Lux Lucet

A third problem with EFN’s argument is the makeup of the refugee population.  In the flight to Egypt, it was a family that was fleeing persecution.  Yet one of the consistent features of the flood of illegal aliens coming across America’s border is that the population is heavily skewed toward military-age men.  There are also reports of large numbers of “Significant Interest Aliens” illegally crossing into the United States.  A “Significant Interest Alien” is “a non-U.S. person who…poses a national security risk to the United States or its interests” and “Often…are employing travel patterns known or evaluated to possibly have a nexus to terrorism.”  In EFN,  Pius XII argued that “Jesus, Mary and Joseph…are, for all times and all places, the models and protectors of every migrant, alien and refugee of whatever kind.”  Does this include terrorists?  The answer, apparently, is yes.  According to the current occupant of the seat of Antichrist, Pope Francis, migrants’ rights should override national security concerns.[2]

Fourth, another problem with Pius XII’s argument based on Matthew 2 is that Joseph and his family returned home.  The Roman Catholic Church-State does its level best to ensure that once illegal aliens get into America, they stay in America.  There was a case here in Cincinnati where an illegal alien woman from Mexico was arrested, spent the next ten years fighting deportation, lost her appeals, and was finally deported.  The Archdiocese of Cincinnati engaged in a massive campaign to prevent her deportation,[3] pushed to have her case reopened,[4] and finally succeeded in having her brought back to the United States.[5]  You could call this Rome’s get ‘em in, put ‘em on the dole, keep ‘em in strategy.

To illustrate the absurd lengths that Rome will go to so that no alien, illegal or otherwise, is returned to his native land, consider Rome’s stance on the deportation of Salvadorans living in America as Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients.  TPS allows foreign nationals in the United States to live and work here as long as it is unsafe for them to return home.  In the case of the 200,00 Salvadorans living in the U.S. as of 2019 under TPS, they were granted TPS in 2001 due to a pair of earthquakes that struck their country in, wait for it, 2001.  A full eighteen years later, they were still living in the United States with TPA status!  When it appeared that the government was getting serious about requiring that they return to El Salvador, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops got to work and issued a statement decrying the cruelty of the move.[6] The government backed down.  As of this writing, the Salvadorans are still under TPS status.[7] One must ask the obvious question, if Salvadoran TPS recipients cannot be required to return home twenty-two years after an earthquake, when can they be?  The twelfth of never seems to be the answer. 

Fifth, the passage in Matthew 2 tells us nothing about how Joseph supported his family while in Egypt. Perhaps he worked as a carpenter while in exile.  Maybe he was supported by members of the Jewish community in Egypt.[8] Maybe the Lord provided for the family in some miraculous way or used some combination of these possibilities.  But one thing is clear about the illegal aliens coming to America, they most certainly have a claim on the welfare state.[9]  Not only are the American people having their nation overrun by illegal aliens, but they get to pay for the privilege as well.    

Sixth, there’s the issue of scale.  In the passage from Matthew 2, there were a total of 3 people fleeing oppression.  According to a report from FAIR, the illegal alien population in the United States as of June 2023 was approximately 16.8 million.[10]  According to the 2020 census, the population of my home state of Ohio is about 11.8 million, making it one of the largest states in the nation on a population basis.  Yet the population of Ohio is dwarfed by the masses of illegal aliens in the country.  The same report from FAIR puts the number of illegal aliens who have entered the United States during the current presidential administration at 2.3 million.

Clearly, there are problems with the Pope’s argument in EFN.  Are there other passages of Scripture that could be used to help formulate a Christian view of immigration? 

The Example of Moses

There is an example in the Bible of a mass exodus, which is found, oddly enough, in the book of Exodus.  Of course, this is a reference to Israel’s leaving Egypt for the promised land of Canaan under Moses, an event that is recorded for us not in Exodus only, but in the following books of the Pentateuch.   

It may come as a surprise to some just how large the Biblical exodus was.  Various numbers are given. According to Numbers 1:46, the total number of men aged 20 and above able to go to war was 603,550.  This would put the total population of Israel who left Egypt at well over 1 million.  This is a large number of individuals, even by today’s standards.  Given the smaller world population at the time, it was proportionately much larger. 

