A Catholic Defends the Building of Walls

 

11046501_945163158856145_935163790258088775_nNo, I’m not here to report that Marco Rubio has started espousing a Fortress America policy. I’m not even the Catholic in question here, as I’ve become deeply skeptical of our political will to secure the nation’s southern border. But, in a pleasant turn of events, Bishop Robert Barron — the Church’s apostle of the New Evangelization and the recently-installed auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles — spoke powerfully to the importance of cultural preservation in the context of last Sunday’s reading from Nehemiah.

The Biblical passage chronicles the return of the Israelites from exile to the city of Jerusalem, and the actions taken by their leadership to restore the city and its people. Nehemiah and Ezra set out to renew the moral, spiritual, and intellectual strength of the people by reading the entirety of the Torah to them, but also the structural integrity of the city by rebuilding its walls. As Barron puts it (beginning around 4’45”):

Israel had to preserve itself … from the world — they had to have their own integral identity — precisely because they had a great mission in the world and for the world. If Israel lost its way, if its walls were breached, if it lost its identity and integrity, then it couldn’t be a sign of Yahweh for the sake of the world. It’s a paradox that people will often miss, I think. Identity for the sake of the mission. Separation, if you want, but for the sake of connection.

It’s a little inside-Catholic-baseball when Barron turns to the failures to preserve cultural integrity in the post-Vatican II Church, but the parallels between this and current political struggles in the West — particularly, in the United States during the Obama administration — are profound.

Being Catholic is more than “being a nice person.” The Church didn’t need to tear down its walls to take the Good News out to the world. In fact, just the opposite. As Barron says (in Latin, of course), “You cannot give what you do not have.” The intent of Vatican II was to open the windows to the modern world in order to let the life of the Church out. It wasn’t to “modernize” the Church; it was to “Christify” the world.

This is a very conservative view, in my opinion. It might be the very definition of conservatism: “We have something good here. We need to preserve it so as to share this goodness with the rest of the world.”

Likewise, there is something — or should be something — more to being American than being prosperous, having all the best toys, and the most free-time to play with them. Do you believe America has a mission? Do we, the people, still have sight of it?

This election season makes me think we do not. The Democrats and the Left (but, I repeat myself) don’t believe in America’s mission and haven’t for some time. They’ve disparaged America and torn at its walls through public education, the courts, and the media for as long as I can remember. If anything, they’ve been trying to Swedenize America, not to Americanize the rest of the world.

If I were to describe America’s mission, I would quote Scripture again, this time repeating the inscription on the Liberty Bell:

Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.

I would further distinguish this as the Liberty of Excellence, not the Liberty of Indifference which has taken hold in so many libertarian circles. There’s a give and take – Bishop Barron’s “rhythm between walls and bridges, between resistance and assimilation” – in which excellence demands that government support the integrity of our society’s institutions (marriage, for example), while leaving the people alone to decide how and if they will engage with them.

There are a (very) few institutions which recognize America’s role in the world and work diligently to preserve what it has achieved. I’m thinking Hillsdale College, for one, but we need more. It’s high time we conservatives bend our backs to the task. Pick up that stone and, with apologies to Peter Robinson, rebuild that wall!

We have a mission to fulfill.

Published in General
Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 59 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Kay of MT Inactive
    Kay of MT
    @KayofMT

    I agree with you! Let’s rebuild the walls around the Constitution to start with.

    • #1
  2. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Kay of MT:I agree with you! Let’s rebuild the walls around the Constitution to start with.

    Amen, sister!

    • #2
  3. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    BTW, I highly recommend listening to Bishop Barron’s 15 minute homily. I’ve provided a link to it in the first paragraph.

    • #3
  4. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    I like it!  Amen, indeed.  I was beginning to think I was fighting my own Church on this.  That was a great homily.  That was as conservative as it gets.  My idea of conservatism, of course.  Thanks WC for bringing it to my attention.

