Brief Thoughts about the Catholic Acrimony on Immigration

It’s legitimate when Catholics have different ideas on how to best carry out the Church teaching on treating migrants. However, it’s not legitimate to reject the Church teaching on immigration and accuse those who teach it of being against Church teaching. But many Catholics are choosing the illegitimate action while claiming that those in authority are wrong.

Church moral teaching can be traced back to the Greatest Commandments (Matthew 22:37-40), where Jesus says:

You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.

If we love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind, we will keep His commandments (John 14:15), not look for an excuse to refuse obedience. The problem is, we are seeing an alarming disregard for the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. When people leave their homes and travel ~2100 miles on foot to come here, some of them dying on the way, many more being victims of crime, disease, and other hardships, the commandment to love our neighbor as ourself means we don’t say “It’s your own fault for coming here.” It means we don’t accuse our bishops of “ignoring” other issues when they say we have a responsibility to ease their suffering. We don’t ask why somebody else in Guatemala isn’t helping them.

But the things we must not do are what an alarming number of Catholics are doing. For example, when I blogged about the father and daughter who drowned in the Rio Grande, I received a number of people who said exactly those things and worse (like claiming it was a staged picture). 

The problem with that way of thinking is, we don’t get to think that way and call ourselves faithful Catholics. Our Lord gave us the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). The one person who would have been most justified in refusing to get involved was the one person who acted according to the commandment to love our neighbor as ourself. We’re called to emulate the Samaritan, but we’re acting like the Priest and Levite.

Different people can legitimately have different ideas about how to best help those in need our doorstep, and yes, we should prudently consider safety of citizens. But if we act like the rich man who outright ignores the person suffering on his doorstep, things will go badly for us at the end of our life (cf. Luke 16:19-31).

Rethinking the All or Nothing Approach to Government: A Reflection

American Catholics tend to fall into extremes about our Presidents. We tend to either think of them as pure villains or national saviors because of their policies or personal behavior. In doing so, we tend to downplay, or even ignore, the policies or behavior that go against our assessment. 

That’s a bit of an aberration. The Church in different times and places throughout history had a different perspective: that rulers and governments can be morally bad and still benefit the Church in some way, or live by a lofty moral code and still do great harm to the Church.

Take the quote to the top left of this article. It’s from Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History. The emperor, Commodus (reigned AD 177 [*] to 192) lived a morally dissolute life and ran a corrupt government. He was strangled in the bath, rumor has it his assassin was a homosexual lover. Whether that’s true or not (historians are divided), he was not a praiseworthy person. But a few of his policies brought about good and, whether by intent or distraction, he stopped the general persecution of the Church. The Church could recognize this good while not approving of his life in doing so.

In contrast, his father—Marcus Aurelius (reigned AD 161-180)—was a Stoic philosopher known by historians as the last of the Five Good Emperors. He lived by a strong moral code and was a good governor. However, under his rule, the persecution of Christians greatly increased—historians debate about whether this was done with his direct support. The Church recognizes the harm he did despite his other actions.

If we were to judge these two emperors by the standards of American Catholics, some would say that Commodus was the greatest emperor ever and his “moral failings” were unimportant in comparison. Others would say that the first group were partisan and we would need to go back to the policies of Marcus Aurelius, ignoring the evils he did as a cost of the “greater good.”

Both groups would be wrong. The moral wrongdoing and the unjust government policies must both be opposed by Catholics. But the good that a government does should be encouraged. Both would have to be part of the Catholic assessment and we could not say that one was unimportant compared to the other.

This is how we need to respond to the policies of our government and those who rule. When our government does good, we support it. When it does evil, we oppose it. If we do this selectively, ignoring the good of those we dislike, or the evil of those we support, we are not acting as Catholics ought. We are acting as partisans who bring up or set aside things depending on how they benefit our worldly views, not on their objective good or evil.

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[*] From AD 177-180, he co-ruled with his father, Marcus Aurelius.

