Does John Zmirak Even Understand Church Teaching?

After reading John Zmirak’s recent column at Breitbart, “Open Borders Catholics Falsify Church Teaching,” I am left uncertain about two things.

First, I am not sure what Mr. Zmirak means by “open borders Catholics.” Likely that is because the phrase shows up nowhere in the article itself. The closest Mr. Zmirak comes to defining this term for us is in his insistence that we must “secure the borders,” but even that could mean any number of things. It could mean no more than: Enforce existing immigration law; or, it could mean: Build a wall from Texas to California.

So are “open borders Catholics” Catholics who think we should disregard immigration law? or are they Catholics who think that building a wall might not be the right thing to do? Mr. Zmirak does not say; he leaves us to supply this lack out of our own imagination. If we expect that he might supply a definition via example, we shall have three, in our high-booted trek through Mr. Zmirak’s piece, to choose from: Pope Francis, Abp. Blase Cupich, and Abp. Charles Chaput. These are the only three whose words Mr. Zmirak quotes.

Second, and even more important, I am not sure what church teaching these ill-defined “open borders Catholics” falsify in the first place. I assume it’s to be found in Catholic social doctrine, but if you believe Mr. Zmirak, Catholic social doctrine does not even exist. There’s no such thing! So how can it be falsified?

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But I’ll get to all that. If you will, dear reader, indulge me in a few asides about this strange article. It is one of the kind I run into here and there, which make me scratch my head and puzzle over whether the author understands even the simplest of facts concerning what he’s writing about.

Here is an example. At one point, Mr. Zmirak refers to Abp. Cupich as the pope’s “handpicked” replacement for Cardinal George. But what does that even mean, handpicked? The pope “handpicks” every bishop, does he not? Mr. Zmirak does not know this? It is not as though bishops are elected by a majority vote of closed-border Catholics; I don’t find that in canon law.

Now, yes, it’s true that the pope must get the input of the apostolic nunci, who then makes inquiry what kind of man the diocese needs and then presents a short list to Rome. But Mr. Zmirak seems to be insinuating that Pope Francis somehow curtailed this process, stretched his hand across the borderless Pacific, and autocratically plucked up Cupich out of Spokane. What makes him suppose that? Not even the trad-leaning Veneremur Cernui, though it insists dirty deeds were afoot, goes quite so far. Who, then, are Mr. Zmirak’s Roman spies?

One more example. In an aside, Mr. Zmirak asks: “To how many Muslims has the Vatican granted citizenship?” As though to say, Oh, the hypocrisy! So it seems he needs a lesson on the difference between the Vatican and every other nation-state. The Vatican exists for one reason: to govern the global Church. It is its own state only to keep it safe from control by secular powers. Citzenship belongs only to Catholics who hold an appointment in the Church that requires they reside at the Holy See. (Not to mention that it is all of 109 acres with a population of less than 500.) Citizenship ends when the appointment ends; so there is no “immigration” there, of anyone. It is not a place private people go to settle down; it is not Italy or France. So the hypocrisy Mr. Zmirak wants to imply here is just fictitious—laughably fictitious.

Permit me but one more. Mr. Zmirak says this as his article comes near its end:

Questions such as immigration totals, or welfare benefits, should not be decided by tax-exempt celibates who have never needed to balance a checkbook, support a family, or meet a payroll.

Pardon? Okay, yes, the “celibate” part (that cliché bogeyman) is gratuitous, but has Mr. Zmirak not heard of such things as a parish budget? A diocese has a payroll, does it not? Bishops draw a salary and have personal expenses, no? This all must come as a surprise to Cardinal Pell, to learn that he doesn’t have a checkbook to balance over there at the Secretariat for the Economy.

So one begins to wonder what Mr. Zmirak knows.

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But I linger too long. Here is how Mr. Zmirak begins his article:

Pope Francis’ imminent visit to America is being spun by secular media as a political bonus for Democrats.

Wait, it’s being spun this way? So is it in fact a “political bonus for Democrats,” or is that mere secular media spin? And what species of media does Breitbart belong to?

“No one, it seems,” Mr. Zmirak goes on,

expects the pope to deliver a speech prophetically denouncing the human organ trafficking of Planned Parenthood, the grave threats to religious liberty in America, or even the ethnic cleansing of Christians from the Middle East.

Mr. Zmirak thinks it important that he choose the pope’s topics for him. And what does he mean, “ethnic cleansing of Christians? Last I checked, ISIS was not sawing off the heads of Christians because of their ethnicity.

“Instead,” we are told,

we are told that Pope Francis will emphasize his areas of agreement with the left over climate change, inequality, and immigration.

Horrors! I rend my robes! To think that “the left” might not be wrong about everything!

“If any congressmen,” Mr. Zmirak says, “are squirming in their seats, it is expected, it will be those prolife Catholic Republicans who differ with the pope on these latter issues.”

Yes, because if anything is existentially important, it is that “prolife Catholic Republicans” never be made to squirm over anything! Republicans squirm? Impocerous! Their virtue, on all things, is very nearly God’s!