    • #4
  5. Judithann Campbell Member
    Judithann Campbell
    @

    Western Chauvinist: This is a very conservative view, in my opinion. It might be the very definition of conservatism. “We have something good here. We need to preserve it so as to share this goodness with the rest of the world.”

    Thank you so much for this. So often, those of us who want to build a wall to secure the Southern border are portrayed as hostile or at best indifferent to people in other countries. But “you cannot give what you do not have” I absolutely want to help people all over the world, but you have to put your own oxygen mask on first before you try to put someone else’s on. Thank you so much for this post, and God Bless Bishop Barron!

    • #5
  6. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Manny:I like it! Amen, indeed. I was beginning to think I was fighting my own Church on this. That was a great homily. That was as conservative as it gets. My idea of conservatism, of course. Thanks WC for bringing it to my attention.

    This is important to note for our non-Catholic friends. Bishop Barron is not going for a conservative view. That is an artifact of being true to the meaning of the text and the Church’s teaching. He doesn’t have a reputation within the Church as a “hardliner.” He is probably disdained by as many traditionalists for his “heterodoxy” as he is by the liberals for his “orthodoxy.”

    When Manny says “fighting my own church,” he’s referring to the widespread outward appearance of Catholics as being soft on illegal immigration. These are the post-Vatican II “nice person” Catholics. Welcoming to the stranger, and all that. Tear down the barriers at all costs. They are as likely to defend “peaceful” Islam as they are Catholic doctrine. Maybe more likely.

    • #6
  7. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    Western Chauvinist:

    Manny:I like it! Amen, indeed. I was beginning to think I was fighting my own Church on this. That was a great homily. That was as conservative as it gets. My idea of conservatism, of course. Thanks WC for bringing it to my attention.

    This is important to note for our non-Catholic friends. Bishop Barron is not going for a conservative view. That is an artifact of being true to the meaning of the text and the Church’s teaching. He doesn’t have a reputation within the Church as a “hardliner.” He is probably disdained by as many traditionalists for his “heterodoxy” as he is by the liberals for his “orthodoxy.”

    When Manny says “fighting my own church,” he’s referring to the widespread outward appearance of Catholics as being soft on illegal immigration. These are the post-Vatican II “nice person” Catholics. Welcoming to the stranger, and all that. Tear down the barriers at all costs. They are as likely to defend “peaceful” Islam as they are Catholic doctrine. Maybe more likely.

    Actually I wasn’t referring to the Mexican border wall.  What I took from the homily was building the wall to preserve our cultural and religious roots.  That’s my version of conservatism.  And yes, the Catholic Church has to my impression taken ecumenism too far.

    • #7
  8. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    Sorry… I still think it’s immoral to prevent people from migrating in most cases. Even if you could prove that it’s sometimes possible to morally prevent migration to protect culture, that still allows for all the migration that doesn’t cause an extreme amount of damage. Even if a single person causes an epsilon change in the culture, that doesn’t justify banishment. They would need to cause a massive amount of change. I don’t think we’re experiencing enough change due to migration to justify a wall even today.

    You know how people say how do we know if an increase in global temperatures is so bad for the Earth? How do we know allowing some more people in is so bad for the culture? Why does one person being bad justify a blanket restriction on all the good people, or even the neutral people? That’s the vast majority of those immigrating.

    • #8
  9. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Manny: Actually I wasn’t referring to the Mexican border wall. What I took from the homily was building the wall to preserve our cultural and religious roots. That’s my version of conservatism.

    Yeah, I wasn’t very complete in my explanation. My point is, Catholics who favor open borders are also Catholics who wish to open the Church to modernity, rather than preserving Her integrity. Liberals are for change for change’s sake.

    • #9
  10. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Mike H: You know how people say how do we know if an increase in global temperatures is so bad for the Earth? How do we know allowing some more people in is so bad for the culture? Why does one person being bad justify a blanket restriction on all the good people, or even the neutral people? That’s the vast majority of those immigrating.

    Well, I didn’t intend this to be primarily about illegal immigration. It’s more about identifying which aspects of our culture to preserve and then resisting the forces that would destroy them, whatever their source.

