1. immigration (even unskilled) is not a drag on the overall economy,
2. if we accept the debatable premise that immigrants are a drag on the welfare system, then we should fix the welfare system instead of building a wall,
3. belief in the integrity of the law seems less at risk from illegal immigrants than it does from, say, legalized abortion,
4. immigration has not been shown to be (statistically) significantly related to crime rates,
5. having a burdensome route to legal immigration will likely encourage the types of illegal immigrants that we don’t want (i.e., risktakers, people with nothing to lose, etc.), and
6. we should spend more time and effort encouraging the adoption of proper institutions in foreign countries than in blocking emigrants from these foreign countries fleeing corruption.

But, try as I might, people still seem stuck on the “I like legal immigration, but not illegal immigration” idea. Implicit in this argument is the acceptance of current immigration law as valid or just. My point in writing all of these articles is not to provide an apology for people breaking the law to come here and refuse to assimilate. My point was to encourage asking the question “Are our current immigration laws wise or just?”

law books on a shelf by umjanedoan

Here’s yet another hypothetical: we’ve all seen cute little kids selling lemonade; we never think they are shady characters who should be forcibly removed from society. But what if we made selling lemonade illegal? Who would sell it? The law won’t reduce demand but it will push up prices with the added risk, thereby attracting profiteers who a) hold the law in contempt, b) probably aren’t very nice people, and c) are the types of people we would try to forcibly remove from society. Our strict immigration laws probably encourage the (illegal) immigration of more undesirable folks than if the laws were more lenient. Sure, more lenient laws would mean more immigrants, but it would mean more nicer immigrants and more immigrants who respect the law.

What if it were illegal for anyone in the U.S. to move to Texas? Would immigration to Texas cease? No. Would it affect which immigrants ended up in Texas? Undoubtedly. Do you think there would be a greater or smaller amount of nice immigrant families moving to Texas? A greater or smaller amount of dangerous people with nothing left to lose?

I find it odd to juxtapose the “immigrants are okay if they follow the law” logic with the pro-life position. The point that pro-life people (need to) make is that the legality of abortion does not provide it moral cover. We aren’t content that people just reduce their use of legal abortions; we would not consider it just to keep abortion legal even if we got the number of abortions to decrease significantly. We realize that the law of legal abortion itself needs to be changed. Can you imagine a Catholic saying “I’m all for legal abortions; I’m just against illegal abortions”? No, we know that abortion is objectively evil; the law impacts abortion by making it more or less prevalent.

Similarly (but of course not to the same degree), forcibly keeping immigrants out is, I would argue, (a lesser) evil. People should have the freedom to escape poverty and corruption, and morally we should be willing to help people doing just that. Sure, some bad apples will come in, but God creates all of us even knowing we will sin, some gravely and with final impenitence. The law impacts immigration by affecting who chooses to come.

Even though Jesus said “those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do,” the “get tough on immigrants” crowd seems to only want those who are well to enter our borders. If you are not convinced by the lengthy academic literature showing no significant connection between immigration and crime rates (hint: at least read the abstracts!) then you need to provide a moral reason for keeping immigrants out, most of whom won’t break any other law besides the one saying they can’t come here.

America has a big problem with illegal immigration, but a big part of it stems from the word “illegal.” It pollutes the debate. It blocks solutions. Used dispassionately and technically, there is nothing wrong with it. Used as an irreducible modifier for a large and largely decent group of people, it is badly damaging. And as a code word for racial and ethnic hatred, it is detestable.

Nogales border fence By bunky’s pickle

I couldn’t help but mentally draw the connection between the “immigrants are criminals” idea and Prohibition. If our borders were more open, i.e., if it were less costly for people to move here, it would attract more “normal” types of immigrants. As it is, though, when our border is militarized, when getting into the U.S. is very costly and dangerous, then the types of people who will be attracted to entering will pretty much be the opposite of the people we want: people with no good options at home who are willing to engage in dangerous, risky behavior to come here. When we outlawed alcohol, violent criminals got us our alcohol; now that alcohol is legal, the providers of alcohol certainly are a more respectable group. Is it possible that our “get tough” political motivation on immigration policy, that illegals are criminals, is self-fulfilling in the sense that those are the ones who most try to come here given how difficult it is to come here legally? On the relationship between immigration and the drug war, see good commentary here.

