Thread: Jack Spillane: A fairer play rules church

Jack Spillane: A fairer play rules church

By Jack Spillane
March 19, 2007 6:00 AM
One of the wildest parables in the Bible is the one where the vineyard owner paid the workers who started at 5 in the afternoon the same wage as the ones who started at 9 in the morning.

When it got dark (there were presumably no eight-hour work day laws in ancient Judea), the owner went out to the full-day workers and paid them the amount they had both previously agreed on. But then he went out and paid the workers who had only worked a few hours (because no one else hired them) the same wage.

When the all-day workers complained, the owner asked them why he couldn't pay whatever he wanted to the late-come workers. Then he looked at the all-day workers straight in the eye and asked them if they were jealous because he was generous.

And then old Jesus gave one of his great punch lines (also right between the eyes, as he was wont to do): "So the last will be first, and first will be last."

Jesus, it seems, was not well-acquainted with American principles of fair play, never mind the "winner take all" ethic.

The parable comes to mind as the Great New Bedford Immigrant Debate of 2007 rages, with some hard-pressed city residents wondering if the American deck isn't stacked in favor of illegal immigrants "who don't play by the rules."

SouthCoast seems like it's moving toward two armed camps: One that wants to supply food and clothing to the immigrants and help them stay in the country if possible; and the other that might give them a little food and clothing, but that mostly wants them shipped out yesterday and their babies with them.

A fence constructed up against the Rio Grande that protects America from becoming Spanish America would also be a good idea too, they think.

So into this division comes the local Catholic Church.

It was Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish — not the city government, not the the many New Bedford fraternal organizations, certainly not the local power structure — that the immigrants turned to when they needed help quickly.

Even the name of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish at St. James Church, of course, is part of the problem. The parish used to be just St. James Church but in a nod to its increasingly Latino congregation added the name of the Mexican apparition to its moniker a couple of years ago.

Father Richard Wilson, the kind-hearted bilingual OLG pastor, provided his church's space for collections of food, clothing and diapers for the immigrant families separated from their mothers. And many of the other New Bedford congregations (the Episcopalians, the Unitarians, the Jewish community) quickly stepped up to the plate to help, too.

Father Wilson, however, even agreed to let his church hall be used for press conferences, where social workers, immigrants and a priest all expressed outrage about the strike-force manner in which the immigrant raid was conducted.



On Saturday, Father Wilson and Father Mark Fallon of Catholic Social Services (the latter has performed yeoman's work shuttling immigrants' families back and forth to Boston for their hearings) were among the speakers at a pro-immigrant rally. Not a single New Bedford politician, by the way, was visible at that rally.

Father Wilson talked about Mary and Joseph fleeing their homeland in terror as many immigrants have.

Then he asked God to help the city "to truly open our ears and our hearts, to understand what forces compelled these brothers and sisters of ours to come to New Bedford, to understand how our own choices here in the United States have caused this situation to arise."

Father Wilson, a self-described conservative, is no liberation theology priest, and he's in no way off the Roman Catholic reservation.

Fall River Bishop George Coleman visited New Bedford last week and reminded his flock that Jesus was the original "bleeding heart" (two words that usually go with liberal). He even said that the Church has always taught that respecting human dignity is more important than obeying unjust laws.

Why would the Catholics, and so many local churches, wade into this controversy? Why get into politics in the most visible way since the Vietnam War? (One talk-radio critic went so far as to accuse "that Guadalupe church" of running an Underground Railroad for the undocumented immigrants.)

But Father Rich, as his parishioners call him, seems to have that old vineyard parable down cold, a parable that is hard to get out of your head when it comes to illegal immigrants.

For while that Bible story goes against every standard of fairness and justice imbued in the American psyche, it's no accident, after all, that it's IN the Bible.

Maybe the contemporary lesson of the parable is that hard-working Americans wouldn't be so envious of late-coming immigrants if their American "bosses" hadn't treated them so poorly.

With American workers losing ground on everything from health care to affordable education to comparative earning power, it's no great wonder they're jealous of late-coming immigrants taking their jobs.

But jealousy is a killer emotion. Even when justified, it poisons, as that famous guy in the Bible seems to have known.

The country might be better off if the American "bosses," the American vineyard owners if you will, were a little bit more like that old vineyard owner in the Bible.



Jack Spillane's column appears on Mondays and Thursdays. Contact Jack at jspillane@s-t.c

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbc ... /703190328

When the all-day workers complained, the owner asked them why he couldn't pay whatever he wanted to the late-come workers

Like this could ever happen in Pelosi's vineyard. Interesting concept though; the envious coveting the lands, goods, and services provided by the jealous? I don't think I've ever read anything that illustrated more eloquently the Founder's wisdom for requiring the separation of church and state. This smells like global socialism/communism on the march.

Why would the Catholics, and so many local churches, wade into this controversy? Why get into politics in the most visible way since the Vietnam War? (One talk-radio critic went so far as to accuse "that Guadalupe church" of running an Underground Railroad for the undocumented immigrants.)

Money. You think I don't see there're no priest and nuns living on the campus of my neighborhood church which sits on a street named for the child molester that served there when it held services? Maybe it's only coincidence that the churches in the neighborhood around well known OBL lobbyist UPS are loaded with Hispanics. I'm supposed to believe a bankrupt church is providing all those aid programs and a fleet of buses to truck people to protests? It could happen.

Originally Posted by loservillelabor

When the all-day workers complained, the owner asked them why he couldn't pay whatever he wanted to the late-come workers

Like this could ever happen in Pelosi's vineyard. Interesting concept though; the envious coveting the lands, goods, and services provided by the jealous? I don't think I've ever read anything that illustrated more eloquently the Founder's wisdom for requiring the separation of church and state. This smells like global socialism/communism on the march.

Exactly! It was a parable meaning that entering the "Kingdom of Heaven" wasn't based on senority. Where he goes astray is using ILLEGAL aliens (who didn't follow the rules) thus being disobedient and (in the parable) wouldn't have been "hired" in the first place.