This is interesting in and of itself:
Jim Daly, the head the conservative radio-based ministry Focus on the Family has joined dozens of evangelical leaders to push for immigration reform that would include a path to legal residency or citizenship for those in the country without legal status.
More than 100 pastors, academic leaders and others endorsed the “Evangelical Statement of Principles for Immigration Reform,” unveiled Tuesday, which calls for bipartisan legislation protecting family unity and guaranteeing secure borders. The group said it is planning a radio ad campaign to support its push.
“Our national immigration laws have created a moral, economic and political crisis in America,” the statement reads. “We urge our nation’s leaders to work together with the American people to pass immigration reform that embodies these key principles and that will make our nation proud.”
Some evangelical leaders, including Leith Anderson, president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals, and Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, have pushed for immigration reform for the last few years. But this is the first time the Colorado-based ministry founded by James Dobson has joined the call.
But you know what is really great?
The Republicans are about to find out what an awkward bedfellow they have in Cardinal Dolan.
Remember Michael Novak, the self-styled "Catholic philosopher" who called Joe Paterno "one of America's greatest moral teachers" and a "moral giant", and that was after the full horror of the Sandusky story and Paterno's blind eye came out.
Well, just this morning he published a piece on NRO confidently predicting that 3 million Catholics who ignore the Vatican's outdated teachings on contraception in their private lives would nonetheless vote for Romney because he would enable the Church to impose these risible doctrines on a bunch of Protestant ER nurses.
This is just one of many pieces I've seen recently which goes all-in in co-identifying the Republican Party and the Catholic Church. Cardinal Dolan as Romney's VP would not surprise me in the least.
Well, what Focus on the Family did today is going to shine a spotlight on something that the Republicans would rather not know about their new love interest.
Awwkwaard:
New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan has called for a compassionate immigration reform in the United States.
Referring to the controversial immigration laws in Arizona and Alabama which allow law enforcement to check on the status of suspected illegal immigrants, he said that it was “not Christian” and “not American."
The Irish American Cardinal, who could be in line for the position of Pope in the future, was speaking to Chris Jansing, on MSNBC’s “Jansing & Co."
He said the Republican party must “come up with a much saner, more civil, more just immigration policy.”
Of course, Dolan
has already shown himself to be sufficiently crazy and dishonest as to throw the poor and disadvantaged under the bus if that is what it takes to stop women from using their ladyparts for sexytime.
In an appearance on Martin Bashir on MSNBC on Tuesday, Dolan said that the Church would abandon Jesus’ effort to help the sick and feed the poor in protest of the contraception mandate that only applies to insurance companies and not the Church itself.
“If these mandates kick in, we’re going to find ourselves faced with a terribly difficult decision as to whether or not we can continue to operate,” Dolan said. “As part of our religion — it’s part of our faith that we feed the hungry, that we educate the kids, that we take care of the sick. We’d have to give it up, because we’re unable to fit the description and the definition of a church given by — guess who — the federal government.”
Bashir then pointed out that the Catholic Church had taken a staggering $2.9 billion from the federal government to pay for the charitable efforts the Church provides. “They don’t seem to bristle at the hand of government when it comes to money, do they,” Bashir commented.
But it was David Corn of Mother Jones who had the best observation about Dolan’s threat. “It strikes me as just not very Christian, if I can say so, to get out there and say, ‘We will not be providing services if you force us to do these things — or if there’s a mandate,” Corn stated. ”Would Jesus take his fish and a loaf and go home?”
I can't help thinking that the take-away message of all of this is that if you want rational decision-making, seperating church and state might be a good idea.