The following comes from a December 4 homily from Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton:
The journey of life is difficult at this time for Hispanics in the United States. Many have friends and family members who are without papers; many are without papers themselves; children in school are being bullied; and young immigrants who signed up for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) are anxious that they might lose their opportunity to work and their protection from deportation; Racism has raised its ugly head in many communities; and so many of our neighborhoods and homes are plagued with violence. Many who have jobs often find themselves having to work two or three jobs in order to make ends meet.
To all of you this day I remind you that OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE COMES TO MEET YOU TO LEAD YOU TO JESUS. She says to each of you what she said to St. Juan Diego: “Do not be disturbed in your heart; do not be afraid. Am I not with you, I who am your mother?” We need to hear these words of comfort and strength when there is so much hostility in the public conversation about immigration and immigrants.
I wish to say loudly and clearly to all of you that as your bishop I am with you. You are the Church. I will walk with you no matter how hard it gets. Please God, things will go better than our worst fears about what might happen. Regardless, the Church is with you. I am here to accompany you. I also wish to announce to our immigrants, to our refugees, to our migrants, from wherever you come, that we will do everything we can to help you through our Catholic Charities and the community organizations of which we are a part. As Catholics we embrace our American traditions of welcome, of unity in diversity and our care for all.
I also wish to say to our Muslim brothers and sisters, and to our Jewish elder brothers and sisters, and to all our inter-faith friends that the hate which destroys the unity and solidarity of the human family cannot be tolerated in any way. The way of God is the way of love.
As you know so many of our Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East have been slaughtered by ISIS or lost their homes in war torn areas and have suffered as refugees from their ancient lands. I ask you to join with our Holy Father Pope Francis, in doing whatever you can in any way to support the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Christian and Muslim refugees at this time, and to bring calm to their homelands.
The causes of war and cruelty cannot be ignored. The injustices that give rise to radical evils must be alleviated. The forces of evil must be stopped. Ultimately, evil will only be overcome by good, by the hard work of good people working together to bring about peace. And there will be no peace if there is no justice which respects the dignity and worth of every human being. As long as the gods of money and power and unrestrained impulses found in the idols of greed and corruption rule on the face of the earth there will be no lasting peace. Sad to say, an even greater threat to peace that looms over our heads would be the unrestrained advance in nuclear weapons which could destroy all creation.
I sincerely believe that unless God is accepted as sovereign Lord over the earth and over our lives, communities will continue to deteriorate, the earth will be devastated, and family coherence will be diminished. Your devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe keeps us close to her as our Mother. She leads us to Christ Who is the all just One; the all merciful One; the Hope for the world when all seems hopeless.
The world does not need any more walls. It needs bridges of compassion and mutual understanding. Yes, proper respect for borders or boundaries, but not barriers of hostility and division. Let there be peace at our borders.
The world cannot continue to endure more violence. It needs restraint, words of peace and perseverance in the hard efforts to create the just structures that are the foundation for peace. In our community the answer to gang violence is good education and decent jobs.
The world must not tolerate racism. It needs to honor the diversity of God’s human family by building a unity which embraces and respects all races on the face of the earth. Unity in diversity!
Today we venerate Our Lady of Guadalupe who comes to meet us as our mother. Nuestra Señora will show us the way to peace and goodness and justice. Mary is the mother of all peoples. She will give us the courage not to be afraid. She will lead us to Jesus, the Lord of peace and justice. Viva Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe! Viva Cristo Rey!
Bishop Stephen E. Blaire
Catholic Bishop of Stockton
A left-lib Mahony clone. By God, he even looks like him.
But, roberto vicente, for once a Bishop wrote a letter that wasn’t left-lib but straight out of the Bible and Catechism pure Catholic faith. The letter tells us how we should live so that at the end we will be judged well and find our place in heaven with the One who is the bringer of peace.
