Lux Lucet

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, know popularly as AMLO, Mexico’s leading presidential candidate, has called for what amounts to a migrant invasion of the US.  His deeply flawed ideas can be traced to Rome’s teaching on immigration, migration and refugee resettlement as found in the Apostolic Constitution Exsul Familia. 

Over the past several weeks, Americans have born witness, whether they know it or not, to the practical outworking of the Roman Church-State’s doctrine of immigration, migration and refugee resettlement.

In the popular press, Americans daily have been treated to anguished wailings from the just and righteous about how the Trump administration’s immoral border policies have caused children to be separated from the parents. The blame for this, we are told in no uncertain terms, lies solely with the hard-hearted president and his deplorable supporters. No fault whatsoever attaches to parents who deliberately put their children in harm’s way while they knowingly violated US immigration laws.

The condemnation has been especially sharp from Roman Catholic sources. Here are just a few eexamples.

• The president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops criticized President Donald Trump’s administration over immigration policy on Wednesday, declaring that separating mothers and children at the US border is “immoral” (“Catholic leader calls separating mothers and children at border ‘immoral,’ ” CNN, June 13,2018).
  
• Leading U.S. Catholic bishops on Wednesday escalated their criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, calling new asylum-limiting rules “immoral” and rhetorically comparing the crackdown to abortion by saying it is a “right-to-life” issue. One bishop from the U.S. – Mexico border region reportedly suggested “canonical penalties” – which cold refer to withholding the sacrament of Communion – for Catholics involved in implementing the Trump policies [please note the boldness some prelates of Rome have when it comes to interfering with the legitimate duties of the civil magistrate; it was for this very reason that many Protestants expressed concern about electing Roman Catholic John F. Kennedy president in 1960, their concerns were largely ignored] (“Trump’s asylum rules ‘immoral,’ with one suggesting ‘canonical penalties’ for those involved,” Washington Post, June 13,2018).
  
• “I am on the side of the bishops’ conference,” Pope Francis commenting on the statement of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops condemning the Trump administration’s border policies (“Pope Francis criticizes separating families at border“, America The Jesuit Review, June 20, 2018).
  

So, how do we deal with these charges as Protestants? When you combine what these high church officials say, the amplification their words get in the mainstream media, the daily denunciations of US immigration policy by celebrities, the physical intimidation of Trump administration officials by radical leftists, mass demonstrations funded by anti-American activists such as George Soros, and calls form the leading Mexican presidential candidate for what amounts to a migrant invasion of the US, it’s easy to be intimidated and feel as if there’s no chance to stand up to these people. On the other hand, it may be tempting to lash out in frustration and to revile those who call for what amounts to a migrant invasion of the US in the same way they revile us.

But as Christians, we are neither to give in to despair nor lash out in anger. Rather, as the old saying goes, we are to pray and work. The good news is that despite all the pompous words of the prelates of the Antichrist Roman Church-State, Rome’s pro-migrant, anti-American policies amount to a shaky house built on intellectual sand. My purpose in this and in subsequent posts is to equip Protestants with the intellectual ammunition to knock down that house.

Exsul Familia Nazarethana – The Church’s Magna Charta for Migrants

In 1952, Pope Pius XII issued the apostolic constitution Exsul Familia Nazarethana (The Émigré Family of Nazareth, henceforth Exsul Familia). Written in the post-WWII years at a time when there were many displaced persons in Europe, the document was intended as a position paper, setting forth the Catholic Church’s teaching about immigrants, migrants and refugees.

In 1962, a commentary on Exsul Familia was published titled The
Church’s Magna Charta for Migrants, edited by Roman Catholic priest Giulivo Tessarolo.

As we shall see, many of the basic assumptions about immigration in the mainstream media, as well as much of immigration rhetoric we hear on a daily basis, including AMLO’s call for a migrant invasion of the US, can be traced to this document. Further, it is this author’s contention that Exsul Familia is a deeply flawed document. This is not surprising given that its conclusions about immigration, migration and refugee resettlement are based on Rome’s unbiblical and antichristian ideas about economics and politics, which John Robbins brilliantly exposed in his book Ecclesiastical Megalomania.