“Illegals could be terrorists.” True, as could any native. But the statistical probability that a given immigrant, even an illegal one, will commit a terrorist act is extremely small. Do we deny everyone the American dream (or at least deny them from fleeing their own domestic nightmare) because of this extremely small probability? Do we shun our poor neighbors over so tiny a risk?

“They take our jerbs!” Commenter Paul says “The unskilled labor influx is actually a detraction for the local economy. An unskilled laborer who is illiterate or only semi-educated due to their former homeland is more likely to be hired even for entry-level positions like working at McDonald’s or pushing carts at Publix. The problem with this is that you have educated kids graduating from high school that can’t get a job because they’ve been filled with low skilled immigrants who have very little chance of upward mobility.”

I found this an odd argument for a couple of reasons. First, it would seem to be a good thing that we have educated our high schoolers sufficiently that they don’t have to work at McDonald’s or push carts at Publix. The preferable alternative, then, is to have our educated high schoolers performing jobs for which they are overqualified? Isn’t that the lament frequently offered about college education? Second, the economist in me, after hearing that high schoolers are having trouble finding work, again feels obligated to point out that lowering the minimum wage would do much to increase employment in this group.

As is obvious, I only present principles here; I am not adept (or long-suffering) enough to plow through actual legislation that is being considered, like Carson is. Certainly legislation can be written well or poorly; a more strict immigration policy that is written well and actually prevents criminals from coming in but allows normal, hardworking people to do so would be preferable to a poorly written policy that pushed open borders but did nothing to address the welfare handouts that immigrants supposedly seek (though in the video I posted previously, the point was made that illegals often don’t qualify for such things). Further, U.S. legislation can do next to nothing to change what largely drives most immigration: poor institutional quality in developing countries. When countries do not respect the rule of law, private property rights, the benefits of free trade, the importance of constitutionally limited government, etc., then of course people will want to leave. Do we turn them away at our border because their government rulers are kleptocrats? Is that the immigrant’s fault?

As is also obvious, I nor anyone else blogging for CV claim to speak officially for the Church. We are Catholics in good standing approaching timely issues through the mind of the Church but often providing various viewpoints on issues of prudence. Catholics in good conscience can arguably be on both sides of the immigration debate; my intention here and earlier is simply to highlight a viewpoint that is well-established amongst economists, seems to be favored amongst the U.S. Bishops, but is often ridiculed amongst conservatives.

#1 Top three myths about immigration

#2 The impact of immigration on jobs and income

#3 Why unskilled immigrants are good for the economy

To the “stealing our jobs” argument, it should also be noted that most immigrants to the U.S. are either very highly skilled or very low skilled (I believe I heard Ben Powell from video #1 make this argument but I can’t find it online). The U.S. native population, like most countries, has a bell-shaped skill distribution with relatively few people having either very low or very high skills and the vast majority of people in the middle of the bell curve. Therefore, when low- and highly-skilled immigrants come in, they only add to the already-small number of people at the tails. In other words, they don’t compete with the vast majority of people for jobs; they complement them.

I suppose the argument could be made that they still compete with the U.S. workers in the tails, and thus immigration should be prevented for the sake of those people. I’d respond that

1. That is a fairly small number of harmed Americans to justify keeping out immigrants who on net provide a large benefit to the U.S. as a whole. Hopefully the U.S. government isn’t in the business of changing its laws to suit only a tiny minority of its populace. (Oh, wait…)
2. Even if unskilled immigrants compete for jobs with low-skilled Americans, it seems the obvious remedy consistent with subsidiarity is to provide education and skills training to those low-skilled Americans, rather than to construct an elaborate bureaucratic system complete with long lines, countless documents, armed border agents, and super-duper high walls.
3. Even if highly skilled immigrants compete for jobs with highly-skilled Americans, I find it hard to see the downside of having more smart people here. But admittedly I’m not at that end of the skill distribution anyway, so I’m sure a comboxer will set me straight…

Highly-skilled Roman immigrant

Catholics should like immigration purely on humanitarian grounds. Actually, I may be preaching to the choir because the USCCB says “Nearly eighty percent of Catholic voters support earned citizenship.” Unfortunately, as with most polls of Catholics this one does not distinguish between those who self-identify as Catholic and those who, say, are weekly Mass goers. We know, for example, how most Catholics voted in the most recent presidential election. But I would hope the results would not differ much if the pollsters made such a distinction. Cardinal Dolan lent his support to legislative efforts to reform the immigration system.