Where in Scripture or in Catholic teaching do you find a prohibition against a nation guaranteeing the integrity of its borders? No more walls? Where do you find that society is required to shoulder the burden of those who will not work? 13 million on food stamps. Of course, not all of them are undeserving. But watch just one episode of the “Jerry Springer Show” to have your eyes opened. And let me quote to you what Paul the Apostle wrote to the Thessalonians: “Neither should those eat who are UNWILLING to work”. The good Bishop, I assume in good faith, has written the Democratic Party mantra which seems to prefer welfare over work and the utopian idea of open borders to the security of our citizens.
Please indulge me while I get a pet peeve off my shoulders. The same Bishops who call everybody else to charity, care for workers, etc. don’t blink an eye before firing loyal Church employees—already being paid non-competitive wages and treated to sub-par health insurance—with almost no notice as soon as “budgets” look like they might not be met. They act no differently than the “multinationals” they so often criticize as heartless. If they practiced what they preach, perhaps more would follow their preachments.
Roberto, you are correct that there are nearly 13 million people on food stamps. Why? because they cannot get jobs that will pay enough to let them support their family. At $15/hour, your talking $600 per week income, less social security, medicare, state and federal taxes, etc. That does not include healthcare insurance which is about $1000 per month for a family. In San Francisco a one bedroom apartment is about $2-3,000 per month. Our schools don’t teach the kids the skills they need to succeed in today;’s work environment. They still teach what they did 100 years ago, except for the Latin and Greek\. Its not that people are unwilling to work. We are at 4% unemployment plus those who have given up. The rest of the job…
The message for Hispanics should be the same as for everyone else – repent and live so that you may find a home in heaven. Not all Hispanics are illegally in the U.S., and not all of them are sympathetic to those who are. Talk about identity politics! Come on Bishop Blaire, think of the 4 last things, Death, Judgement, Heaven, Hell. How ’bout talking about that?!
Besides, as has been previously documented, being an absentee bishop parading before the Washington,DC scene for the past decade—while his diocese sank into bankruptcy and a vocation collapse (he now only has about 55-58 active priests, and a handful of seminarians; he has only ordained [usually] 1 priest a year for the past 5 years), the incompetent and dishonest Blaire wants to keep tensions high. While decrying violence, he is silent that now 68 police have been killed just in this year alone.
Worst of all, the “Affordable Care Act” which he personally championed for the USCCB has resulted in unaffordable premiums and limited medical availability for US citizens. Since it was Blaire’s much-ballyhooed ACA was imposed, it…
…. it has coincided with a drop in US life-expectancy rate—the first time since 1993:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/12/08/504667607/life-expectancy-in-u-s-drops-for-first-time-in-decades-report-finds
Can we expect Bp. Blaire and the co-supporters among the US Bishops (not all of them supported the ACA) to take responsibility for this outcome? Hardly.
Campion, your conspiracy theories don’t add up. There is no question that ACA premiums are going up, but if the program is eliminated as the Republicans want to do, 30 million people =/- will have no health care coverage.Think about this, all retirees over 65 have Medicare which provides basic health care programs. The administrative costs for Medicare are about 2%, the most efficient plan in the country. If ACA is abolished, mammograms will no longer be covered free of charge, pre-existing conditions will come back, annual checkups will go away, kids will no longer be covered under parents plan, deductibles will go up, co-pays will go up, etc. Every human being has a right to basic health care. It is not a privilege for rich people…
Bob One, it is a fact that Obamacare is in its 3rd full year, and that now for the first time in 23 years, US life expectancy has dropped. It was expected.
(The Economic Policy Journal predicted this outcome in June, 2012: You know why, Bob? They predicted that the connection between the individual MD and the patient would be cut, and driven instead by macroeconomic govt. decision-making.)
The rest of your narrative is the usual fear-tactics (“Aaugh!! 30 million suddenly uncovered individuals!Aaugh!!”) In fact over $700 billion was cut from Medicare reimbursements to MD’S and hospitals by your Dear Leader Obama. Now MD’S don’t want to take new patients on Medicare due to the ridiculously low compensation they…
And you left out the usual NPR-style gut-wrencher, “They will all be left to die on the streets!! Aaugh!!” You are losing your touch, Bob One.
