The following is a Catholic Action League of Massachusetts press statement…
On December 10th, reporter Chelsea Bailey of CNN — the Cable News Network — contacted the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, seeking a comment on the anti-ICE Nativity scene at Saint Susanna Parish in Dedham.
In response to this request, the Executive Director of the Catholic Action League, C. J. Doyle, issued the following statement.
Image courtesy of St. Susanna’s Parish website.
THIS a case of a dissident priest, Father Stephen Josoma, who has a history of using his parish Nativity scenes for crackpot publicity stunts, aimed at promoting his left-wing political ideology.
In the past, Saint Susanna has featured Nativity scenes with climate change and gun control messages. In 2018, Baby Jesus was imprisoned in a cage, to protest an earlier illegal immigration crackdown during the first Trump Administration.
Using a Christmas Nativity display to promote a political message is inappropriate, divisive, disrespectful and arguably sacrilegious.
The recent statement by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on immigration admonishes Catholics to avoid “dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.”
Father Josoma’s demonization of ICE — suggesting that its agents are so evil that they would even arrest the Holy Family — clearly ignores that instruction.
One of the foundational principles of Catholic teaching about social justice, originating with the 1891 Encyclical Rerum Novarum, by Pope Leo XIII, is the concept of the just wage, also known as the living wage or the family wage.
It was in defense of the just wage, that the Democratic Party and organized labor, historically opposed illegal immigration, understanding that imported, low wage, illegal immigrant labor depresses the wages of American workers, particularly those in low skill, entry level jobs.
Even prominent Catholic voices, in the name of the just wage, opposed illegal immigration.
Father Theodore Hesburgh, the President of the University of Notre Dame, and the Chairman of the U.S. Select Commission for Immigration and Refugee Policy, wrote:
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?
Cesar Chavez, the President of the United Farm Workers of America, was considered a hero to the Progressive Left in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Some Catholics have called for his canonization.
Chavez not only opposed illegal immigration, but had his union members apprehend and escort illegal immigrants back to the Mexican border. Critics accused him of running his own private Border Patrol.
The chief beneficiaries of illegal immigration are not the immigrants themselves — many of whom were robbed, raped, and extorted by human traffickers — but the elites of corporate America, particularly the oligarchs of agri-business.
