Thread: If churches targeted in immigrant fight, a higher law will p

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Commentary

Robert Seltzer: If churches targeted in immigrant fight, a higher law will prevail

Web Posted: 03/12/2006 12:00 AM CST
San Antonio Express-News

This is the trouble with politicians: Just when you think they have exhausted your capacity for anger and outrage, they do something that makes your bile come up again.

The Rev. Michael DeGerolami, the pastor of a Catholic church on the South Side, is a man of peace, so he may not react to the latest indignation with the vitriol that might consume a lesser man.

But make no mistake: He is upset, and he has a right to be.

Congress has done a lot of stupid things, but it is criminal to criminalize decency and compassion.

Yet that is what officials appear to be doing with a bill that would make it a felony to aid undocumented immigrants — legislation that, immigrant advocates fear, could affect soup kitchens and day shelters.

The bill, sponsored by Reps. Peter King, R-N.Y., and James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., recently passed the House.

The sponsors contend the bill targets "alien smuggling rings," but the wording is vague, and critics fear it will lump social service workers into the same category as coyotes.

"In my studies of the Scriptures, it's very clear that migration is the story of the Old Testament," DeGerolami, the pastor of St. Philip of Jesus Church, said. "Abraham was a wanderer, looking for a better place, a better life."

DeGerolami said he would not judge the lawmakers.

"I'd rather not comment on them," he said, sitting in his office on the South Side. "But I think there is a lot of posturing going on. They forget they are the children and grandchildren of immigrants."

About 12 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States, people lured by the promise of a better life, people like the biblical figures who wandered the desert. And as the tide swells, a corresponding tide swells on this side of the border — the number of people who resent the immigrants.

"I just pray that this bill doesn't become law," DeGerolami said.

The parish consists of 1,000 families — almost 4,000 individuals, young and old. Most are Hispanic. Some, perhaps many, are undocumented immigrants.

"We don't ask to see their papers," he said simply.

But the undocumented immigrants are there, part of what the priest calls the "fabric" of the community. They are friends, neighbors, parishioners. The church helps them, but with donations of only $4,000 a year to its charity arm, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the help is modest.

"I once knew a young man who told me the story of his life, how he journeyed across the border," DeGerolami recalled. "He brought nothing but the clothes on his back. As he traveled across the border, he drank from troughs, the same water the animals drank. And he ate whatever he could find.

"His story touched me. He was a man of flesh and blood. He had a face."

If the bill becomes law, how will DeGerolami react? Will he stop helping immigrants? Will he tell them the government forbids it?

"I'm not one who fights the legal system," he said. "I've been a jail chaplain, and I've seen what happens when you're on the other side of the law. But some laws are unjust, and this would seem to be one of them. My conscience, my religion, my beliefs tell me that, yes, I would continue to help the immigrants."

It is one thing to legislate against compassion; it is another to enforce that legislation.



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rseltzer@express-news.net

Yet that is what officials appear to be doing with a bill that would make it a felony to aid undocumented immigrants — legislation that, immigrant advocates fear, could affect soup kitchens and day shelters.

It should be a felony and any church who aids ILLEGALS should be punished. That is outright disregard of our laws. Why should they not face prosecution?

I wonder if Mexican churches would do the same for us if 20 millon of us ILLEGALLY entered their country? Not hardly, Mexico won't even help their own people

legislation that, immigrant advocates fear, could affect soup kitchens and day shelters.

And as we all know, there's nothing that improves a neighborhood faster than the addition of soup kitchens and day shelters.

Well, I'm thinking they better plan to get glad in the same pants they got mad in because if the Senate DOESN'T pass HR 4437, there are going to be a lot more people mad than a few hundred renegade priests who think it is OK to aid and abet criminals.

Quote:
The parish consists of 1,000 families — almost 4,000 individuals, young and old. Most are Hispanic. Some, perhaps many, are undocumented immigrants.
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No wonder why churches feel sympathetic toward illegals. They make up hundreds of thousands people who throw money in the basket every Sunday.