Those who argue for the morality of keeping immigrants out usually go back to the welfare argument that was addressed in video #3 above; “Even if it’s a small number, some poor immigrants come here just to take advantage of our generous welfare benefits.” Wouldn’t it seem that the obvious remedy is to fix the broken, dependency-creating welfare system, rather than keep it in place but forcefully keep out most or all immigrants because we think that some of them will become welfare queens?

Others argue that immigration is immoral because most of it is done illegally, creating disrespect for U.S. law. I can think of lots of other laws that would seem to create this disrespect much more so than immigration laws, from the truly awful (Roe v. Wade, free contraception in public schools, legal protection of pornography, etc.) to the ridiculous (the TSA, no Big Gulps in Gotham, low-flow toilets, etc.). It would seem there are bigger elephants in the room.

Let’s hope that xenophobia does not carry the day in this debate. Lest we forget, the Good Samaritan was a foreigner, Jesus Himself was questioned because of His place of origin, and I’m going to go out on a limb and presume that most of you readers have an immigrant or two in your own ancestry. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free!”

And on this point, we must completely agree.

Other faith traditions that allow divorce and contraception, and that don’t treat marriage as a sacrament, must have a difficult time defending against the “marriage equality” arguments. Thankfully, the Catholic Church has had clear and consistent teachings on these issues since the beginning. That’s because it has a clear understanding of what marriage actually is and requires, as the Rite of Marriage makes clear:

The priest then questions them about their freedom of choice, faithfulness to each other, and the acceptance and upbringing of children:

“Have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?”

“Will you love and honor each other as man and wife for the rest of your lives?”

“Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?”

There is clearly, at a minimum, a recognition that marriage involves a gift of self to the other, mostly to the spouse but also to whatever children may spring from their union. In this, marriage mirrors the self-donation that Christ gave on the Cross for His bride, the Church.

What happens when marriage is entered into for somewhat alternative reasons, reasons that the “marriage equality” side seems to prefer, like “We want the state to recognize that we really like each other”? You get stories like the following {with my own occasional thought in squiggly brackets}:

The mother who says having these two children is the biggest regret of her life

I felt completely detached from this alien being who had encroached upon my settled married life and changed it, irrevocably, for the worse…

Quite simply, I had always hated the idea of motherhood…{which is why the Church requires openness to children as a condition of marriage. If you don’t want kids, why enter into the arrangement specifically designed to create them?}

I know my life would have been much happier and more fulfilled without children…

Two years and four months after Stuart was born, I had my daughter Jo… I believe it is utterly selfish to have an only [child]…{But it’s not selfish to want neither of them?}

Yet I dreaded her dependence; resented the time she would consume, and that like parasites, both my children would continue to take from me and give nothing meaningful back in return…

What I valued most in my life was time on my own; to reflect, read and enjoy my own company and peace of mind. And suddenly that peace and solitude wasn’t there any more. There were two small interlopers intruding on it. And I’ve never got that peace back…{I wonder if anyone ever pointed her to St. Therese’s “little way,” or to Brother Lawrence’s “practice of the presence of God.”}

From the moment we decided we would be spending the rest of our lives together, I confessed I didn’t want to start a family.

