Tancredo and the Pope

Filed under: Catholics, Feature, Immigration, United States — Michael van der Galien on April 22, 2008 @ 7:20 pm CEST

Tom Tancredo could benefit from some “how to treat the Pope” classes. When the Pope visited the US, Tancredo wore a shirt which said “America is Full” and said that his (the pope’s) “immigration comments may have less to do with spreading the gospel than they do about recruiting new members of the church.”

He made the remark in response to the pope’s call on American bishops to “continue to welcome the immigrants who join your ranks today, to share their joys and hopes, to support them in their sorrows and trials and to help them flourish in their new home.”

Tancredo’s response? The pope is encouraging immigrants because it’s good for the Catholic Church and he accused the pontiff of “faith-based marketing,” believe it or not.

The Wall Street Journal rightfully takes offense:

Mr. Tancredo – who sports T-shirts that read “America Is Full” – also cited a March 1 Wall Street Journal editorial to support his argument. The editorial concerned a new Pew survey on religion in the U.S. and noted that in recent decades the Catholic Church has been losing members among the native born but gaining them among the foreign born. “We’d encourage our friends on the right who want to limit immigration to consider the health of our churches,” we wrote.

Our point, evidently missed by the Congressman, was that the U.S. Catholic Church has traditionally been an immigrant church, helping to settle and assimilate generations of Irish, Polish and Italian newcomers. The pope made a similar argument during his visit last week in separate remarks to U.S. educators. “Countless dedicated religious sisters, brothers and priests together with selfless parents have, through Catholic schools, helped generations of immigrants to rise from poverty and take their place in mainstream society,” he said.

To Lou Dobbs, another Tancredo-like compulsive, all of this amounted to the pope “insulting our country.” The CNN anchor said, “I really don’t appreciate the bad manners of a guest telling me in this country and my fellow citizens what to do.” You know the restrictionists have gone head-first into the fever swamps when they denounce a Christian religious leader for sounding like a Christian.

The pope welcomes immigrants because he’s Catholic, not because they are. He isn’t “marketing” his faith. He’s practicing it.

Indeed.

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1 Chris

April 22, 2008 @ 9:54 pm CEST

Maybe Tom will run for Pope?

2 Bob

April 23, 2008 @ 2:52 am CEST

The above article includes this:”…the U.S. Catholic Church has traditionally been an immigrant church, helping to settle and assimilate generations of Irish, Polish and Italian newcomers…”

Unfortunately, the Catholic church in this country no longer makes its traditional efforts to aid and encourage this assimilation.

In my community, the church has gone out of its way to pander to the (mostly Hispanic) immigrant population, and now holds most of its masses and other church functions in Spanish, ultimately alienating its traditional core congregation of English speaking people from all cultures, including Irish, Italian, German, and the like. There is never a suggestion from the local church hierarchy for the Spanish-speaking members to become a part of our community in language, or in any other way.

The Pope needs to begin encouraging these people to immigrate to Vatican City instead, and see just how long his infrastructure can support those who seek health care, housing, education, etc., without paying for these services.

3 Rob

April 23, 2008 @ 12:52 pm CEST

Perhaps Tom could explain how people moving from an almost exclusively Catholic country to a largely protestant one where they leave the church in large numbers grows the Church. Those who don’t convert may increase the size of the American Church, but the Pope is the Pope of the worldwide (Catholic) Church.

4 thecatholicatheist.blogspot.com

April 23, 2008 @ 2:18 pm CEST

The Catholic Church has sacrificed institutional solvency for community outrach generation after generation. Of couse, in some communities myopic clergy and closed-minded parishioners may alienate more historic populations, but indeed, one is far, far more likely to see churches that hold three-vunacular (or more!) masses on Sunday morning rather than ignore the language needs of their community. Further, as a Catholic school teacher it seems apparent that the spirit of the Catholic faith to help, "generations of immigrants to rise from poverty and take their place in mainstream society" is still alive and well. The South-side of Chicago is home to scores of black, Catholic schools where the majority (if not nearly all) of their students are Protestant, and in this way the Church does not conflate its identity into a club.