Episcopal Bishops for Open Borders?

Looks like CNY's Bp. Skip Adams is right behind PB Schori :)

The American Spectator

By Mark Tooley
9.29.10

Episcopal Church bishops are always susceptible to caricature, and their recent "pastoral letter" on immigration is no exception. The 2 million member denomination's House of Bishops recently met in Arizona, the troubled front line for immigration controversies. About 60 bishops symbolically met near the Mexican border carrying white crosses representing illegals who had died locally of exposure while trekking through the desert. Later joined by another 60 fellow bishops in Phoenix, they seemingly urged a U.S. policy of virtual open borders.

"Ours is a migratory world in which many people move across borders to escape poverty, hunger, injustice and violence," the bishops observed. "We categorically reject efforts to criminalize undocumented migrants and immigrants, and deplore the separation of families and the unnecessary incarceration of undocumented workers. Since, as we are convinced, it is natural to seek gainful employment to sustain oneself and one's family, we cannot agree that the efforts of undocumented workers to feed and shelter their households through honest labor are criminal."

Later in the bishops' letter they approvingly cite border enforcement against migrating "drug traffickers," "terrorists," and undefined "other criminals." But presumably everybody else in the world has an intrinsic right to move to the U.S. with full access to the social services offered to U.S. citizens. The bishops professed that "inhumane policies directed against undocumented persons (raids, separation of families, denial of health services) are intolerable on religious and humanitarian grounds." Indeed, "our gracious welcome of immigrants, documented or undocumented, is a reflection of God's grace poured out on us and on all." the rest

Like most on the Religious Left, the Episcopal Bishops seem uncomfortable with national sovereignty in the political sphere, just as the Religious Left is often theologically uncomfortable with Christianity's exclusivist truth claims, or the expectation of monogamy in traditional marriage, and the loyalties inherent to traditional families. Their vague political and theological universalism ultimately derides nearly all skeptics as bigots, while envisioning an unlikely and unappealing world without meaningful loyalties. A more traditional Christian understanding of the common good recognizes that universal love is only reached, if at all, incrementally through the particular attachments of family and nation. These Episcopal bishops, busy with desert photo ops and polemical news releases, are anxious to make sweeping utopian claims, without a clear constituency or audience.

ENS: Bishops and spouses visit U.S.-Mexico border

Where is the vigil for Americans killed by illegal aliens?
While the bishops have no problem expressing sorrow for those who have so little respect for this country that their first act here—is to enter illegally, they seem to have no such concern for the thousands of American citizens who have been killed by illegal aliens...