    However, I completely disagree that vast waves of migrants from the south are “neutral” in the scheme of things, given the hostility of the Left to our western Judeo-Christian culture and the move from the “melting pot” mentality to forced multiculturalism. We are in a period of our history of rapid loss of identity, of surrender to change for change’s sake, and of Balkanization of our people based on victim status. If we had the cultural confidence to assimilate all the socialist-leaning Latinos coming here, I wouldn’t be as worried. That’s not what’s happening.

    • #10
  11. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    Well, I have cultural confidence. And I’m talking about individuals. The people who are harmful are not harmful enough to justify stopping all the unharmful people…

    • #11
  12. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Mike H:Well, I have cultural confidence. And I’m talking about individuals. The people who are harmful are not harmful enough to justify stopping all the unharmful people…

    I appreciate that about you, Mike. But, it’s not enough, I’m afraid. We are social animals. We form societal “organisms.” If we don’t retain the integrity of our (cell) walls, we are subject to destruction. “Resistance and assimilation,” as Bishop Barron says.

    • #12
  13. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    As always immigrants become the scapegoat of native weakness. It isn’t immigrants from Mexico on down that caused or driven any of the changes we disapprove of in our society. Rather it is native liberals and progressives that have pushed for these things. Thinking that stemming immigration will undo or halt their actions is naive.

    Culture has never been fixed, and what drives it to change are factors beyond immigration. Massive levels of education, technology, prosperity, longevity all alter and impact our perceptions of reality and how we relate to one another. The culture seems in flux because all civilization is in flux due to a dynamic world. Yet, this dynamism is the source of our prosperity. Can you have one without the other?

    The process of integration and assimilation has always been a multi generational process, resulting in the transformation of both the immigrant culture and the native culture. Stopping immigration will not speed up the process.

    • #13
  14. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    Western Chauvinist:

    Manny: Actually I wasn’t referring to the Mexican border wall. What I took from the homily was building the wall to preserve our cultural and religious roots. That’s my version of conservatism.

    Yeah, I wasn’t very complete in my explanation. My point is, Catholics who favor open borders are also Catholics who wish to open the Church to modernity, rather than preserving Her integrity. Liberals are for change for change’s sake.

    Agree.

    • #14
  15. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Valiuth: Rather it is native liberals and progressives that have pushed for these things. Thinking that stemming immigration will undo or halt their actions is naive.

    We don’t disagree. We are much more apt to fall because of the internal threats to our integrity than external ones.

    However, if you agree that public schools have become hostile to American values rather than teaching/preaching western heritage, how do you suppose assimilation will happen? The internal forces are arrayed against it, which was not always the case.

    Have you listened to Bishop Barron’s homily? If not, please do. I haven’t done it full service here. He’s really proposing a very Catholic both/and approach. Both protect that which is good about our culture, and assimilate those who would come here.

    Also, let’s not conflate illegal immigration with immigration. That’s not granting good faith arguments to us wall builders.

    • #15
  16. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    Manny:

    Western Chauvinist:

    Manny: Actually I wasn’t referring to the Mexican border wall. What I took from the homily was building the wall to preserve our cultural and religious roots. That’s my version of conservatism.

    Yeah, I wasn’t very complete in my explanation. My point is, Catholics who favor open borders are also Catholics who wish to open the Church to modernity, rather than preserving Her integrity. Liberals are for change for change’s sake.

    Agree.

    Hm… A Catholic Church resistant to modernity would help to push people away from assimilation and integration. Wasn’t it American Catholic priest pushing for the non-Latin mass, and all these Protestant aesthetics to better integrate Catholicism into the American main stream to defuse Nativist anti-Catholic bigotry? A move that I as an open borders Catholic personally find lamentable.

    Frankly the Catholic Church in America is not threatened in its integrity by immigrants, but rather wayward Natives too assimilated to this whole personal Jesus, fly by the seat of your pants Evangelical Christianity where someone uses a sock-puppet to read the gospels during mass to make them more appealing to children.

