The flight of the Holy Family to Egypt, in response to an angel's warning, saving the infant Jesus from King Herod's slaughter of all boys two-years of age or younger and born in Bethlehem, is told in the Gospel of Matthew. The story is frequently cited as an example of how Christians should respond to migrants in their midst, whether illegal immigrants, or foreigners let in by elites who claim to believe in open borders: We should be welcoming to all; after all, Jesus was Himself a (pick one or more) refugee, illegal immigrant, migrant....
Actually, the Holy Family going from Judea to Egypt would not be that much different from a modern family journeying from, say, Illinois to Iowa. Both Judea and Egypt were part of the greater Roman Empire. Judea still had some nominal independence when Jesus was born -- Herod was allowed to keep his client kingdom after Actium, even though he'd initially sided with Antony over Octavian; Herod was a pretty canny politician, but there was no question as to who was really in charge. At most, you could liken the Holy Family's journey to a jaunt from Detroit to Windsor: Until a few years ago, no passport was required, and persons could come and go across the national border freely, and as often as they wished -- like crossing from the Minnesota side of Sault Ste. Marie to the Ontario side, or going from the American to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Moreover, the Holy Family was not moving to Egypt; they were just visiting... until Herod's murderous purge was completed. So Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus were not illegal immigrants or migrants.
And, besides, elites don't really believe in open borders: They are fine with foreigners busing tables at fancy restaurants, or cutting the elites' lawns or trimming their hedges, or picking their vegetables, or cleaning the hotel rooms when the elites choose to come out of their gated compounds and travel. But, if elites believe national borders to be fluid, they are typically much less tolerant about foreigners actually living with them. Maybe as a nanny... but never as a neighbor.
There are some who would call this hypocritical. But not me. This is not hypocrisy, it is simply cheapness on their part. Proponents of open borders are cheap. They don't want to pay minimum wages to Americans, so they import immigrants who will work for less... and never complain... lest someone call ICE. Big corporations like open borders, too, and for the same reasons: The presence of illegal immigrant labor holds down wages. Bernie Sanders used to complain about this all the time... though, obviously, not any more.
There are, undoubtedly, prominent Catholic clerics who believe in open borders. There are religious orders devoted to assisting immigrants. There will always be immigrants... and travelers... and refugees and it is not wrong for the Church to want to assist people in need. It may be problematic for Catholic Charities to get huge sums from the government for tending to immigrants let in without screening, without vetting, without consideration for what large numbers of immigrants will do to the costs of housing and other basic services for preexisting Americans... but the Church is responding pastorally to a problem. The problem may be caused by dubious government policies... but the wisdom or stupidity of the policies that lead to the influx of immigrants is not for the Church to judge, nor should it prevent the Church from responding in charity to the plight of the immigrants.
But does that mean that the Church, institutionally, is in favor of open borders? I understand why some might see it that way....
The Church's response to mass immigration is further complicated by the presence of so many Muslims among the immigrants admitted. It may be worse in Europe, but the exponential increase in the American Muslim population in recent years cannot be denied. Dearborn, Michigan is often cited as a leading example of this phenomenon, and areas surrounding Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, but Muslims are becoming predominant in southwest Cook County suburbs from Bridgeview to Oak Lawn at least, and in Oak Brook and surrounding towns in the western suburbs, and in Morton Grove in the northern suburbs. I see women in hajibs daily on my walks in northwest Chicago; I see women in chadors and even niqabs in my local Costco.
On X (the website formerly known as Twitter) you will see any number of posts suggesting that today's Muslims are attempting to accomplish by migration and demographics the conquest of Christendom that the Arabs could not achieve by force of arms. I do not here stake out my position; you, Dear Reader, must decide for yourself if this is just a paranoid conspiracy theory or if there might be something to it.
But, seek some data from your children or your grandchildren before you arrive at your own opinion: Which of them, if any, have heard of Charles Martel and the Battle of Tours in 732? Which of them can explain the Reconquista? Can any of them tell you about how Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent was turned back from the gates of Vienna in 1529... or how, on September 12, 1683, Polish King John III Sobieski led his Winged Hussars to lift the second siege of Vienna brought by the Ottoman Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha and 90,000 to 300,000 (depending on your source) of his best friends?
If you, Dear Reader, are a Millennial or Zoomer, did you know about any of this stuff? Our educational system has been in decline for decades.
Even when I was a boy -- and that was a long time ago now -- schools did not emphasize the fact that the Crusades in the Holy Land were launched with the intention of restoring those areas of Asia where Christianity first took root. Granted, there were other motives for the Crusades as well... wealth and fame and fortune and a handy way of pruning the family trees of noble families who might otherwise terrorize the peasants in their own hometowns... but those were just happy side effects, not the entire raison d'être. And now...? Who is even allowed to say anything positive about the Crusades? Sports teams have had to change their names, etc.
I would not be surprised if a great many priests and bishops, and a great many laypeople who work for Holy Mother Church, especially in the area of migrant resettlement, are just as ignorant of history as most people today. I suppose that's how you can get a Muslim prayer room in the Vatican and 25 or 30 mosques in Rome. By the way, don't try looking for a church in Mecca -- there isn't one.
But the Church itself remembers the Muslim threat. There is an institutional memory that may, one day, save Christianity.
Pope Leo XIV has held a number of titles in the course of his career, both in the Augustinian order, and in the episcopacy. His first assignment as bishop was as Apostolic Administrator of the Peruvian Diocese of Chiclayo. This was in 2014. Because of an agreement between the Vatican and Peru, the future pope could not become the actual Bishop of Chiclayo until he became a Peruvian citizen, which he promptly did. In the meantime, however, Robert Prevost, as he was then known, could not function as a bishop without being given a "titular see" over which (in theory... and only in theory) he would preside. This was the Diocese of Sufar, a North African diocese overrun by Arab invaders.
Bishop Robert Barron, who may be well known to Americans because of his media presence and service on the Trump Administration's Religious Liberty Commission, is now the Bishop of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota. However, Barron began his episcopal career as an auxilliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. That meant he had to be appointed to his own titular see, in his case, Macriana in Mauretania, another north African diocese abandoned to the onrushing Arab invaders.
We could go on... but, hopefully, you see the point already. There are more than 2,000 titular sees recognized by the Catholic Church, and nearly every bishop winds up being assigned to a titular see at some point in his life. The loss of these dioceses, mostly in Asia, including Asia Minor (or we know it today, Turkey), and North Africa, is a scar on the body of the Church. The Church knows the injuries it has suffered. Whatever soothing words its leaders may use in addressing migration generally and Muslim migration in particular, the Church cannot be blind to the institutional threat posed by uncontrolled Muslim migration.
I, Curmudgeon, just a dummy in the pews, implore my betters among the Church hierarchy: Listen to the institutional memory of the Church. Learn your history. And be guided accordingly.
You know, the other Bible story that some people throw out when people voice even the most modest reservations about Muslim population growth, is the story of the Good Samaritan. The Jews of Jesus' day despised Samaritans, but the parable leads even the most mutton-headed Pharisees to realize that the Good Samritan was a better neighbor to the wounded Jew by the side of the road than the other Jews who (for reasons 1st Century audiences would have understood as pretty sound) passed the poor man by.
The Samaritan interrupted his journey, and, from his own pocket, made arrangements to have the wounded man cared for. He promised to stop on his return journey to see if he needed to do more.
But you know what the Samritan did not do? He did not condition aid on the Jew's conversion. He accommodated to the customs of the country through which he traveled, rather than impose his customs on his neighbors. He assimilated.
Before you throw that story in someone's face who expresses concern with Muslim immigration, think about that. Please.
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