIS has called for a target U.S. population of 150 million, about half of what it is today.Unlike their counterparts on the restrictionist right, these organizations don’t distinguish between legal and illegal immigration. They want the border sealed as a means to a fanciful, neo-Malthusian end. Both sides, however, do share the same intellectual framework -- an overriding pessimism and lack of understanding about markets, which is why both also tend to oppose free trade.
Congressman Tancredo we know that your loyalty to the Republican party has always been in question by your history of threats to you fellow Republicans if they did not follow your line. Your day is over. We shall not be be associated with your comments and have the following history from 1884 repeat itself and thus lose the election.
In the final week of the campaign, Blaine's campaign suffered a catastrophe. At a Republican meeting attended by Blaine, a group of New York preachers castigated the Mugwumps. Their spokesman, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Burchard, made this fatal statement: “We are Republicans, and don't propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism, and rebellion.” Blaine did not notice Burchard's anti-Catholic slur, nor did the assembled newspaper reporters, but a Democratic operative did, and Cleveland's campaign managers made sure that it was widely publicized. The statement energized the Catholic vote in New York City heavily against Blaine, costing him New York state and the election by the narrowest of margins.
Update-(check back later for more)
Creative Minority Report responds here at Fmr. Presidential Candidate Attacks Pope
Vox Nova has more here
The Anchoress notes that Michelle Malkin has chimed in and some Catholics share my frustrations. Go see No, Malkin is not Maher (my reaction in the comment section is no she is not. On this subject she is worse)
Modern Commentaries has on the related subject What's happened with Michelle Malkin
Becoming Unhinged has Michelle Malkin does it again and Michelle Malkin and the Catholics-when-convenient crowd
The Very good Republican Pink Flamingo (We shall be linking her more as we enter the Campaign phase of this blog) that is on my links has Malkin Anti-Catholic & Tancredo Steps in It!
Another Republican The Very Good Pro-Ecclesia Blog has Tancredo Trashes Pope [UPDATED]
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