There was a fairly striking article within the last couple of days. The Catholic bishops in the United States are suing the Trump Administration because of cuts to funding for services delivered to “refugees”.
A few points come to mind.
First, with Biden’s massive effort to throw open the borders and invite folks to invade the United States, the vast majority of these folks were migrants who came for economic reasons. However, many of them were misclassified as “refugees”. Strictly speaking, being labeled as a refugee in the United States has a strict legal definition and makes the given person eligible for certain types of assistance. But if they were not truly refugees, then fraud is taking place.
Second, the United States now is a debtor nation. We are no longer economically powerful; and our financial situation is precarious. We can no longer afford to fund migrants and refugees. Helping refugees is the prerogative of an economically strong nation; but we no longer enjoy that status.
Third, this type of federal activity– to fund refugees and migrants– is unconstitutional.
Fourth, it is extraordinarily crass when a church or denomination makes strident demands for taxpayer money. The Catholic bishops are way out of line, even if they win this suit.
But don’t think it is just the Catholics who are guilty.
At the Center for Baptist Leadership website, there is a great article that was published a couple of days ago explaining that the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board is taking taxpayers’ money for refugees; and that this practice violates the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message– i.e., the denomination’s guide for belief and practice.
Other denominations and national religious organizations are also taking government money for migrants and refugees. It is not just the Catholics and Southern Baptists.
We have some very serious errors to unwind in some of our major institutions.
The “deep state,” as Patel and others have characterized it does not only apply to the U.S. or to secular government but also to any other entity that people with hidden agendas wish to infiltrate. You don’t have to be Catholic to work for Catholic Charities and therein lies the path to having a deep state within the organization.
If the Catholic Church were smart, which it isn’t, it would engage a Musk-like person to review its books and clean up and clean out the dead wood and the deep staters inside the church. Of course, as a medieval secret organization, the church is not about to do this. The very source of its power – its global footprint – would never allow this. And that same power source ensures that the nominal pope will always be someone elderly, feeble, and incapable of doing more than an occasional trip here and there and an appearance on Friday morning at an open window in the Vatican. When it comes to electing a pope, the synod has an unwritten rule that “the older, the better.” This guarantees that no one will shuffle the cards, turn over old rocks, or seek to question the status quo. And the second benefit to this rule is that it gives every coalition a shot at winning because if your guy doesn’t make it today, just wait a few years, and you’ll get another chance.
Fred, as you know, there is an enormous amount of cash flow associated with being in the business of helping refugees and migrants, courtesy of the US taxpayer. The bishops obviously don’t want that cash flow to cease.
The idea of having a deep state person or functionality within the church had not occurred to me. But at this point, nothing would be surprising.
The Federal govt should cease dispensing any money to NGOs!!! Not least because then they could actually be “Non-Government Organizations”…not least because, as Triad notes, the govt is headed towards bankruptcy…but mainly because govt is inherently corrupt and dispensing taxpayer money to non-government functionaries supercharges the dynamics of corruption.
Great point, Healey. And our churches become corrupted when they get caught up in the various messes that government generates.