Quote:
With roots in the immigrant experience, the U.S. Catholic Church has a history dating to the 1920s of serving immigrants and refugees of all faiths, sometimes in partnership with the U.S. government.
Nationally, the Catholic Charities social services network for the poor reaches out to immigrants. Locally, Catholic Charities' Office of Immigrant Concerns helps those who qualify establish legal status in the country, and the Office of Hispanic Ministry serves ministerial needs.
But local Catholic leaders privately admit that some Catholics harbor strong anti-immigrant feelings, and a recent pastoral letter from Catholic bishops in Arizona noted mounting hostility toward illegal immigrants.
Some within the church are critical of its foray into government policy.
"They get involved in political stuff that doesn't concern them," said Lupe Ortegon, an Austin Catholic.
Outside the church, advocates of stronger immigration controls charge that the church wants open borders, an accusation Catholic leaders strongly deny. Still other critics suggest that the church is pandering to immigrants, the majority of whom come from heavily Catholic Mexico and Latin America. The pope's 1999 apostolic exhortation was widely seen as a move to reverse Catholicism's decline in the Americas.
More. . .
I would rather be honestly blunt than diplomatically untruthful.