Cum Petro et Sub Petro

If I had to say what I thought caused the biggest harm to the stability of the Church and acceptance of her teachings, I would say it was the loss of respect and obedience to the Holy Father when he teaches, and the assumption that when the Pope teaches what we dislike it means he must be an idiot or a heretic.

In the period of 1968-2013, this behavior was seen in those Catholics who were at odds with the teachings on sexual morality and women in the priesthood. They believed (and still do) that the Church went wrong on those teachings and, until the Pope reversed those teachings, they could “legitimately” disobey him. They argued that, since these teachings were not defined ex cathedra, they were not protected, and could be in error.

In response, Catholics began stepping up to defend the authority of the papacy. They pointed out that the authority of the Pope was binding when he intended to teach and, even if we should wind up with a morally bad Pope, God would prevent him from teaching error (whether by guidance or by diverting him from attempting to implement a false teaching). 

There were warning signs we should have seen however. Because some of the Church teaching on moral issues superficially coincided with conservative values, it became easy to confuse the two. When Popes wrote on other issues, these Catholics fretted that the Church was “moving left” or argued that the Pope was just expressing an “opinion” where his Polish (St. John Paul II) or German (Benedict XVI) background gave him a distorted view of the West. 

Beginning in 2013, we saw the first non-European Pope. He was solidly orthodox, but had a different perspective on the world, based on different experiences than Catholics in the US and Western Europe had. Misinterpreting these perspectives as a “change of teaching,” we soon wound up with same problem but with different actors and reasons for dissent. Because he spoke out on the social justice teachings of the Church—the ones the defenders of his predecessors wrote off as opinion—we saw the Catholics who confused Church teaching with conservatism begin to question him, then challenge his orthodoxy.

And, similar to before, the superficial similarities between Catholic teaching on social justice and political liberalism leads some Catholics to assume that the Church was finally agreeing with them, despite the fact that the Pope confirmed that he held the teachings of the Church, calling himself a “son of the Church.” [§]

Both of these factions of dissenters lost sight of the Catholic understanding of cum Petro et sub Petro—with Peter and under Peter. This is the recognition that one must be in communion with the Pope and offering religious submission of intellect and will to him when he teaches. This was the obedience of the saints even in darker times when some Popes were more interested in self than in God.

Professing that God protects His Church is not some misplaced trust in the holiness and knowledge of the individual on the Chair of St. Peter. It’s faith in God that we can trust Him to protect His Church under the headship of the Pope, even if some of the Popes should prove to live unworthily. 

If we believe this, we can understand why we give obedience to each Pope when he teaches—even if we don’t particularly like him or his behavior—because we can trust God to protect His Church and prevent it from teaching error when we give obedience to the visible head of the Church. But if we refuse to give religious submission of intellect and will to the Pope when he teaches, if we refuse to be cum Petro et sub Petro, we are not faithful Catholics. We’re merely schismatics (cf. canon 751).

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[§] It should be noted, despite the constant predictions of Pope Francis changing teachings on contraception, woman priests, homosexuality, etc., he has always strongly reaffirmed Church teaching on these subjects. Maybe it’s time to stop listening to the critics and alarmists.

Ahab, Dissent, and the Art of Misrepresentation

When Catholics openly dissent from a teaching, but want to appear as if they’re really the faithful ones, they develop misrepresenting the Church into an art form. Doctrines are reduced to merely human teaching. The teachings of the ordinary magisterium are reduced to optional, often partisan, opinions. The dissenters effectively says, “yes the Church might say this, but they’re wrong and we’re justified in not obeying it.”

