Speaking out on one highly controversial issue, the Synod council's statement criticized proposals for a border wall blocking illegal immigration from Mexico into the United States. Such a barrier, the statement argued, would not resolve the problem of illegal migration, which can only be addressed effectively by a coordinated approach to the underlying issues that prompt people to leave their native countries.
The argument that these 11 clerics advance against the building of the border wall in the U.S. is the same claptrap the American left has been spouting for years (and I do get so tired of Catholic prelates aping the secular left): because the wall won't stop all illegal immigration by itself, it must not be built, and the people of the U.S. must tolerate unlimited illegal immigration until conditions in Latin American countries are made so wonderful that no one wants to leave his native land.
Of course, it's a straw man the synod council is knocking down. No one has claimed that 700 miles of border fence (if it ever gets fully funded and built, which is by no means a sure thing) will stop illegal immigration.
If the bishops are so convinced that illegal immigration to the U.S. could be ended by getting at the "underlying issues", I challenge them to adopt that principle where they live. You know, bishops, it's pointless for you to lock up your churches, residences, and vehicles, because locks won't put an end to theft. You're just going to have to tolerate being robbed blind until you've gotten at the "underlying issues".
The great advantage to this approach, from my viewpoint, is that you soon won't have the means to recycle leftist slogans on the Church's time.
