Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.
Genesis 11:6
He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him.
Acts 17:26-27
Among the besetting sins of the 21st century American Protestantism is its propensity to form ungodly pacts with unbelievers. It amounts to a return to the failed policy of Israel, which, when the going got tough, often resorted to going down to Egypt to seek Pharaoh’s help when they instead should have sought the Lord.
The close, and seemingly every closer, ties between mainstream Evangelicalism and Roman Catholicism one again were brought to mind this week by Joe Biden’s executive order blitz and the similar reaction to them from both the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Evangelical Immigration Table (EIT). The reaction to Biden’s executive orders on immigration from the USCCB and the ersatz Evangelicals at EIT was so similar that one could be forgiven for thinking they were penned by the same person.
One of the landmark texts produced by the neo-evangelicals is an ecumenical document dating from 1994 and co-signed by Charles Colson and John Neuhaus, with Colson representing the Evangelicals and Neuhaus the Catholics.
A book titled Evangelicals & Catholics Together: Toward A Common Mission (ECT) was issued the following year edited by Colson and Neuhaus. The main argument of this evil book was that Evangelicals and Catholics, while they had their differences, in the end really are brothers in Christ and, for this reason, ought to cooperate toward the common goal of uniting Christians “that they may be all be one.”
Of course, for Evangelicals and Catholics to be one requires the prior understanding that both Evangelicals and Roman Catholics believe the same things are Christians. Now it may well be true that Southern Baptist Chuck Colson believed the same things as Richard Neuhaus, but this would simply prove that Colson himself was not a Christian, not that Protestantism and Catholicism have any propositions in common.
This March, it will be 27 years since the release of ECT, and that is enough time to trace out at least some of the evil fruit of this document. To do it full justice, would take far longer than could be done in a short blog post. But I’d like to take this opportunity to demonstrate just how close the cooperation has become between the Roman Church-State and conservative, ersatz Evangelicals in just one area: immigration.
On Immigration, the USCCB and EIT Speak as One
The past few days have been busy ones at the USCCB. The bishops, it seems, can hardly believe the embarrassment of riches that has fallen into their lap with the election of America’s second Roman Catholic president. Oddly enough, in both cases when America elected a Roman Catholic president, there were widespread and credible charges of election fraud, but that’s another story.
Focusing on just the USCCB’s press releases, we find four on immigration:
EIT, on the other hand, while a little less energetic than their colleagues at the USCCB, nevertheless managed to put together two recent press releases on immigration
In both cases, the press releases celebrate the fact that the Biden’s executive orders will release a flood of taxpayer subsidized immigration, migration, and refugee resettlement, the cost of which will be underwritten by the American people as their moral obligation.
The Evangelical Immigration Table includes Bethany Christian Services, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, Faith and Community Empowerment, the National Association of Evangelicals, the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, The Wesleyan Church, World Relief and World Vision.
Other signatories include additional faith groups including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops/Migration and Refugee Services, a wide range of trade associations and businesses, local police departments and chiefs of police, and a diverse spectrum of civic and advocacy organizations (emphasis mine).
One point of emphasis that I’ve made many times in print and in podcasts is that Roman Catholic Church-State is the premier globalist organization there is, a fact almost always overlooked, even by those who claim to be independent journalists and podcasters. They simply do not have eyes to see the exceedingly great evil of the Vatican’s globalism, even as it stares them right in the face.
So, we have EIT, which includes the influential Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention of which the prominent Russell Moore is currently president, connected both to the USCCB and George Soros, which never sleep in their efforts to subvert the Constitution of the United States of America and to bring about world government. Both the USCCB and George Soros see immigration as a way of destabilizing America and other nation states to make it easier to fold them into their hoped-for global superstate.
The Evil of Globalism
The 1648 Treat of Westphalia settled the Thirty Years’ War and ushered in the current system of international politics known as the Westphalian World Order. The Thirty Years’ War was the first pan-European war and was a battle between nations to which the Reformation had come and the nations in subjection to the Pope. Essentially, it was a war between Protestants and Catholics, and the Protestants won.