One of the most common tactics is to claim that the Church, or a member of the magisterium, is wrongly intruding into the concerns of the state or offering a political opinion. Such dissenters overlook seem to forget that totalitarian dictatorships made the same complaint about the Catholic Church. Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and many other regimes have bitterly complained when the Church condemned the evils of their regimes. It becomes especially bizarre when those who hold positions that the Church speaks out against are themselves Catholic. Those individuals come across like King Ahab speaking bitterly against the prophet Micaiah:

Jehoshaphat said, “Is there no other prophet of the Lord here we might consult?” The king of Israel answered, “There is one other man through whom we might consult the Lord; but I hate him because he prophesies not good but evil about me. He is Micaiah, son of Imlah.” (1 Kings 22:7–8)

Common sense says that, when one who speaks with God’s authority speaks against the position a person holds, the person who recognizes that authority in general is a fool if they reject it when directed at him or her. We might laugh at Ahab’s foolishness in refusing to listen, but if we start saying in response to a bishop acting in communion with the Pope, “the Church should be silent, and stick to what they know,” we’re behaving like Ahab did.

Another application of this misrepresentation is when Catholics draw a line in the sand where the Church stays on one side and the state stays on the other. The problem is, this line is arbitrary and does not resemble what the Church actually believes. The Church does in fact have something to say when the state behaves in an unjust way, persecuting those who do right and permitting evils. This is because the Church has a role in speaking out to ensure justice when those who govern violate what is right. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church points out:

1930 Respect for the human person entails respect for the rights that flow from his dignity as a creature. These rights are prior to society and must be recognized by it. They are the basis of the moral legitimacy of every authority: by flouting them, or refusing to recognize them in its positive legislation, a society undermines its own moral legitimacy. If it does not respect them, authority can rely only on force or violence to obtain obedience from its subjects. It is the Church’s role to remind men of good will of these rights and to distinguish them from unwarranted or false claims.

A state only has legitimacy if it acts in a way that is just. When the state acts unjustly, the Church must speak out to warn those who govern about the danger to their souls and to the legitimacy of the state, as well as to warn Catholics who live within not to be swept up into supporting the evil. So, when the dissenters side with the rule of government or ideology of a politician in opposition to the teaching of the Church, they are choosing to reject the Church. And, since Catholics should know that the Church teaches with God’s authority (Matthew 16:19, 18:18), then to reject the authority of the Church is to reject God (Luke 10:16).

To get around that, dissenters like to point to sin in the Church and try to claim that grevious evils by some means the guilt of the whole. And, if the whole is guilty (they argue), then the Church cannot teach with authority until those in authority eliminate those evils. Some go so far as to say that the existence of evil removes the authority to teach. It’s a sort of neo-Donatism that pops up in the Church from time to time. Those who promote it will point to evils that exist, and say that the Pope and bishops have lost their authority (something they assume but do not prove). From there (through a non sequitur) they argue that what they teach is right. When the Church rejects their erroneous views, they point to the evil and rejects the authority of the Church. (Martin Luther and John Calvin were especially notorious with this tactic).

The problem is, even though Scripture has a lot to say about what will happen to faithless shepherds, they don’t say that sinful behavior removes authority. Aaron created a golden calf. He did not lose his office for his sin. Peter denied Jesus three times. He did not lose his office. Indeed, Our Lord pointed out (Matthew 23:2-3) that there was a difference between authority and personal behavior. Those who teach with authority must be heeded, but we may not use their bad behavior to justify ours.

Yet another tactic is to argue that X is a worse evil than Y, therefore the Church should not focus on Y while X exists. This is a red herring fallacy, aimed at discrediting those in the Church speaking against Y. Yes, some sins are worse than others. But, if X is less common in the Church in a nation, while people routinely commit Y, it makes sense that the Church would remind the faithful of the fact that Y is evil, lest they go to hell for committing it. As Ezekiel warned through prophecy:

You, son of man—I have appointed you as a sentinel for the house of Israel; when you hear a word from my mouth, you must warn them for me. When I say to the wicked, “You wicked, you must die,” and you do not speak up to warn the wicked about their ways, they shall die in their sins, but I will hold you responsible for their blood. If, however, you warn the wicked to turn from their ways, but they do not, then they shall die in their sins, but you shall save your life. (Ezekiel 33:7-9)

When the Church calls us out for supporting Y, we often say “the Church should speak out on X instead,” overlooking the fact that we forget their speaking out against X because we resent being called out over Y. But we should be grateful that the Church, as watchman, does not remain silent when we are the ones in danger of hell.