I was acutely aware that a child would usurp my independence and drain my finances. I felt no excitement as my due date approached… I focused on enjoying the last months of my freedom…{True freedom comes from living consistently with God’s will and detachment from material things. Again, I wonder if anyone ever pointed her to St. John of the Cross or St. Teresa of Avila.}

There are a few chilling stories interspersed:

[I]n May 1979, Stuart was born, blue in the face as the cord was wrapped round his neck. While other mothers would be frantic with worry, I remained calm when the doctor whisked him away. I sent Tony back to work and for the next four hours I waited without any apprehension. I did not really think about Stuart at all, until Tony returned after work and asked where he was. He was fine, of course, but when they wheeled him back into the ward I did not experience that sudden leap of the heart that new mums are expected to feel. Instead I sat down with a cup of tea and thought bleakly, ‘What have I done?’…

When Stuart was three weeks old, I pushed him in his pram to the shops for the first time with our red setter Amber in tow. Outside the baker’s I tethered the dog to the pram and left Stuart outside with Amber while I bought a loaf and cakes. It was not until I got home, made myself a cup of tea and started eating my cake, that I realised something was amiss. My dog wasn’t there waiting for her usual titbit. So the first thought that impinged on me was: where is Amber? I missed the dog before it even occurred to me that I’d left Stuart outside the shop. I can’t say, even then, that I was worried. I just rang the baker to check Stuart and the dog were still outside, retrieved them and came home.

The result of this method and attitude of parenting?

I don’t believe either that Stuart or Jo sensed any coolness on my part, although Jo once said, ‘You never tell me you love me, Mum.’ And I didn’t, it’s true.

So as we debate about the importance of marriage, let’s remember that it is, of course, a debate about what marriage is in its essence. We defend marriage not just because we have strong opinions only about who can be married; we want to defend marriage in all of its essential aspects, significantly the bearing of children.

It is said that the wise know that they don’t know everything, which not only emphasizes the importance of humility but can also cause people to sneer suspiciously at claims of actually knowing something. The point was made in the show that economists basically know the answer to why most rich countries are rich and why most poor countries are poor, and it is little more than the reasons outlined by Adam Smith in his An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Since I’ve made the point exhaustively in about 50% of my CV posts, I’ll just give a one-sentence summary: economic freedom to trade (domestically and internationally) within an institutional framework of clear and limited laws and regulations leads to the greatest material growth than alternative systems.

My point here is not to defend that statement (indeed, it is not only my opinion, as the guest on “Catholicism on Campus” stressed). The history of economic thought shows battling schools of thought with some names (and their ideas) becoming commonplace (Keynes, Friedman) and some being consigned to historical footnotes (Robert Owen, Gustav Schmoller). The battle royale of economists has to be considered the twentieth century, where both socialism and free markets were attempted on relatively large scales (Cuba and North Korea being examples of the former; Hong Kong and Singapore the latter). Though you’ll still find random college students or documentary film producers praising the efficiency(!) of socialism, economists (the people who study this stuff for a living) by a great margin agree that markets work better.

So now what? The major economic questions that occupied most of our time in the twentieth century have been answered. But economics, like science, only concerns itself with material reality; and most economists and scientists will admit that reality is not limited to the material. While psychologists, sociologists, or anthropologists attempt to fill in the immaterial gaps in what it means to be human, CV readers likely presume that the theologian has some expertise in this matter as well.

What do theologians tell us? Relevant to a discussion about societal questions, some practical bits of advice include:

• Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth… But store up treasures in heaven…
• What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?

With the material questions mostly answered (though convincing politicians and despots to enact policies consistent with those answers may prove difficult), and with post-Christian society rapidly embracing atheism/agnosticism, the time seems ripe for theologians to step up with the truth of Christ and His Church.

I’m not sure what it says about humanity that we seemed to move from a time where the major questions were known (“Will living a moral life lead to happiness?” “Are men and women different?”) and we were ignorant of the minor ones (“How many species of frog are there?” “What is the 1,605th digit of pi?”), to a time now where we know lots of minutae but are ignorant about the major questions. We don’t know whether God exists or why it even matters to care about having an answer to that question; we don’t know what sex is for or where babies come from; we don’t know whether violence against innocent persons is wrong, etc.

Theologians have the comparative advantage in answering these questions; they’ve been doing it for a few millenia by now whereas our ignorance is only a few decades old. It seems fitting, then, that our recent popes have not only been great theologians, but have also had a very evangelical flair. This moment in history especially it seems necessary for St. Peter to again cast his nets into the sea, to work at the Great Commission. If some wondered whether 2012 would be the “Year of the Atheist,” I think it is much more likely that the twenty-first century will be the age of theology (perhaps preceded by the opening act of apologetics). If we worked out the economic questions in the twentieth century, let’s work out the God questions in this one.

