This Much We Can Agree On
The Church can be neither red nor blue. Nor are bishops political commentators. And fixing America’s immigration system is a complicated question, which I hope we can get back to, someday, in a bipartisan way.
Still, it is good to state some simple moral truths that ought to be self-evident to all, whatever one’s politics. Increasing or prolonging the suffering of children for the sake of political leverage is wrong. When local residents of both parties want to give children in detention and distress diapers, soap, and toothpaste, the correct response is ‘yes, thanks.’ Contra Stephen Miller, brutality is not a policy.Should the above not seem clear, I would worry over the morally corrosive effect on us.
Often Scripture exhorts us to care for the sojourner; we are also to pray for all, including the enemy (per Jesus) and Caesar (per Paul). Practical local efforts like those of Gateway of Grace are to be commended. We should also pray for the President, the parties, the Congress, those who work at the border, and the refugees, that we all might be preserved by God’s unmerited grace, and that we might live in this harsh time according to the ‘angels of our better nature.’