When we’re tempted to balk at the teaching of the Church, we should consider these ways in which we try to evade the religious submission of intellect and will. The Church teaches with the authority of Christ, and we should be very wary around arguments denying that authority. 

Yes, there will be those in the Church who do fall into error when they try to teach in opposition to the Pope. But we trust that God will not permit His Church under the headship of the Pope to teach binding error. Yes, a teaching of the ordinary magisterium is changeable. But that means it can be refined, not that it was heresy before.  If we accuse the Church, when she teaches, of teaching error, we are acting like Ahab who dared to be angry when a prophet warned him of his destruction.

Church and Politics

The Catholic Church was established by Jesus Christ and given the authority and mission to bring His salvation to the entire world, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). When the Church teaches, it is with His authority (Matthew 16:19, 18:18) and rejecting the teaching of the Church is rejecting Him (Matthew 18:17, Luke 10:16). Indeed, He warns that “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

This obedience is not simply limited to the ex cathedra teachings. We are also obligated to give religious submission of intellect and will to the ordinary teaching authority of the Pope and bishops teaching in communion with him (cf. Canons 751-753, Lumen Gentium 25, Humani Generis 20 among others). If we knowingly do not accept this, we are heretics and schismatics.

The political field exists as a manner of agreeing how best to govern. In many circumstances, the government does enforce the common good through authority given it by God. As St. Paul (Romans 13:1-7) points out:

Let every person be subordinate to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been established by God. Therefore, whoever resists authority opposes what God has appointed, and those who oppose it will bring judgment upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear to good conduct, but to evil. Do you wish to have no fear of authority? Then do what is good and you will receive approval from it, for it is a servant of God for your good. But if you do evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword without purpose; it is the servant of God to inflict wrath on the evildoer. Therefore, it is necessary to be subject not only because of the wrath but also because of conscience. This is why you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Pay to all their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, toll to whom toll is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due. 

The exception, however, is when the government tries to carry out what the Church which teaches with God’s authority. As Peter told the Sanhedrin, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). When the Church teaches that X is required or Y is forbidden, the state that refuses to do X or demands we do Y is demanding that we render what is God’s to Caesar (see Matthew 22:21). Nor can we be silent over what does not directly impact us but the Church condemns (See Matthew 25:41-46). As St. Caesarius of Arles points out (Sermon 157), if it’s wrong to do ignore the suffering, what will become of us if we participate in the evil:

Vatican II (Apostolicam Actuositatem #5) tells us:

Christ’s redemptive work, while essentially concerned with the salvation of men, includes also the renewal of the whole temporal order. Hence the mission of the Church is not only to bring the message and grace of Christ to men but also to penetrate and perfect the temporal order with the spirit of the Gospel. In fulfilling this mission of the Church, the Christian laity exercise their apostolate both in the Church and in the world, in both the spiritual and the temporal orders. These orders, although distinct, are so connected in the singular plan of God that He Himself intends to raise up the whole world again in Christ and to make it a new creation, initially on earth and completely on the last day. In both orders the layman, being simultaneously a believer and a citizen, should be continuously led by the same Christian conscience.

Because of this, we must listen to the Church when she teaches and “penetrate and perfect” the temporal order. But a dangerous attitude is arising among Catholics who used to pride themselves as faithful Catholics. That danger is treating the teaching of the Church as a “prudential judgment” (in a complete abuse of the term) or “interfering in politics” as if the bishops were corruptly abusing their authority to demand that we vote for a specific political party.

But that is not what they are doing. They are saying it is evil to support or be indifferent to abortion, same sex “marriage,” or the inhumane treatment of immigrants regardless of legal status. As Gaudium et Spes #27 puts it:

Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are supreme dishonor to the Creator.