P.S. That means you; we don’t have the luxury of being ill-informed on theology in a society that seems bent on discarding anything religious.

Corey Braun, the operator-owner of a Chick-fil-A near Foothill and Day Creek boulevards, provided dozens of free entree tickets to gay marriage supporters at a demonstration… “There were a lot of things said over the past year,” Braun said. “I wanted to show that Chick-fil-A doesn’t discriminate against anybody. We serve everyone. We’re happy to serve the community and this was an opportunity to have this group come in and show them our hospitality regardless of their beliefs, sexual orientation, or whatever. “ He added: “Chick-fil-A has never been about hate.”

Eden Anderson, a board member with the local LGBT rights group Equality Inland Empire, called Braun’s appearance at the demonstration surreal…

“The crowd was very accepting, of course,” Anderson said. “We got quiet and we were listening, and with some skepticism. But really, what I experienced with the community, is when people are open and apologetic and accepting, it’s touching to us. It feels like acceptance and we just want to be accepted and engaged in society, so when it’s confirmed, I think the overall reaction was, yes, certainly that Chick-fil-A in Rancho Cucamonga is welcoming to us…”

Anderson said the LGBT community was surprised by the turnout [at the "Chick-fil-A days"] last year “and how much it hurt. ”

“A lot of them aren’t just against marriage equality,” Anderson said. “They believe gay people are a sin against nature and God and it felt like a display of disregard for our humanity. “

I suppose that skeptics would say 1) He is showing support to the gay marriage movement in spite of the company’s tradition of Biblical values, or 2) He is just out for profit wherever he can get it.

I say Kudos to Corey Braun. Whatever his personal intentions were, the public perception of Chick-fil-A is squarely against the LBGT movement so for him to do what he did seems a fitting example of putting good advice into practice:

But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you (Mt 5:44)

Again, for the skeptics, I get it that he is just giving them coupons for chicken and doing nothing to warn them against the risk of cooperating in mortal sin. Or is he? The simple act seems to have impressed many in the crowd who weren’t looking for logical counterarguments but for a regard for their humanity. Even though I think the natural marriage side has a lock on the logic of maintaining the true definition and meaning of marriage, opinions can certainly be swayed by emotion. The quotes by Anderson demonstrate that pretty clearly: “open and apologetic and accepting…touching…accepted and engaged…welcoming…how much it hurt.”

Simply put, Braun’s act showed people who might never consider embracing (or re-embracing) orthodox Christianity what the love of Christ looks like. Pope Francis and clergy throughout the world did a similar thing yesterday:

Help one another. This is what Jesus teaches us. This is what I do. And I do it with my heart. I do this with my heart because it is my duty, as a priest and bishop I must be at your service. But it is a duty that comes from my heart and a duty I love. I love doing it because this is what the Lord has taught me.

We don’t know if Corey Braun’s actions were motivated by what the Lord taught him, but being associated with Chick-fil-A likely suggested to the demonstrators that that indeed was his motivation.

What is striking is how surprised Anderson seems to be. Authentic Catholicism (not Westboro Baptist or other fringe Protestant groups) “doesn’t discriminate against anybody;” all of us sinners need God’s grace and the sacraments. Catholics should show everyone “our hospitality regardless of their beliefs, sexual orientation, or whatever.” Catholicism “has never been about hate;” it is about loving Christ and the Church He founded, and our neighbors as ourselves.

Catholicism certainly does not “believe gay people are a sin against nature and God:”

…Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection. (emphasis mine, CCC 2357-2359)

It’s cliched, but we hate the sin and love the sinner.

Nor do Catholics disregard the humanity of anyone. A quick glance at the Church’s pro-life work, combined with its other charitable efforts, should make that clear.

