A Priest Looks at Immigration

             The religion wing of the open borders lobby would have us think that their viewpoint is the viewpoint of God. Recently a group of these religionists gathered in Washington to proclaim compassion toward immigrants and hostility toward anyone disagreeing with their views on immigration.

            One who takes a strong view to the contrary is Fr. Domininque Peridans, a Catholic priest who serves a parish in Maryland. Peridans agrees that faith calls people to love, “but [they] need to be given the tools for the discernment of how to love intelligently and respectfully.” He goes on to note that “[God’s] grace does not destroy nature. . . . [and] faith does not destroy reason.”

            From these perspectives he observes that nations merit moral recognition because their existence is natural and reasonable. Says Peridans, “The human family is the basic cell of society. . . . Quite simply, what is true of the family is analogously true of the nation. In both communities, we speak of the common good. . . . When the common good disappears, so does the community. A community, therefore, has a right, and an obligation, to protect its patrimony and to invite others to join the community respectful of this patrimony.”

            A community determining its common good must of necessity place its own interests first, while not necessarily ignoring the interests of others. Peridans quotes Thomas Aquinas: “In matters concerning relations between citizens, we should prefer our fellow citizens.” He takes strong issue with those who point to the needs and immigrants of immigrants while ignoring and defaming the concerns of Americans as to what immigration—particularly illegal immigration—is doing to the fabric of their country.

            He affirms that while “[g]enerosity is a must. Open borders . . . are not a must—if there is to be such a thing as a national community. . . . [O]pen borders are the negation of the common good, and blurring the lines of legality of status in a country is a lack of healthy and respectful realism regarding the common good.”

            To Peridans’ analysis one might add that it might be wise to question the motives of the mass immigration/open border crowd, looking beyond its rhetoric of love, tolerance and compassion. Hidden behind that rhetoric, more often than not, is greed, power-seeking, and simple hatred of traditional America. Such motives, most certainly, aren’t of God.

            To read the full text of Fr. Peridans’s commentary, go to the August 2009 Backgrounder at www.cis.org.