How Moses and the large number of Israelites conducted themselves while wandering in the wilderness is, I submit, a much better point to begin a discussion about the mass movement of people than the flight from Egypt found in Matthew 2.  Not only is the scale much more comparable to what we see today, but the account of Israel’s journey provides us with important principles for judging whether Pius XII’s migration theory and the current presidential administration’s immigration practice pass Biblical muster.  A brief examination of two key passages from Numbers, 20:14-21 and 21:21-24 shows the utter failure of Pope Pius XII and the current Roman Catholic American president to understand the mind of God concerning the theory and practice of immigration, migration, and refugee resettlement. 

In Numbers 20:14-21, the Israelites under Moses came to the border of Edom, the land of the descendants of Esau, and sought passage through the Edomite territory.  We read,

Now Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, “Thus says your brother Israel: ‘You know all the hardship that has befallen us, how our fathers went down to Egypt, and we dwelt in Egypt a long time, and the Egyptians afflicted us and our fathers…now here we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your border.  Please let us pass through your country.  We will not pass through fields or vineyards, nor will we drink water from wells; we will go along the King’s Highway; we will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through your territory” (Numbers 20:14-17).

Now if there is anyone in all of history, if there is any nation in all of history, who were in a position to rightfully make financial and material demands on other rulers and nations it was Moses and the Israelites.  Was not Moses the greatest of the Old Testament prophets charged by God himself to lead his people out of Egypt?  Were not the Israelites God’s chosen people?  Who was the king of Edom and who were the Edomites that they should have any right to refuse anything Moses demanded?  And yet we see none of the onerous and thieving demands out of Moses that are commonly issued by the popes and bishops of Rome about the “obligation” of nations to feed, cloth, and house illegal aliens, refugees, and other migrants.  That sort of thing never so much as enters Moses’ mind.  Unlike the popes of Rome who regularly lecture whole nations about their supposed Christian duty to take in migrants and foot the bill, Moses respects the territory of Edom by asking for passage through it and respects the property of the Edomites by promising not to take or damage their belongings.        

The Edomites refused Moses’ offer, responding, “You shall not pass through my land, lest I come out against you with the sword” (Numbers 20:18).

The children of Israel counter-offered by saying, “We will go by the Highway, and if I or my livestock drink any of your water, then I will pay for it; let me only pass through on foot, nothing more” (Numbers 20:19). Note well, the painstaking emphasis in this verse concerning respect for the property of the Edomites.  The popes of Rome love to tie up heavy immigration burdens on the backs of the American people, grievous to be born, but will not themselves so much as lift a finger to move them.  But that is not the attitude at all of Moses and the children of Israel.

To this second offer, the king of Edom sent armed men out against Israel.  And what did Israel do?  Did they revile the king of Edom and armor up to do battle?  No, not at all.  The Scripture tells us, “Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his territory, so Israel turned away from him” (Numbers 20:21).

In Numbers 21, we see a similar situation when Israel comes to the border of the Amorites.  Moses sends messengers to King Sihon with the same request as he made of Edom.  But this time, Sihon, “gathered all his people together and went out against Israel” (Numbers 21:23).  We read that Israel defeated Sihon and his men, and Israel “took possession of his [Sihon’s] land” and “dwelt in all the cites of the Amorites” (Numbers 21:24, 25).  

Someone may argue, “See, the Israelites did too think they had the right to take others’ property.”  But consider the important difference between the interactions of Moses and Edom and Moses and the Amorites.  In the former case, the Edomites threatened Israel but did not attack.  In the latter case, the Amorites reacted aggressively with deadly force to a peaceful offer asking for passage.  By fighting back and defeating Sihon and his army, Israel was acting in self-defense.  The account of Israel’s defeat of Sihon king of the Amorites in no way supports the immigration socialism of Pius XII in EFN or that of his successors.[11]     

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[1] “Mexico feels the strain as Haitian migrants, caught in limbo, mark time” by Brendan O’Boyle, Reuters, 4/17/2023, https://www.yahoo.com/news/mexico-feels-strain-haitian-refugees-153343682.html, accessed 10/15/2023. 

[2] “Pope says migrants’ rights should override national security concerns” by Philip Pullella, Reuters, 8/21/2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-migrants-pope/pope-says-migrants-rights-should-override-national-security-concerns-idUSKCN1B11RX, accessed 10/15/2023.

