Thread: Church role seen in mobilizing Hispanics after immigration m

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/storie ... 603316.htm

HISPANICS-MOBILIZE Jun-8-2006 (840 words) xxxn

Church role seen in mobilizing Hispanics after immigration marches

By Agostino Bono
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Catholic Church can play an important role in mobilizing Hispanics to increase their influence on public policy, said several speakers at a Washington symposium examining Hispanic participation in U.S. political life.

On the local level, priests can promote civic involvement and church organizations can sponsor courses in English as a second language, said Rodolfo de la Garza, law professor at Columbia University in New York.

"There is a crying need in the Hispanic community for that help," said de la Garza, who has written books on Hispanic politics in the U.S.

Robert de Posada, president of the Latino Coalition, said that the church "has the moral authority to make things happen."

In the heavily Catholic Hispanic community, "when people need help, they first turn to their family, then to the church and then to the government," he said.

Both men were interviewed by Catholic News Service while they were attending a June 7 symposium on Latino participation in U.S. politics after the series of rallies calling for immigration reform held earlier in the year.

The symposium was organized by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, an independent social research center specializing in Hispanic issues. It is based at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

De Posada and de la Garza cited encouraging voter registration drives and getting people to vote as important tasks for the church.

"Priests from the pulpit have a captive audience" to encourage registration, said de Posada.

"Our church also needs to push stronger in making sure that citizens vote," he said.

De la Garza said that priests need to preach the importance of voting because it's elected officials who decide how to spend taxpayers' money.

De Posada said that the church also can play a "critical role" in making Hispanics aware of the positions of candidates on moral and social issues deemed important to the church.

Clear church opposition to abortion and gay marriage has siphoned off to the Republicans some of the heavy vote Hispanics traditional give to Democrats, he said.

"In some ways Hispanics consider voting Republican as a betrayal. But when a preacher says, 'Vote your conscience' they can betray their party affiliation," said de Posada.

The Latino Coalition does an annual survey of Hispanic views on political and social issues.

One of the symposium speakers was Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., who said that the energy from rallies pushing for immigration reform "should be the beginning point for Latino participation" in a wide variety of political issues.

He stressed working with young Latinos, most of whom are U.S. citizens, to get them to vote. Salazar estimated that there are about 5 million Hispanics who are citizens but not registered to vote or who are currently eligible to become citizens.

Although the number is small when compared to the total number of eligible voters, many of these Hispanics are in key swing states in presidential elections, such as Texas, California and Florida, he said.

Salazar said that a main difference in the Senate and House versions of immigration legislation concerns the wall to be built along the border.

Unlike the House bill, the Senate bill would require local government officials on both sides of the border to approve construction of the wall in their jurisdictions, he said.

Several speakers disagreed as to whether the immigration rallies had a positive or negative impact on U.S. public opinion.

Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, said the events were basically positive and looked like peaceful family affairs because among participants there were many little children being carried by their parents.

"The rallies said: 'We are here. We are visible,'" he said.

It also showed the strength of the informal networking and intercommunication among immigrants who got the message out about the marches through churches, labor unions and radio station disc jockeys, he said.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, said the marches promoted immigration control because they showed the general U.S. public the "size of the problem" of illegal immigration.

People saw hundreds of thousands of demonstrators filling downtown Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, he said. This was more powerful than reading about an estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants, he said.

The marches "guaranteed that there will be no amnesty this year" for illegal immigrants, he said.

They also eroded the reasoning of business leaders who see illegal immigration as a source of docile, cheap labor, said Krikorian.

"This undermined the rationale because the docile, cheap labor was now marching in the streets," he said.

Several speakers said that many immigrants risk death to sneak into the U.S. because of the poor domestic policies in their countries and because of U.S. trade policies that promote U.S. exports at the expense of the production of other countries.

"Mexicans used to pluck chickens in Mexico. Now they do it here," said Suro. "We used to buy chickens from Mexico. Now we export chickens to Mexico."

END

It would seem that since the Catholic church wishes to pursue a political agenda for the sake of illegal immigration that the church should lose it tax exempt status and also should be held liable for all expenses associated with illegal aliens: education, incareration, medical etc.

I think the Catholic church walks a thin line in regard to recognizing and respecting the separation between state and church in many South American countries.
They are trying the same politics here with the illegal immigration crisis. Catholic Charities is one of the biggest offenders in illegal assistance and they run one of the largest networks of HUD subsidized housing in the country.

From what I can see and know, the Catholic church still has a strong foothold in many Latin and South American countries....it's influence here is much less especially with all of the problems associated with it and the scandals that have hurt it significantly. Without a doubt the church is trying to make a comeback via illegal Hispanics hence the psoture of the church...bottomline: bring money to the plate.