The principal ideas of Westphalian World Order (WWO), are such that if you were you to explain it to people, many likely would respond that it’s just common sense. Yet it took the Protestant Reformation and a major war to establish them in international law. So what are the main ideas of WWO? First, each state has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers. Second, that each state, no matter how large or small, is equal in international law. One implication of this is that supranational organizations such as the United Nations impinge on the sovereignty of nation states and are, therefore, to be avoided.
In his 2014 book World Order, Henry Kissinger remarked, “The Westphalian peace reflected a practical accommodation to reality, not a unique moral insight,” but this is incorrect. The WWO is not merely a “practical accommodation to reality,” but an idea whose origins can be found in the Scriptures.
In Genesis 11, we see man’s first attempt to build a global empire in the form of the Tower of Babel frustrated by God. The reason given is that, if they were to succeed, then, “nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.” To prevent the centralization of power and the evil that would follow from it, God confused the language of the people, scattering them into their own nations according to their languages. Another reason for separating people into their own nations was, as the Apostle Paul noted in his address on Mars Hill, to cause them to seek the Lord. “He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and ahs determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him.”
With these passages in mind, it seems that the nation state system that came out of the Peace of Westphalia was not so much a “practical accommodation to reality” as one of the implications of the widespread preaching of and belief in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Put another way, the WWO is one of the implications of Christianity. If this is true, and I am persuaded that it is, then those individuals and organizations – individuals and organizations such as the afore mentioned George Soros and USCCB – are doing the devil’s work when they attempt to overthrow nation states to produce, as it were, their globalist Nirvana, which we could perhaps call Tower of Babel 2.0.
Mass, nation breaking, taxpayer subsidized immigration, migration and refugee resettlement are some of the most powerful tools in the toolbox of these wicked globalists. That Donald Trump opposed these policies is likely one of the reasons he was targeted for removal by the globalists.
To the degree that nominally Evangelical organizations such as EIT are aligned with George Soros and the USCCB, they share in their sins of immigration treason. To the degree that ordinary Christians are co-opted by EIT and other Romanist, globalist front organizations, they too share in the sins of the immigration reason lobby.
Protestants do not oppose immigration. Indeed, America has a history of being exceedingly generous with its immigration policy, and this is due in large measure to its Christian heritage. But immigration, migration and refugee resettlement of the sort supported by the Biden administration, EIT and the USCCB is destructive of nations, including America, represents immigration treason, and should be soundly rejected by Christians.
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Nigel Farage and others bid farewell to the EU Parliament, January 29, 2020.
“There’s a historic battle going on now across the West, in Europe, America and elsewhere. It is globalism against populism. And you may loath populism, but I tell you a funny thing, it’s becoming very popular.”
Nigel Farage
As of January 31, 2020, Great Britain is no longer part of the European Union (EU). Britain’s success in parting ways with the EU, what is commonly called Brexit, short for British Exit from the EU, is the culmination of nearly 30 years of work by Britons opposed to the Maastricht Treaty, which the was signed by the U.K.’s conservative government in 1992, making Great Britain part of the EU.
In June 2016, a referendum was held asking voters whether they wanted to remain in the EU or leave. Despite a great deal of opposition from the establishment, the vote went 52% in favor of Brexit, with 48% electing to remain in the EU.
Although interests dedicated to keeping Britain in the EU worked hard to subvert Brexit, the resounding victory of the conservatives under the leadership of Boris Johnson on December 12, 2019, effectively guaranteed the success of Brexit.
In this post, I don’t intend to get into the weeds of the political process that brought about Brexit. Neither do I intend to write much about the principle figures who supported Brexit or opposed it. My aim here is to step back and to view Brexit in its larger historical context, that of conflict between the Protestant Westphalian World Order and the New World Order globalism of the Roman Catholic Church-State (RCCS).
Though very little attention has been paid to the religious aspect of Brexit by mainstream journalism, and though it may seem strange to some to speak of any relationship between the 16th century Protestant Reformation and the 21st century Brexit, this author holds that, not only is there a relationship between the Reformation and Brexit, but that the relationship is a close one. Indeed, it is not an overstatement to put the relationship in these terms: No Protestant Reformation, no Brexit. It’s that simple.