If anyone got 30 million close to dying on the streets, it would have been your buddy, Bernie “Fidel” Sanders, Bob O. But do not fear, with incompetent like Stephen Blaire, that wish is light-years closer.
Like Bishop Blaire, Pope Francis also campaigned against our President-elect. We will have to Make California Great Again on our own.
I would think that neither the Pope nor any Bishop should be CAMPAIGNING for or against any candidate in a United States election. But when he is retired, let Bishop Blaire join the Democratic National Campaign Committee. He’d be a natural— he could harrumph to his heart’s content against those nasty capitalists who MAKE all the money the DNCC wants to re-distribute!
Although he is scheduled for retirement (he turns 75 on Dec. 22nd), Blaire leaves a legacy of wreckage behind him in Stockton:
During his 17-year career as bishop, vocations and priestly numbers sank to an all-time low in its 54 year history. Stockton has only 5 seminarians in all 7 years of theology training; they have only ordained 1 priest each if the last 3 years; they only have 65 active diocesan priests, some of retirement age and still active, and many approaching retirement, for 260,000 Catholics), Blair spent much of his time instead in Washington DC, attacking political opponents (Paul Ryan, ironically, who is pro-immigration) and espousing many of his liberal-class projects.
Thank you Bishop Blaine for this letter and your Catholic leadership. God Bless you.
“…children in school are being bullied; … Racism has raised its ugly head in many communities; and so many of our neighborhoods and homes are plagued with violence. Many who have jobs often find themselves having to work two or three jobs in order to make ends meet.”
I can’t believe it. An American bishop who finally understands the plight of working class Americans. … Oh, wait…
Why Blaire and the US bishops (some of them) abandoned Americans on Obamacare: Robert Wenzel (Economic Policy Journal, 6/28/12) predicted in precise outline, and even the timing, that “within two to three years of its implementation, in a decline in life expectancy in the United States.”
“Because the structure of ObamaCare will be decisions at the macro-level in a structure that will be co-opted by the politically connected parts of the health care industry, the connection between patient and individual care will continue to be cut.”
“{Obamacare] will have little to do with cutting costs, since the connected healthcare providers will not see their costs cut, but this will mean even more drastic cuts for those providers that…
…are not as connected. Thus, the scale of treatments and the quantity supplied of the scaled-back treatments will decline. This will ultimately result in earlier deaths.” (Robert Wenzel
Everything Wenzel predicted was true: costs were not cut; but treatment quantities will, and did decline; and now we have earlier deaths and a rise in mortality. Blaire and the bishops who supported his cause were “fatally” wrong: but guess who pays for it? “The plight of the working class American” who is supposed to be helped by our ever-so-concerned episcopal class.
I don’t expect Bob One to get it: but I am sending a copy to Blaire, and he will ignore it as he ignores everything from the benighted non-progressive class (I know:…
I hope everyone who cares about freedom for one to choose one’s doctor and services reads the brief, incisive article by Robert Wenzel, entitled “Why Life Expectancy Will Decline Under Obamacare”, 6/28/12.
https://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/06/why-life-expectancy-will-decline-under.html
It is prophetic, incisive, and has turned out to be absolutely true. By the way, Wenzel also predicted in 2005 the then-coming real-estate bubble and collapse, and has given a speech (Apr. 2012) before the Federal Reserve regarding economic policy. (I am sure it had a big effect on Janet Yellin. NOT.)
I wonder what world Bob One lives in. Since Obamacare has been law, I can’t afford to see the doctor anymore. Mammograms mean going to the doctor to get an appointment. That means money. My premium is almost as high as my mortgage. Wages are low because there are millions of illegals willing to work for next to nothing. I make too much money for any type of aid. So I am living as most of the middle class is living now — forced to buy health insurance we can’t afford and not having any discretionary spending left over. Rich people make the laws, but they don’t suffer the consequences of their laws. Since when was it a sin to enforce borders or keep out violent illegal criminals? Most people I know who support illegal…