    • #16
  17. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    As Barron says (in Latin, of course), “you cannot give what you do not have.”

    This is what we have to remember.

    • #17
  18. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    Western Chauvinist:Also, let’s not conflate illegal immigration with immigration. That’s not granting good faith arguments to us wall builders.

    Well for many immigration hawks the two are equally bad. I personally don’t think one is worse than the other in an overall sense an immigrant is an immigrant in the end. Though I think allowing people to consistently break a law degrades trust in the whole legal system, and on that point alone I feel the situation of illegal immigration deserves to be straightened out.

    With respect to schools and assimilation. I have to disagree with you. Assimilation is the process of making two populations indistinguishable from each other. The nature of those populations is immaterial to the process of assimilation. Immigrants today are learning the same values and habits that native born Americans are learning. Therefore the two populations will  assimilate. Sadly for both they will assimilate into a post-modernist/lefty/dysfunctional Denmark. Honestly I feel bad for both groups.

    Our goal I think though shouldn’t be to mess with the immigrants, but rather to straighten out our own schools. I think the education programs and curriculum the two of us would favor is the best one. I think immigrants would be sold on it and so would natives. The only ones opposed will be the public school establishment.

    I want to fight the school system, and I think we are wasting time fighting the immigrants.

    • #18
  19. Judithann Campbell Member
    Judithann Campbell
    @

    This is a very imperfect analogy, but I will try it anyway :) Immigration is kind of like adoption, in a way-not totally but kind of. Most people agree that adoption is a good and necessary thing. However, if a couple attempted to adopt thirty children all at the same time, most people would not think it was a good idea, and in fact, the government/ adoption agency/ society would not allow it. Especially if all 30 children were older and spoke 30 different languages. I see immigration as a good thing, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing. If we had totally open borders, we would be totally overwhelmed by the number of immigrants coming here. I totally, understand why so many people want to come here, and I don’t blame them at all. If I were in their shoes, I would do the same thing, but the America everyone wants to come to would not last long with open borders.

    • #19
  20. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    Many on our side I think see Democrats and progressives going to immigrant communities peddling their half-baked socialism and cultural nihilism and look with scorn on these people buying it up. I look at this and get mad that they are being sold a bill of goods by these shady grifters in our midst. But, our side instead of going out and trying to sell them something better, something real, just gets all worked up that the Democrats are out there hustling these people.

    We need to put our vision and values out there, but instead we just preach to our own choirs and complain about all the sinners out there who don’t know the true Gospel.

    • #20
  21. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Valiuth: Frankly the Catholic Church in America is not threatened in its integrity by immigrants,

    Oh, ho! I beg to differ. What is your experience with the immigrant populations in the Church? In mine, the Samoan immigrants and the Portuguese immigrants are solid. The Latinos? Not so much. Their presence at the Mass is negligible, mostly, I’m told, because many of them have priests in the family and celebrate with home Masses — not that there’s anything wrong with that.

    But, also, I believe, they are unreliable in their opposition to abortion and some other fundamentals of the Faith. In any case, it’s simply inaccurate to say one immigrant is like any other.

    I was able to listen to parts of Dennis Prager’s interview with Barry Latzer, author of, The Rise and Fall of Violent Crime in America, today.  It turns out culture of origin is a better predictor of criminal behavior than race, for example. Cultural identity matters.

    • #21
  22. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    Judithann Campbell: I see immigration as a good thing, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing. If we had totally open borders, we would be totally overwhelmed by the number of immigrants coming here.

    I’m not sure if this is actually true. Numerous factors keep people from leaving their nations even when they wish to. The fact that our borders were so porous and our enforcement so lax all these last 30 years meant the opportunity cost of illegal migration was low, hence the large numbers of it. Basically I would argue if we had open borders I don’t think we would have much higher immigration rate than what we did experience. It is just that all the immigration would be above board and tabulated.

    We aren’t going from a closed system to a open one we are going from an informally open system to a formal one. Or would be if that is what we chose.