“The national State can’t be considered as an absolute, as an island in regard to the surrounding context.”
Pope Francis, May 2, 2019
In spite of the many, clear statements from various popes over the years, the general public still seems to be unaware of the clear and present danger the Vatican poses to the existence of free and independent nation states.
The current occupant of the office of Antichrist, Jorge Bergoglio, dba Francis I, recently expressed his hatred of nation states by attacking “sovereignism” and populism. According to the Pope, “sovereignism“ is defined as isolationism which he ties to Hitler and those who speak of “Us first. We… we…”
European Union Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker
There’s an old joke in politics that says a gaff is defined as when a politician accidently tells the truth. That’s not a bad definition. Generally, those in high office are masters at concealing their true beliefs and motives.
But every now and then, the mask slips. Barak Obama famously accused rural Americans of bitterness and of clinging to their guns and religion.
Nicholas Maduro, who at least for today is President of Venezuela.
“…Large protests all across Venezuela today against Maduro. The fight for freedom has begun!”
– Donald J. Trump
“To end the Maduro regime with the minimum of bloodshed, we need the support of pro-democratic governments, institutions and individuals the world over.”
– New York Times Editorial, January 30, 2019
Much is made of the current acrimony in American politics. Trump supporters can’t stand Nancy Pelosi, and the SJW’s in the orbit of the Democratic party detest the very mention of Trump’s name.
What is more, the longest government shutdown in American history just ended with a temporary cease fire between the White House and Congressional Democrats over funding for the border wall.
America is a house divided, so we’re told. Quite obviously, the cold American civil war some have written about is ready to explode into a real civil war. Right?
Well, not so fast. It seems there’s more unity, at least among the American establishment, than one would gather from watching the evening news.
Some may find the agreement between Trump and the Times surprising. After all, the Donald and the Times have pretty much been locked in a state of verbal warfare ever since the New York billionaire declared his candidacy in the summer of 2015. Trump is the Yin to the Times’ Yang, how is it possible for them to agree on anything?
And yet, they do.
In this case, they both believe in America’s exceptional right to decide who the leader of a foreign country will be.
While a candidate, Mexican president elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) promised to defend the right of everyone in the world to migrate to the United States. The migrant caravan making its way through Mexico appears to be a down payment on that promise…and AMLO hasn’t even taken office!
The pope, more than anybody else, has driven the migrant crisis in Europe…The Catholic Church is one of the worst instigators of this open borders policy.
– Steve Bannon, Former White House Strategist, June 2018
We interrupt this program…
When thinking about what to write for this week’s post, it was my intention to continue with my series on the 2008 financial crisis. But with the embarrassment of riches in the news just begging for a Scripturalist commentary, sometimes I find myself, as did the dog in the movie Up, saying “Squirrel!”
The squirrel, in this case, is the news of the Honduran migrant caravan slowly wending its way through Central America with the goal of arriving in El Norte. the United States.
Many commentators have speculated about the origins of the caravan. While it appears to have mysteriously sprung up almost overnight, given its size and the apparent organization, not to mention its timing near the November mid-term elections, it is difficult to believe that the caravan is a spontaneous uprising.
Among conservatives, it is fairly common to blame the United Nations and George Soros for instigating this latest attack on the United State’s southern border.
Donald Trump has tweeted that the fault lies with the Democrats and their lax approach to border security.
One financial commentator I follow has suggested, if I understand him correctly, that the migrant caravan was organized by financial interests in the federal government to give the Trump administration the excuse to borrow more money to fund the construction of the proposed southern border wall with Mexico. In the opinion of this financial commentator, the federal government must borrow cash into existence in order to pay the interest on the existing government debt. Deficit spending on the wall is one way of doing this.
While this suggestion is not as off the wall (pun intended) as it may seem, it is not my intention to explore it here today.
In fact, it’s not my intention to do a deep dive consideration of any of the popular theories about the source of the caravan’s organization and funding. It may well be that some, or even all, of the above suggestions are correct. It is not my purpose here to rule out any of them. But what I will say is that, even if they are true, none of them are adequate, for they fail to identify what is almost certainly the single most important sponsor of the caravan: The Roman Church-State.