In summary, Exsul Familia is a toxic mixture of communism and aggressive globalism, thus representing an attack on both the Biblical doctrine of private property and the Westphalian World Order, the Christian system of geopolitics resulting from the Protestant victory in the Thirty Years’ War. Further, Exsul Familia is a classic case of selective Biblical exegesis, one in which Rome has erected a gigantic superstructure of migration dogma upon a single and, in important respects, unclear passage of Scripture, while at the same time it ignores clearer and more relevant passages.

So Just What is an Apostolic Constitution anyway?

For non-Roman Catholics it’s easy to get lost in the forest of the many types of papal pronouncements that seem daily to issue from the Vatican. One suspects this is true for many Roman Catholics as well. For example, in 1932 when Al Smith, the first Roman Catholic to run for president, was asked about papal encyclicals, he supposedly responded, “Will somebody please tell me what the hell a papal encyclical is?” If Roman Catholics struggle with papal pronouncements, perhaps Protestants can be forgiven their puzzlement on the matter. But while Protestants don’t need to become experts on cannon law, it is very much in their interest to know something about papal documents. For in them one finds the intellectual foundation for the destructive politics and economics advanced by the papal Antichrist and various prelates of the Roman Church-State.

Regarding apostolic constitutions, various Roman Catholic sources refer to these as the most authoritative of all papal documents. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops defines an apostolic constitution as, “a most solemn form by which popes promulgate official Church documents.” An article in Our Sunday Visitor by Stephanie A. Mann give the following definition, “The apostolic constitution represents the highest level of all the papal documents.”

Another Roman Catholic writer, Helen Hull Hitchcock, says of apostolic constitutions that they are, “solemn, formal documents on matters of the highest consequence concerning doctrinal or disciplinary matters, issued by the pope in his own name.”

A paper on church documents from The Catholic University of America gives the following, “Apostolic Constitution (Constitutio apostolic) – Apostolic constitutions are considered the most solemn kind of document issued by a pope in his own name. Constitutions can define dogmas but also alter canon law or erect new ecclesiastical structures. An example is John Paul II’s apostolic constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae, defining the role and responsibility of Catholic institutions of higher education.”

Finally, let’s look at what Giulivo Tessarolo, editor of the commentary on Exsul Familia, has to say about apostolic constitutions. Tessarolo quotes a German theologian by the name of Dr. Theodor Grentrup who wrote, “The papal documents on the spiritual care of of migrants bears as its official title – Apostolic Constitution. Even though the word – Constitution – has a rather broad meaning, it is true, however, t hat when used by the Holy See, it carries an exact significance; namely, it indicates a document which is a solemn enactment carrying juridical binding force, an ordinance coming directly from the Holy Father (sic). Hence, it is an ordinance of the church deriving from the highest source, in the clearest form. Consequently, only the most important laws are issued through a Constitution…Constitution differs from encyclical. Even though an encyclical can be binding, it aims directly at explaining truths and dogmas, not at formally issuing new laws. A Constitution, however, contains clearly formulated laws” (The
Church’s Magna Charta for Migrants, 14).

From these Roman Catholic sources, it is clear that apostolic constitutions are considered the most authoritative of all papal decrees. Constitutions do not merely explain existing canon law. They are used to issue new laws. As an apostolic constitution, Exsul Familia is not just one of many co-equal pronouncements by Rome on the subjects of immigration, migration and refugee resettlement, but the most authoritative pronouncement by the Vatican on these topics. As such, it bears careful scrutiny.

It is this author’s opinion that Exsul Familia’s dogmatic assertions on migration, which amount to little more than a Roman Catholic variation on Marx’s dictum “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” is a tissue of enormous lies which are themselves rooted in Rome’s unbiblical, unchristian, pagan assumptions about economics and politics. If it can be demonstrated that Rome’s basic economic and political premises are wrong, which it can, then Rome’s argument for unlimited tax-payer funded immigration as set forth in Exsul Familia also collapses, as does its pretentious claim to the moral high ground in the immigration debate.

(To be continued…)

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