If the political party we favor supports one or more of these evils, we must oppose the evil, not point to the evil of the “other party” as worse and, therefore, justify the evil of our own party as unimportant in comparison. We cannot (if we are Democrats) downplay the evil of our party supporting abortion because our opposing the moral evil of the immigration policy. Nor can we, if we are Republicans, downplay the evil of our party’s role in the immigration policies because we oppose the evil of abortion [§].

The problem is, when the Pope or the bishops of this country [#] condemn an evil act or intent that is a political plank in a party platform, we automatically assume they are “getting involved with politics” instead of acting as the successors of the Apostles. By refusing to consider that the party or the candidate we favor as being evil in the eyes of God, we risk turning the party or candidate we favor into an idol, acting with a dual allegiance forbidden to us.

When our political party embraces something that the Pope and bishops condemn as evil, we have a choice: to fight to overturn the evil in our party, or to leave the party. In the first option, Archbishop Chaput wrote about abortion, in 2004, something that applies to every grave evil:

My friends often ask me if Catholics in genuinely good conscience can vote for “pro-choice” candidates. The answer is: I couldn’t. Supporting a “right” to choose abortion simply masks and evades what abortion really is: the deliberate killing of innocent life. I know of nothing that can morally offset that kind of evil. 

But I do know sincere Catholics who reason differently, who are deeply troubled by war and other serious injustices in our country, and they act in good conscience. I respect them. I don’t agree with their calculus. What distinguishes such voters, though, is that they put real effort into struggling with the abortion issue. They don’t reflexively vote for the candidate of “their” party. They don’t accept abortion as a closed matter. They refuse to stop pushing to change the direction of their party on the abortion issue. They don’t reflexively vote for the candidate of “their” party. They don’t accept abortion as a closed matter. They refuse to stop pushing to change the direction of their party on the abortion issue. They won’t be quiet. They keep fighting for a more humane party platform—one that would vow to protect the unborn child. Their decision to vote for a “pro-choice” candidate is genuinely painful and never easy for them. 

(Render Unto Caesar)

If we look at his words as “Democrats bad, Republicans good” (or look at the denouncing of our immigration policy as “Democrats good, Republicans bad”), we’ve missed the point. What it means is when our party chooses evil, we must fight to change our party if we choose to remain in it—NOT to condemn our Church for pointing out that evil. Not saying “the other party is worse.”

God desires the salvation of all. That includes Trump and Ocasio-Cortez. It includes McConnell and Pelosi. We have to convert all the world to Him, not convert all the people to our preferred political party, and especially not demand the Church embrace our party.

If we will not obey the Church, we will reject from Him who sent His Church. Then He will say about us, “Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” (Matthew 22:13). And when He does so, there will be no excuses to justify us at the final judgment.

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[§] To avoid the accusation of bias (Succeed or fail, I try to keep my blog non-partisan) I put the party names in alphabetical order and used the first person plural with both to avoid giving the impression of siding with one over the other.

[#] Being an American myself, I write about what I know politically. I would hope that the general ideas work anywhere, but I don’t pretend to know the nuances of the politics in another nation.

Tactics of Diversion

It’s long been a tactic of atheists and anti-Catholics to respond to an argument they can’t answer by pointing to some unrelated issue in which members of the Church have either caused harm by ignoring Church teaching through sins of commission or omission, or by actions that do not involve the teaching of the Church. If you’ve seen someone suddenly bring up Galileo, the Spanish Inquisition, or the abuse scandals when they have nothing to do with the topic discussed, you’ve seen the tactic. The unspoken assumption in this tactic is that as long as the Church has a case of some evil or bureaucratic insensitivity in her past, she is morally flawed and has no right to insist on anyone obeying her. Unfortunately, we are now seeing Catholics use this tactic in order to discredit the Church when she speaks out against something they support.

