Every nation has a right to distinguish between genuine refugees and economic migrants who do not share that nation’s culture, Cardinal Robert Sarah has said.
Speaking at the Europa Christi conference in Poland on Sunday, the African cardinal noted that the country refuses to accept the “logic” of migrant redistribution that “some people want to impose”.
In comments reported by Polish magazine Gosc, Cardinal Sarah added that while every migrant is a human being who must be respected, the situation becomes more complex if they are of another culture or another religion, and imperil the common good of the nation.
This is at least tending toward the reformed refugee policy that I have long advocated: that there should be a common fund to finance refugee resettlement, but that to avoid economic migration and to protect existing cultures, refugees should be resettled in the nearest safe country that is most similar in terms of both living standards and culture/ethnicity.
The most striking comment made by Cardinal Sarah was this:
The ideology of liberal individualism promotes a mixing that is designed to erode the natural borders of homelands and cultures, and leads to a post-national and one-dimensional world where the only things that matter are consumption and production.
The quote deserves to be read carefully, as it clearly suggests that Catholics not only can, but ought to, defend "the natural borders of homelands and cultures."
Wise words from a great man.
ReplyDeleteSomeone recently pointed out that Saint Thomas Aquinas addressed immigration in his Summa Theologica (second part, question 105; The Reasons for the Judicial Precepts).
ReplyDeleteI read some quotes. They sound like a good basis for policy; particularly this quote:
"The reason for this was (not at once admitted to citizenship) that if foreigners were allowed to meddle with the affairs of a nation as soon as they settled down in its midst, many dangers might occur, since the foreigners not yet having the common good firmly at heart might attempt something hurtful to the people.”
That's some solid common sense.
I'll read it more closely.
as it clearly suggests that Catholics not only can, but ought to, defend "the natural borders of homelands and cultures."
ReplyDeleteIt's extremely significant that the statement was not made by a white European. Africans are more about western civilisation than white Europeans do.
Saint Thomas Aquinas made the observations that immigration should have the goal of integration and not segregation or disintegration and was a long term, gradual process occurring over several generations only in those who were ethnically and culturally similar to the host population. He also stated that citizenship should not be granted to immigrants with the exception of those who integrated over a minimum of 2 -3 generations.
ReplyDeleteThe current immigration policies of Western nations are purposely intended to balkanise society and weaken the native populations politically, culturally and ethnically.
The nation is, in essence, a group of families. The family, therefore the primary institution of the nation, is the determinant of the culture of the nation. The usual saying " as the family goes, the nation goes" is a truism. Once the family becomes diverse, the nation becomes diverse.
ReplyDeleteWestern societies, an in particular, the Anglo Saxon societies encouraged freedom of marriage and diversity within the family, permitting the entry into the most sacred institution of people who were different, holding different values, traditions and sometimes even different religions and ethnicities. Once this is tolerated and accepted, then resistance to diversity in the nation becomes impossible which is probably why no ethnic group has protested the immigration and grant of citizenship to aliens living in the West.