In other words, orthodox Catholicism (Scripture, the Catechism, the Pope) contains within it everything that so touched the hearts of these “marriage equality” demonstrators. To the extent that they see the Church as a great oppressive evil demonstrates how clearly evangelization is needed; both for supporters of same-sex “marriage” to understand the Church’s position, but most importantly for Catholics to realize both the intellectual, philosophical, and Scriptural foundations of our beliefs and the charitable way it needs to be lived out. We’ve been too lax in accepting the predecessors that made same-sex “marriage” conceivable: contraception, the sexual revolution, divorce, moral relativism, and a deference to government to provide moral guidance. The “marriage equality” movement could end if Catholics demonstrate (not simply argue) to the world what true charity, chastity, and marriage really is.

P.S. The free-market economist in me can’t help but point out that the reconciliation between two opposing sides was not sparked by a politician nor by a preacher, but by a businessman. Again, the skeptic might claim that Braun just wanted to get more customers, but what did it cause him to do? How did he act to satisfy this desire for profits? He treated his potential customers with dignity and charity. The invisible hand comes to the rescue again!

I’m sure I don’t need to remind CV readers of the Chick-fil-A controversy. Just the fact that it has the label “controversy” tells you something.

At a Starbuck’s annual shareholders meeting on March 20th, CEO Howard Schultz responded to shareholder Thomas Strobahr, founder of the Corporate Morality Action Center, who brought up Starbuck’s support for Washington’s gay “marriage” referendum and said “In the first full quarter after this boycott was announced, our sales and our earnings, shall we say politely, were a bit disappointing.” Schultz expanded the data range and argued that Starbucks “did provide a 38% shareholder return over the last year.” Perhaps you could score one for Schultz, though statisticians may quibble.

Later, Schultz defended the company’s support of the referendum thusly:

“We employ over 200,000 people in this company, and we want to embrace diversity. Of all kinds.”

At that point the audience interrupted in cheers and applause. Then Schultz concluded, “If you feel, respectfully, that you can get a higher return than the 38% you got last year, it’s a free country. You can sell your shares in Starbucks and buy shares in another company. Thank you very much.” More cheers.

So Schultz embraces diversity, of all kinds, except those who support natural marriage?

We shall see if bigoted Christian mayors throughout the U.S. threaten to keep Starbucks from opening in their towns. We shall see if the walls of Starbucks are tagged with anti-gay slurs. We shall see if the Starbucks CEO telling supporters of natural marriage to go elsewhere even makes mainstream news.

And no, I’m not just writing this because I dislike coffee.

(1st scene, entitled “Islamic Extremists”): Guy #1: “Hey, let’s go bomb an embassy!” Guy #2: “Well okay then!”

(2nd scene, entitled “Christian Extremists”): Guy #1: “Hey, let’s go bomb an abortion clinic!” Guy #2: “Well okay then!”

(3rd scene, entitled “Atheist Extremists”): Guy #1: “Hey, let’s go drink microbrews and talk about OUTER SPACE!” Guy #2: “Well okay then!”

I’ll wait until you’re done laughing… Oh, you’re back. that was fast.

Perhaps I shouldn’t expect a cartoonist to adhere to statistical rigor, but it isn’t hard to make your case when you paint the bad guys according to their worst behavior but the good guys according to their most benign behavior. We might, of course, interview any of the billions of Muslims and Christians who aren’t violent at all and who publicly condemn any violence perpetrated in the name of Islam or Christianity.

I’ll leave it to others with better sources to uncover data on Islam. Data from the National Abortion Federation (again, feel free not to click), show the total number of murders against abortion providers in the U.S. and Canada from 1977 through 2011 is eight, with only three happening since 1995. The total number of bombings from 1977-2011 is 41 with 12 since 1995, and attempted bombings is 100 with 36 since 1995. The total number of violent incidents from 1977-2011 is 6,461; this includes incidents that are awful but don’t seem to be life threatening like invasion, vandalism, trespassing, burglary, and stalking (subtracting these yields 1,719 violent incidents from 1977-2011). A caveat: the NAF indicates “All numbers represent incidents reported to or obtained by NAF. Actual incidents are likely much higher.” However, given that the NAF would have little reason to attempt to understate such numbers, it’s hard to make the case that these numbers are inaccurate because of ideological bias.

Any act of violence committed against an innocent person is morally grave:

The deliberate murder of an innocent person is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human being, to the golden rule, and to the holiness of the Creator. The law forbidding it is universally valid: it obliges each and everyone, always and everywhere. CCC 2261.