[3] “Archdiocese Decries ICE Removal of Mother of Four,” The Catholic Telegraph, 4/6/2017, https://www.thecatholictelegraph.com/archdiocese-decries-ice-removal-of-mother-of-four/40844, accessed 4/6/2017.

[4] “Maribel Trujillo-Diaz Case Reopened” The Catholic Telegraph, 1/17/2018, https://www.thecatholictelegraph.com/maribel-trujillo-diaz-case-reopened/48189, accessed 10/15/2023.

[5] “17 months after deportation, Maribel Trujillo-Diaz back home in Fairfield,” by Mark Curnutte, The Cincinnati Enquirer, 9/24/2018, https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/09/24/fairfield-mother-four-returns-mexico-immigration-hearing-maribel-trujillo-diaz/1408959002/, accessed 10/15/2023.

[6] “Migration Chairman Deeply Disappointed by Termination of Temporary Protected Status for El Salvador; Calls for Congress to Find a Legislative Solution” 1/8/2018, https://www.usccb.org/news/2018/migration-chairman-deeply-disappointed-termination-temporary-protected-status-el-salvador, accessed 10/15/2023.

[7] Temporary Protected Status, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/temporary-protected-status, accessed 10/15/2023.

[8] According to the article “Jewish Diaspora in the late antiquity,” the Jewish population of Alexandria, Egypt was 200,000 out of a total population of 500,000.  The Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo, who lived during the time of Christ, claimed that two of the five city districts of Alexandria were majority Jewish.

[9] To give just one example, in a Tweet from 5/25 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection stated, “NOTICE: Claims that migrants will be provided free travel and transportation to their destination are false. The U.S. government does not provide help or financial support for noncitizens.”  Bill Melugin of Fox News responded, “This is blatantly false. The U.S. government indirectly provides financial support for migrants by giving hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to NGOs [NGOs such as Catholic Charities] via FEMA’s Emergency Food & Shelter Program. The NGOs then assist migrants w/ transportation around U.S. & other services.” https://x.com/BillMelugin_/status/1661789511049953280?s=20, accessed 10/15/2023. Another example is that of children born to illegal aliens on U.S. soil.  These children are automatically granted American citizenship and are eligible to receive welfare benefits which can be requested by their illegal alien parents.  Writing in Newsweek, Jonathan Tobin noted that the Biden administration’s scrapping the “public charge” rules is “an open invitation for the United States to become an international welfare state at the expense of American taxpayers,” https://www.newsweek.com/bidens-public-charge-reversal-means-taxpayers-fund-global-welfare-state-opinion-1681195, accessed 10/15/2023.  As a final example, see “House GOP Report: Illegal Aliens Costing American Hospitals Billions in Unpaid Medical Bills” by John Binder, Breitbart, 6/15/2023, https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/06/15/house-gop-report-illegal-aliens-costing-american-hospitals-billions-in-unpaid-medical-billshouse-homeland-report-hospitals-illegal-aliens/, accessed 10/15/2023.

[10] “How Many Illegal Aliens Are in the United States? 2023 Update,” 6/22/2023, FAIR,  https://www.fairus.org/issue/illegal-immigration/how-many-illegal-aliens-are-united-states-2023-update, accessed 10/15/2023.

[11] Pope Francis, the biggest promoter of immigration socialism of all the recent popes, constantly pushes nation-breaking immigration while denouncing the papal bugaboos of individualism, aggressive nationalism, and consumerism. Francis greatly dislikes any ideas that stand in the way of his dream of world government, a dream shared by his predecessors and all those who will come after him. If we’re to believe the Jesuits, Francis’s dislike of personal liberty and push for international migration socialism can be chalked up to his “Ignatian [Jesuit] spirituality.” “Want to understand Pope Francis on immigration? Look to his Ignatian spirituality” by J. D. Long-García, America The Jesuit Review, 3/8/2023, https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/03/08/pope-francis-migration-10-years-244865, accessed 10/15/2023.  The language in this article about “aggressive nationalism” is mirrored in EFN where Pius XII complained about “exaggerated nationalism.”  Antichrist has a special hatred in his heart for the Protestant Westphalian World Order and nations that refuse to bow to his will.    

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