The import of particular identities for the national identity is not to be dismissed precisely because it is what the nationalist agenda attempts. This means that our religious discourse has to account for particular identity experiences as integral parts or building blocks of a multifaceted universal and not as something to be merely included or absorbed by a pre-existing universal condition.
The prophetic role of the Church here is to crack open and break up this renewed parochial nationalism, and remind all of the words of Paul in Galatians 3:28, that regardless of background, we are all one in Jesus Christ.
Life in God is defined by a joyous freedom of movement, a loving and adventurous invitation to the dance of the Spirit. The book of Acts is witness to those who accepted this invitation like Peter, moved to go to a Gentile centurion’s home, thus initiating a new ministry with global implications beyond his ken.
The Trump administration’s most recent actions at the border signal the end of all pretense by the president—and many in his base—that Christian ethical principles should meaningfully inform U.S. immigration and asylum policies. Patriotism and faith have become indistinguishable.
…and they all crossed freely
…and they were heard without initial judgement
The social construction of the criminal other has long served as a justification for subjugation. Pope Francis has stated that the people of God can smell holiness, and perhaps there is also a greater need for the olfactory discernment of evil in our midst. Despite the risk of too literal an interpretation of this metaphor, deeper reflection is warranted of the ways in which evil must be resisted.
It is through our own wounds that we’re called into the work of transformation.
Is this nation ultimately facing a precipice of desoulation? Or could this also be the dark abyss out of which to ensoul itself rather than to continue erecting the towers of indignity that proudly shadow its border-history?
The concept of the common good, so central to Catholic social ethics, provides a hopeful way to integrate these concerns for both structural factors and agency into an ethical framework for thinking about migration.
The necessary elimination of fluids from the body shouldn’t be the pretext for the unnecessary elimination of immigrants from the body politic.