Thus, Catholics rightly condemn every single act of violence committed against abortionists or those involved with them. But we can put the NAF numbers in some perspective. Pew finds 78.4% of Americans were Christian in 2007, which would be about 148 million people aged 18 to 64 (what I consider “clinic-bombing age”). Even using the 6,461 NAF number that runs through 2011, this yields about 4.35 (update: that’s four-point-three-five. The CV font doesn’t show the decimal clearly) violent incidents per 100,000 Christian adult non-seniors. This statistic is only meaningful for our cartoonist above if you make the strong assumption that every violent incident against an abortion provider is Christian. For comparison, in 2009 there were 1,318,000 violent crimes just in the U.S. which, divided by the total 18 to 64 (not just Christian) population, yields about 696 violent crimes per 100,000 adult non-seniors. I wouldn’t submit the above data as-is to academic peer-review, but it certainly indicates that the violence committed against abortion clinics is tiny compared to all violent crime.

Communist_heart.svg at wikimedia commons

Again, the above is in no way meant to excuse violence against abortionists or their supporters; those who would commit such offenses have no right at all to be engaging in pro-life or Christian work. It is, however, to give some perspective as to the magnitude of Christian anti-abortion violence. But we might also dig a little deeper into political regimes that officially adopted a position of atheism, such as the Soviet Union, and see whether drinking microbrews and gabbing about asteroids was the worst that they did.

Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty have an online project called “The Fall – Twenty Years After the Collapse of the U.S.S.R.” It includes great information on what life was like under an officially atheistic regime. Particularly relevant is the video in the “Age of Delirium” section called “God versus Lenin.” When atheism is adopted as official state policy, the humanitarian consequences have hardly been benign.

Of course data here will be hotly debated, but will any serious scholar deny that the death toll under Stalin, Lenin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, and Castro, all officially atheist regimes, numbered at least in the millions?

This is not a scholarly treatise, and critics will claim that I am looking only at crimes by private individuals in the abortion bombings but state-sanctioned killings by atheist regimes. They will ask why I don’t look at, say, the deaths under George W. Bush from his wars since he was Christian. My intent, though, was to point out how disingenuous it is to continue the “Christians are abortion clinic bombers and atheists are pacifists” meme. If atheists are going to use the worst of Christian behavior to point out how bad Christianity is, they should be ready to confront data about the worst of atheist behavior as implemented by governments. Especially when they push for passage of atheist policies in government.

The victims of atheist atrocities, like those in the former U.S.S.R., won’t forget that atheist extremists are more interested in getting drunk on power than on microbrews.

Perhaps he will, but let’s pray that our concern for good stewardship does not override concern for good science. All actions have consequences; no less does legislative action intending to help the environment have consequences that might be bad for said environment. If Catholics want to truly demonstrate concern for the environment, it is important to recognize good vs. bad efforts, and policies that will minimize unintended secondary effects vs. policies that sound and feel good but that have no real benefit (and may even cause more harm than good). It is important to realize that rational human economic behavior can be channeled to the good end of stewardship, instead of reflexively believing that only government legislation and bureaucracies can properly take the long-run view of the earth (do most politicians take a view that runs longer than the next election anyway?). Some background on the costs and benefits of recycling can be found here and here.

Light bulb vase by entso

A case in point: incandescent light bulbs have been all but banished from store shelves in favor of compact flourescent bulbs (CFLs). As their name implies, CFLs basically house a small, curved flourescent light within a bulb that looks like a typical incandescent. Under the right conditions and use, flourescent bulbs last longer and use less electricity than incandescents. That was enough to convince regulators that incandescent bulbs are no longer permissible, even though CFLs have some strikes against them:

• In my own experience, CFLs work great in rooms where lights are turned on or off infrequently: the kitchen, office, or living room. They die very quickly in situations where the bulbs is turned on or off frequently and for shorter spans of time: a closet, bathroom, or hallway. For these latter situations, the incandescent bulbs I used lasted significantly longer than CFLs I was guilted into trying (and were orders of magnitude cheaper).
• It turns out that CFLs are bad for the environment, if they break and release their toxic mercury.
• Even if one doesn’t break in your house, it can still expose you to harmful UV rays.

