Re: [Marxism] NYT: Pope Speaks Up for Immigrants (forwarded from ISN)

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ruthless quoted a submission by Mike F.:
"...That's big news," said Teresa Gutierrez, a coordinator for the May
1st Coalition for Immigrant and Workers Rights. "Any decent comment
about the reality of what's really happening to immigration in the
United States coming from such a prestigious person as the pope is
extremely helpful."

And then warns:
But to make use the Pope's words would be also opportunistic for
leftists. Especially of a conservative pope.

Fred responds:
Hey Ruthless, I know nobody is more ruthless than you, but have a heart, for
God's sake!

First of all, I don't know or care if Teresa Gutierrez is a leftist, and
therefore obligated, according to you, to take no encouragement from what
the supreme earthly leader of the Catholic Church, to which such a huge
percentage of US immigrants more or less adhere, said about the rights of
immigrants to find work here and unite with their families.

But I find it encouraging and I hope that the organizers of the May 1
protest, like Gutierrez, are not afraid to make full use of the statement to
lift the spirits of the beleaguered illegals and other threatened
immigrants. I don't care which Pope is more conservative than which.
Frankly, so far, Benedict strikes me as a continuation of John Paul II in
all significant respects, including this one.  In this matter, he is simply
upholding the responsibility of the papal "shepherd" to protect his "flock."

Good. I imagine some buried and hidden immigrants will take heart from his
endorsement of the legitimacy of their human concerns and aspirations. It is
good to get a little encouragement from the leader of your religious faith.

I think that fighters for immigrant rights should ruthlessly milk the Pope's
comments for all they are worth, and I agree with Gutierrez that they are
definitely helpful.

If so, Ruthless Critic, why keep it under our hats?

Its worth keeping in mind that the Church has its mass institutional origins
in the Roman Empire before there was anything like nation-states as we know
them today. This has a lot of backward and reactionary consequences to put
it mildly, but one of the not-so-bad results is that they do not get as
excited as might, say, some white Protestant church in Natchez, Mississippi,
over whether everybody's state papers are in order, and whether everybody's
color is in order as well.
Fred Feldman


________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu