Church Leaders Continue to Oppose Immigration Bill

Today’s Christian Science Monitor has another story on the rising tide of opposition among church leaders to pending congressional immigration bills.

“It is none of the government’s business who and how religious people serve,” says Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of Interfaith Alliance, which represents 70 faith traditions. “Would the US Congress have told the Good Samaritan not to help a stranger in the ditch?”

Cardinal Roger Mahony in Los Angeles, who leads the largest Roman Catholic archdiocese in the US, created a stir recently when he said he would order priests under his supervision to defy any federal legislation that requires churches or other social organization to press immigrants for legal papers before giving them help. He also called on Catholics in the archdiocese’s 288 parishes to fast, pray, and push politicians for humane immigration reform, inferring that the House reforms fall short in that regard. “The war on terror isn’t going to be won through immigration restrictions,” Cardinal Mahony said.

The link to the full story is here: http://search.csmonitor.com/search_content/0314/p01s01-ussc.html

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