It is the studied opinion of this author that the principal cause of the migrant crisis in Europe and in the United States, what Pope Francis has called a ‘sign of the times,’ is the Social Teaching and political activism of the Roman Church-State under the direction of its Antichrist popes.
Mexican president elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador believes that mass migration to the United States is the right of all North Americans and all people throughout the world. Further, he promised to defend that right. So where did Lopez Obrador get such a strange idea? From the teachings of the Roman Church-State, of course.
“As much as I respect Cardinal (Timothy) Dolan and the bishops on doctrine, this is not doctrine. This is not doctrine at all. I totally respect the Pope and I totally respect the Catholic bishops and cardinals on doctrine. This is not about doctrine. This is about the sovereignty of a nation.”
These are the words spoken by former Trump administration Chief Strategist Steve Bannon in a 60 Minutes interview from September 2017.
Bannon continued, adding “And in that regard [concerning immigration]they’re [the bishops, cardinals and pope] just another guy with an opinion.
From his comments, we can gather that Steve Bannon makes a sharp distinction between the authority of the Roman Church-State on matters of doctrine, on the one hand, and its authority when it comes to immigration, on the other hand. According to Bannon, bishops, cardinals and popes speak with authority on doctrine. But in political matters, at least as far as immigration is concerned, they are confined to merely giving their opinion, which carries no more weight than that of any other Tom, Dick or Harry.
This is a fairly common opinion among Americanized Roman Catholics, particularly ones who favor limited government and free markets, but at the same time wish to be seen as remaining loyal to a Church that despises both.
But is it true that the pronouncements of the Roman Church-State on matters of immigration, migration and refugee resettlement are merely the opinions of private men?
Better yet, let’s put the question another way. Let us ask, In the eyes of the bishops, cardinals and popes of the Roman Church-State, are their pronouncements on immigration merely their private opinions, as Steve Bannon says, or are they official teachings of the Church which are binding on all?
So far in this series, we have looked at two enormous lies promulgated by Rome in the 1952 Apostolic Constitution Exsul Familia. In Part 5, we looked at how Rome’s doctrine of the universal destination of goods – the universal destination of good is Rome’s false teaching that God gave the world to men collectively; in other words, Rome teaches that communism, not private property, was the original economic order of creation – and how Rome used that false teaching to justify not only its push for the mass migration of individuals from poor nations into rich nations, but its assertion that the taxpayers of the rich receiving nations have an obligation to absorb the costs associated with this mass migration.
In Part 6, we looked at another implication of the universal destination of goods, the destruction of national sovereignty. In Exsul Familia, Pope Pius XII claims that although the sovereignty of the state must be respected, “[it] cannot be exaggerated to the point” where migrants are denied access to land within its territory. Left unstated but implied is the idea that migrants also have a claim on the host nations’ social welfare system.
This means, in effect, that no matter how much the citizens, legal residents and taxpayers of the host nation may complain to their government officials about the financial and social hardships created by mass migration, government officials have an obligation to ignore them and proceed full speed ahead with the migration program.
Who decides when enough is enough? Who is it that has the final say in whether a nation is exaggerating its sovereignty or not? The pope, of course. After all he’s the father of kings, the governor of the world and the vicar of Christ.
Today, we shall consider a third enormous lie of Exsul Familia, the megalomaniacal claim of the popes to have the right to impose their unscriptural economic and political ideas on the nations of the world.
Mexican president elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador believes that mass migration to the United States is the right of all North Americans and all people throughout the world. Further, he promised to defend that right. So where did Lopez Obrador get such a strange idea? From the teachings of the Roman Church-State, of course.
This week we continue our look at Exsul Familia, Pope Pius XII’s 1952 apostolic constitution which has been called “The Church’s Magna Charta for Migrants.” This exposition was inspired by the recent remarks of then Mexican presidential candidate, and now president elect of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who, during his presidential campaign, promised to defend the right of every person in North America, indeed, every person in the world, to migrate to the United States.
Lopez Obrador’s comment struck at least one writer as not only a slightly bizarre campaign promise, but an actual invasion threat toward a neighboring sovereign state.