The problem is, if any group must be morally impeccable to be able to say “X is wrong,” than nobody can oppose anything because nobody [§] is morally impeccable. That means the critics of the Church can’t insist on a moral course of action either. For example, if this tactic was valid, Americans could not oppose ethnic violence in the world on grounds that we also have a history of it. Can you imagine a neo-Nazi smugly saying that Americans have no right to speak against the concentration camps because of our history of putting Native Americans into reservations? Under this tactic, we’d have to.

The tactic is not a valid argument. It merely tries to hide the truth the person or group makes in a moral objection by bringing up things—usually out of context—that makes the one objecting seem hypocritical. But the fact that a person or group may be acting hypocritically if they have no intention to correct a moral fault [#] while demanding others correct theirs, does not change the truth of the moral objection raised against wrongdoing.

This most recently arose when the US bishops responded to the spate of mass shootings that flared up over a 24 hour period. The bishops called on the nation to pass sensible laws and asked Trump to consider his past rhetoric. The social media responses (some of which are pictured in the top left of this post) are examples of this tactic. Because they did not like what the bishops had to say, they responded with tu quoque, ad hominem, guilt by association, straw men, and red herring fallacies to try to undermine the entirely valid response by the bishops. But those responses (largely falsehoods) do not disprove the truth of the bishops’ concerns.

Of course, it’s not just the political right and Trump. The political left on abortion, same sex “marriage,” and transgenderism use the same tactics, bringing up the sexual abuse cases and other shameful acts/omissions in the Church to discredit the current statements.

But whoever uses it, know that they don’t have a point. They are merely using a tactic of diversion. The people who use it are trying to get the attention off of an issue they might stand indicted under and shift it to an issue they feel safe about. While those who shepherd the Church should work to ensure the dioceses are free of evil, bringing up charges like this don’t actually disprove the truth of the bishops’ warnings.

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[§] This statement does not deny the sinlessness of Our Lord and the Blessed Virgin Mary, of course.

[#] A rash judgment. Yes, some in the Church have failed to guide the Church properly, or even fallen into corruption. But we can’t conclude from “some have not” that “all have deliberately refused to act.”

Reflections on Reactions to the Chesterton Decision

The decision of Bishop Peter Doyle to not pursue the cause of GK Chesterton at this time has stirred up a lot of emotion from his supporters. Bishop Doyle [§] gave three reasons as to why he felt he could not:

“...I am unable to promote the cause of GK Chesterton for three reasons. Firstly, and most importantly, there is no local cult. Secondly, I have been unable to tease out a pattern of personal spirituality. And, thirdly, even allowing for the context of G K Chesterton’s time, the issue of anti-Semitism is a real obstacle particularly at this time in the United Kingdom”.

If you’ve seen the comments on social media, you’ll know that some Catholics have responded to the decision by bashing the Church or the bishop, accusing him of being politically correct, a leftist or a Freemason. Others have accused him of saying Chesterton was evil. Most of the responses focus on the concern about possible anti-Semitism. The American GK Chesterton Society, for example, issued some statements and past articles about the charge. So let’s deal with this, even though the bishop thought the biggest problem was of the lack of a local cult [*].

I’m a fan of Chesterton’s non-fiction writing. He certainly made good insights into the attitudes of the world and defended the Catholic Church with a rapier wit. But as soon as I saw the article blurb, I knew which book the bishop had in mind—The New Jerusalem. I’ve read it, and I found his statements on Jews to be jarring, sometimes offensively so.

Unfortunately, the term “anti-semitism” is an equivocal term. It can be used to describe a range of attitudes from Adolf Hitler to people who have misgivings about the policies of modern Israel. If the bishop intends it one way and the reader interprets it another way, then people will be fighting over different issues.

Chesterton’s defenders bring out the fact that he opposed the Nazis and said he would die to defend the Jews. That is laudable. It certainly defends him from an accusation that he supported Hitler’s treatment of the Jews. But it would be an error to think that this means none of his statements were offensive.