Source for the last two points here. (Sidebar: will Thomas Edison be cast as a bad guy in history books?)

This post isn’t ultimately about light bulbs, though, nor is it to bash the environmental movement. I am probably more “green” than the average person with my same political and religious beliefs. I would actually consider buying this car, to be built in my hometown, if my wife would let me (she won’t). But sentiment cannot win the day against logic and facts, and too often environmental proposals fail this test. If the green bubble inhabited by environmentalists is impervious to science and reason, then it should be burst.

As a Catholic, I want our Church to be taken seriously in all debates in which it engages. In my opinion, the Church is becoming very strong on issues of bioethics, being able to make its case with sufficient academic rigor as to be considered legitimate in the secular scientific world. On many other issues, though, the Church (echoing other ill-informed voices in the world) can sound sophomoric.

Before the Church suggests specific ways to help the poor, we would be wise to ask whether these same proposals can actually hurt the poor. Before the Church suggests specific ways to protect jobs, we would be wise to ask whether these same proposals actually hurt the ability of businesses to hire. And before the Church suggests specific ways to help the environment, we would be wise to ask whether these same proposals can actually cause more environmental harm than good.

If all we do is offer platitudes or proposals with significant unintended consequences, we will be taken less and less seriously by the world we are trying to engage.

Photo by Catholic Church (England and Wales)

Most folks have pointed to the section near the end where Benedict, in discussing Vatican II, contrasts the “Council of the Fathers” with the “Council of the media.” It is well-timed since the Pope describes how the media distorted the true intentions of the Council for its own ends, and we can point to numerous media reports in the past few days where stories of Pope Benedict’s renunciation have themselves contained distortions. Quoting Benedict:

[T]he Council of journalists did not, naturally, take place within the world of faith but within the categories of the media of today, that is outside of the faith, with different hermeneutics. It was a hermeneutic of politics. The media saw the Council as a political struggle, a struggle for power between different currents within the Church. It was obvious that the media would take the side of whatever faction best suited their world.

What follows, though, is a wonderful discussion of the impact this had on people’s perception of the liturgy (emphasis added):

There were those who sought a decentralization of the Church, power for the bishops and then, through the Word for the “people of God”, the power of the people, the laity. There was this triple issue: the power of the Pope, then transferred to the power of the bishops and then the power of all … popular sovereignty. Naturally they saw this as the part to be approved, to promulgate, to help. This was the case for the liturgy: there was no interest in the liturgy as an act of faith, but as a something to be made understandable, similar to a community activity, something profane. And we know that there was a trend, which was also historically based, that said: “Sacredness is a pagan thing, possibly even from the Old Testament. In the New Testament the only important thing is that Christ died outside: that is, outside the gates, that is, in the secular world”. Sacredness ended up as profanity even in worship: worship is not worship but an act that brings people together, communal participation and thus participation as activity. And these translations, trivializing the idea of ​​the Council, were virulent in the practice of implementing the liturgical reform, born in a vision of the Council outside of its own key vision of faith. And it was so, also in the matter of Scripture: Scripture is a book, historical, to treat historically and nothing else, and so on.

Perhaps this is on my mind because I recently had the opportunity to attend Mass while out of town. How commonplace are parishes where the aim of the liturgy seems to be participation and feel-good-ism! In hindsight, the main reason why I drifted off into twice-a-year Mass attendance is precisely because of what Pope Benedict describes. Being somewhat introverted, church-as-community-activity did (and does) not appeal to me. It always gave me the impression of lowering the bar.

I praise God that my family is able to attend a (Cathedral) parish where the liturgy is celebrated more in line with the “Council of the Fathers,” as “an act of faith.” If you had to ask this non-theologian, non-philosopher, only-recently-serious Catholic what Pope Benedict will be most remembered for, I would hope it would be his attempt to draw the Church back to the beauty and timelessness of the authentic liturgy. Not because he’s stuck in the past, but because he cares about our future. He wants us all to be encouraged and strengthened on our journey towards the Father, and he knows how crucial the liturgy is in attaining that goal.