But as strange as Lopez Obrador’s comments were, he didn’t arrive at his statements on his own. Rather, his belief that everyone has a right to migrate to the United States, regardless of the cost to American taxpayers, is one implication of the Roman Church-State’s doctrine of immigration, migration and refugee resettlement as set forth most completely in the afore mentioned apostolic constitution Exsul Familia.
Thus far, we’ve looked at what an apostolic constitution is – according to a number of Roman Catholic source, apostolic constitutions are the most authoritative of all papal documents, outranking even papal encyclicals in importance – and have begun to examine the erroneous foundational economic doctrine that undergirds all of the Roman Church-State’s claims that mass, taxpayer funded immigration, migration, and refugee resettlement are consistent with Christian teaching. That doctrine is called the universal destination of goods. The universal destination of goods holds that when God created the world, he gave it to humanity in common, that is to say, collectively. In other words, Rome believes in original communism.
But God did not give the Earth the men to men corporately. As John Robbins notes, “God, holding ultimate ownership of the Earth, gave it to men severally, not collectively. The argument for this may be found in the words of the seventeenth-century Christian thinker, Robert Filmer” (Ronald Sider – Contra Deum). Contrary to Rome, the original economic order was not communism, but private property. To put it another way, the Bible teaches original capitalism. Lord willing, I shall present a more complete case for this in a future installment. Readers who admire the work of John Robbins, as does this author, will be interested to know the basis for my argument for original capitalism is Dr. Robbins 1973 doctoral dissertation, The Political Thought of Sir Robert Filmer.
But for this week’s installment, I would like to show another implication of Rome’s evil doctrine of the universal destination of goods, tyrannical world government.
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).
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.
Ruth and Naomi Leave Moab, 1860, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794-1872).
Up to this point, most of this series on immigration has been destructive. I have examined immigration stances of various groups – secular and religious liberal, secular and religious conservative, Roman Catholic, globalist – and found them wanting. With this installment, Lord willing, I intend to being building the Reformed, Biblical case for immigration.
The Principle of Free Movement
One error nearly all participants in the immigration debate get wrong is the purpose of borders. As John Robbins pointed out when questioned about immigration, the purpose of borders is to separate rulers, not people, form each other. It’s not the job of governments to tell people where they are to live.
On the immigration restrictionist side we see this misunderstanding represented by the desire to build walls and enact ever tighter immigration laws.
On the open borders side, men who support mass immigration fail to understand that the principle of free movement does not obligate the people of the receiving country to foot the bill for people who wish to come. Immigrants are responsible to pay their own freight. Further, many open borders advocates take the position they do, not because they are interested helping people attain life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but to subvert nations and push a globalist agenda.
The idea of free movement of people can be traced to the Old Testament. For example, when Abraham was called by God to leave Ur of the Chaldees for Canaan, he did not require a passport or any sort of governmental document. He and his family simply up and left. He did not have to negotiate a byzantine bureaucracy to do so.
Likewise when Jacob left to visit Laban. He simply left and went to live with his extended family in another country.
When Jacob was old during the famine, his sons travelled to Egypt to buy grain without any hindrance mentioned in Scripture. Late he and his whole family moved to Egypt.
In the law of Moses, the Israelites were consistently enjoined to welcome the stranger, because they themselves were strangers in Egypt.
On the other hand, restrictions on free movement and deportations were characteristic of big-government imperial powers. For example, the Assyrians deported the population of the Northern Kingdom following the fall of Samaria in 722 BC. In like fashion, Babylon carried off the people of Judah in waves, the last talking place after the conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BC.
According to one source, the earliest known example of a passport was issued by the king of Persia. The account is found in the Book of Nehemiah. In chapter two of that book, Nehemiah requests and is given letters from the king to ensure his safe passage from the Persian capital of Susa to Jerusalem. That these letters served as the equivalent of a modern passport can been see from the words of Nehemiah, who reports that he “gave [the governors in the regions through which he passed] the king’s letters.”
In the New Testament, Acts 18 reports that Paul met a Jewish couple, Aquila and Priscilla, at Corinth. As verse 2 tells us, they were in Corinth, because they had been driven from Rome by a decree of the Emperor Claudius, who had ordered all Jews to leave the city.