Personally, I think that if there is a valid concern about his writings about the Jews, it would be of the patronizing kind that sees negative things in their culture and assumes that “they can’t help it, so we need to help them.” [#]. In my reading of The New Jerusalem, I had a sense of Chesterton assuming that the problems among Jews were because of their culture and not because of some of the more shameful elements of European history keeping them apart from the rest of society.

For example, while his defenders make much of his saying he supported a nation for the Jews, less is said about why he supports it. On page 289 of my version of The New Jerusalem, he explains:

Patriotism is not merely dying for the nation. It is dying with the nation. It is regarding the fatherland not merely as a real resting-place like an inn, but as a final resting-place, like a house or even a grave. Even the most Jingo of the Jews do not feel like this about their adopted country; and I doubt if the most intelligent of the Jews would pretend that they did. Even if we can bring ourselves to believe that Disraeli lived for England, we cannot think that he would have died with her. If England had sunk in the Atlantic he would not have sunk with her, but easily floated over to America to stand for the Presidency. Even if we are profoundly convinced that Mr. Beit or Mr. Eckstein had patriotic tears in his eyes when he obtained a gold concession from Queen Victoria, we cannot believe that in her absence he would have refused a similar concession from the German Emperor. When the Jew in France or in England says he is a good patriot he only means that he is a good citizen, and he would put it more truly if he said he was a good exile. Sometimes indeed he is an abominably bad citizen, and a most exasperating and execrable exile, but I am not talking of that side of the case. I am assuming that a man like Disraeli did really make a romance of England, that a man like Dernburg did really make a romance of Germany, and it is still true that though it was a romance, they would not have allowed it to be a tragedy. They would have seen that the story had a happy ending, especially for themselves. These Jews would not have died with any Christian nation.

That’s not far off (albeit more eloquent) than Ilhan Omar’s accusation that Jews have a dual loyalty, and Catholics who were offended by Omar should consider the above passage in that light.

Another thing to be aware of are the arguments that Jesus Himself, not to mention St. John Chrysostom, would be equally scandalous. It’s an attempt at a reductio ad absurdum, but it doesn’t work. Jesus did not condemn Jews because they were Jews. Jesus condemned prevalent attitudes among prominent Jews and called for their conversion. St. John Chrysostom did say some appalling things about Jews [~]. But his views were based on an anger that the Jews had rejected Christ and a concern that some in his diocese were embracing Jewish practices as a novelty, putting themselves at risk of losing their faith. But, if you read St. John Chrysostom, you will see that he thought Jews could and should become Christians, while Chesterton gives the impression that Jews can’t be fully part of a nation. But that’s also what anti-Catholics in Britain and the US have said about Catholics—a fact that we rightfully find offensive.

It is important to remember that the decision of Bishop Doyle does not mean that Chesterton is evil. It does not mean he’s not in Heaven. It doesn’t even mean that his case is permanently blocked. The formal declaration of sainthood by the Church means that the person is held up by the Church as an exemplar of Christian life.

In Chesterton’s case, these obstacles may or may not be solved. Certainly we should pray that they are if we want him to be declared a saint. But let’s not condemn the bishop for raising the concerns he is obligated to raise. That doesn’t help the Church or the cause of sainthood. It only serves to divide the Church—something Chesterton wouldn’t approve of.

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[§] Curiously, though his letter was read at the American GK Chesterton Society conference, nobody has provided an actual text of the letter at the time of my writing this. The only citation Catholic media like CNA and Catholic World Report have used for the letter is a column by Rob Dreher who says he was sitting in the back and couldn’t hear everything. That’s hardly professional reporting. They should have made an effort to get a text of the letter.

[*] It’s a valid concern. He has the obligation to investigate and only start the cause if he sees it justified. But if the people of his own diocese didn’t develop a cultus, he can’t go forward with the cause. The popularity of Chesterton among American Catholics is irrelevant in his determination.

[#] Similar to how some American supporters of civil rights treat problems in minority communities as inevitable. The character of Atticus Finch in Go Set A Watchman exemplified this mindset.

[~] See his Discourses Against Judaizing Christians, for example.