    So I guess the question is do we now have 30 adopted babies or something less?  15 might not be that untenable considering the size of our house and wealth.

    I also think arguments about language are basically misleading. Problems form immigration are not ones of communication. The ones I see as most real are economic ones, but overall I think the pros out weigh the cons on the whole (even if only marginally).

    • #22
  23. Valiuth Member
    Valiuth
    @Valiuth

    Huh. My experience with Mexican churches is rather positive. Up where my parents live the Mexican Church is far more solid in participation and community than the more American one my parents go to. I can’t say about their commitment to fighting abortion, and while I am pro-life I must admit not being very personally engaged in the issue, so I lack the data.

    Also I think technically the Portuguese are Latinos according to the racists ideologies that our government uses to categorize people.

    Cultural identity matters, but the whole idea of assimilation is that their identity will change. How long before we smoothed out all those Southern Italians? Did we ever integrate those Scott-Irish in Appalachia?  I just think we should give our Latin brothers the same shake.

    • #23
  24. Judithann Campbell Member
    Judithann Campbell
    @

    Valiuth: I think you totally underestimate the number of people who would come to America if they could. From everywhere. Not just from Mexico. From everywhere.

    • #24
  25. Ray Kujawa Coolidge
    Ray Kujawa
    @RayKujawa

    “We’re on a mission from God.”

    • #25
  26. RiverRock Inactive
    RiverRock
    @RiverRock

    Western Chauvinist:This is a very conservative view, in my opinion. It might be the very definition of conservatism. “We have something good here. We need to preserve it so as to share this goodness with the rest of the world.”

    There is something more to being American (America) than being prosperous and having all the best toys and the most free-time to play with them.

    Do you believe America has a mission?

    absolutely

    Do we, the people, still have sight of it?  

    Sadly, our vision is fading

    • #26
  27. CB Toder aka Mama Toad Member
    CB Toder aka Mama Toad
    @CBToderakaMamaToad

    I want to break in to say something about Nehemiah:

    This is an excellent historic fiction book targeted for young audiences about the return to Jerusalem from the perspective of Nehemiah’s nephew, who loves Persian culture and only reluctantly returns to Israel, only to discover new strength in being one of the Chosen.

    Peace!

    • #27
  28. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    Valiuth:

    Manny:

    Agree.

    Hm… A Catholic Church resistant to modernity would help to push people away from assimilation and integration. Wasn’t it American Catholic priest pushing for the non-Latin mass, and all these Protestant aesthetics to better integrate Catholicism into the American main stream to defuse Nativist anti-Catholic bigotry? A move that I as an open borders Catholic personally find lamentable.

    Frankly the Catholic Church in America is not threatened in its integrity by immigrants, but rather wayward Natives too assimilated to this whole personal Jesus, fly by the seat of your pants Evangelical Christianity where someone uses a sock-puppet to read the gospels during mass to make them more appealing to children.

    I’m not a “Trad” if you understand that terminology.  I don’t understand your point.  Some changes from VaticanII were positive.  However, the Liberals want to actually change theology, which is not what VII did.  I want to build a wall around that.  Personally I think the Catholic Church should be fighting many elements of modernity.  See Chesterton’s Orthodoxy.

    • #28
  29. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    It’s so nice to have an editor!

    /curtsy

    Danke schön, dear editor.

    • #29
  30. Spin Inactive
    Spin
    @Spin

    I think you are talking metaphorically, here, yes?

    I am in agreement.  I am no longer Catholic, but the illustration is not lost on me.  Just as there are many liberals within Catholocism who seem to want to “have it both ways”, so are there people within the evangelical movement (of which I consider myself a part), who believe that fulfilling God’s great commission means to get with the times, to morph their views on things cultural.

    I think what goes along with this is the notion of preserving doctrine, or orthodoxy.  Modern American Christianity has become only about being kind to our fellow man, and that is great.  But it has done so to the exclusion of doctrine.  We are so busy helping someone (with someone else’s money) in their hardship, that we’ve forgotten to tell them the message of the Gospel.

    • #30
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.