But here is where Mr. Zmirak’s real concern becomes plain. It is not to find out what Catholic moral teaching might have to tell us about such things as the environment, immigration, or inequality. No. That kind of thing might advantage the left. That kind of thing might cause Republicans to squirm. We can’t have that. Not with a big election coming up. Mr. Zmirak’s real loyalty, in other words, is not to Catholicism but to the Republican party. Anything that causes Republicans to squirm is false Catholicism, you see. Republicans are the only real Catholics out there.

It seems not to occur to Mr. Zmirak that the pope might not care one whit about left or right. The things that obsess the brain of Mr. Zmirak may not obsess the pope a whit. For if Mr. Zmirak had spent any time reading Laudato Si, he would know—as I pointed out here—that Francis has much to say that will make both left and right squirm. It is just that the secular press spins the part that favors the left and ignores the rest as though it did not exist. The press exists to spin; why Mr. Zmirak wants to believe spin as though it is truth, he will have to explain to us on his own.

“As a Catholic,” he says (for one must always plead his bona fides),

I still hold out hope that the pope will disappoint expectations, and speak up on subjects that are life-and-death [as though the pope has not done this!] doctrinally clear, and rooted in genuine Catholic morality—rather than parroting the agenda of the secular, globalist left.

Hmm. Really? I am to believe that only religious freedom, and opposition to the slaughter of Christians and babies, are “rooted in genuine Catholic morality”? It has no other content? Not care for the creation? (Gen. 1:26). Not welcoming the foreigner? (Lev. 19:34). Not our duty to the poor? (Deut. 15:7-11). None of these are clear? They are no more than “the agenda of the secular, globalist left”? I’m afraid I don’t know what Mr. Zmirak is talking about. I’m afraid Mr. Zmirak doesn’t know what Mr. Zmirak is talking about. Does he think that, as long as babies are getting their brains ripped out, my poor neighbor denied a just wage is not my concern? So what about that widow; she’s just sad; it will pass? This is not impressive. That is not what St. James tell us:

Come now, you rich, weep and wail over your impending miseries. Your wealth has rotted away, your clothes have become moth-eaten, your gold and silver have corroded, and that corrosion will be a testimony against you; it will devour your flesh like a fire. You have stored up treasure for the last days. Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers who harvested your fields are crying aloud, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. (James 5:1-4)

Imagine! St. James must have been a real leftist, plaining like this about the poor, when there was all this Christian persecution and infanticide going on in the first century! St. James never did speak about clear doctrine!

But in fact there are, in Catholic moral teaching, five sins that cry to heaven for vengeance (CCC 1867).

• murder
• sodomy
• slavery
• the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan
• denying a just wage

These are all related because they all have to do with the dignity of the human person. There is no severing one of these sins from the other. They all cry to heaven. In spite of that, Mr. Zmirak plains that Abp. Cupich “drew a moral equivalency between the butchery at Planned Parenthood and the inconveniences faced by illegal aliens, Medicaid recipients, and convicted killers.”

Oh. I see. But let’s take a look at Cupich’s actual words, shall we? The thing to note is that he did not “draw a moral equivalency,” since he began by saying that “commerce in the remains of defenseless children is particularly repulsive.” He went on:

[W]e should be no less appalled by the indifference toward thousands of people who die daily for lack of decent medical care; who are denied rights by a broken immigration system and by racism; who suffer in hunger, joblessness and want; who pay the price of violence in gun-saturated neighborhoods; or who are executed by the state in the name of justice.

Now, I can be “equally appalled” by all these things without assuming a “moral equivalency.” All these things cry out to God. So it is blatantly dishonest, and offensive, of Mr. Zmirak to say that Cupich was comparing the butchery of the unborn to mere “inconveniences.”

Dying for lack of medical care is not an “inconvenience.”

Being a victim of racism is not an “inconvenience.”

Being unemployed is not an “inconvenience.”

Suffering from hunger is not an “inconvenience.”

Being a victim of gun violence is not an “inconvenience.”

Being executed is not an “inconvenience.”

But to hear Mr. Zmirak tell it, you would think that Cupich was complaining about being stuck in Chicago traffic. It’s a moral blight next to the traffic in Spokane. But no. And for him to say that Cupich’s actual concerns were just cover for “pro-abortion Catholic Democrats,” “the bleeding edge of the Catholic left,” is shameless codswallop.

But would this be what it means to be an “open-borders” Catholic: to think that foreigners should not be victims, that they have dignity as persons? hat teaching does that “falsify”? Does that “falsify” CCC 1867? Mr. Zmirak does not tell us.

But then, not satisfied to end there, Mr. Zmirak goes on to plain about Abp. Chaput:

Chaput defended birthright citizenship for children of illegals, opposed deportations, and even condemned attempts to refine our legal immigration criteria to focus on skilled immigrants, rather than relatives of recently amnestied illegals.

Yes, well, the last thing you would want is for new U.S. citizens to have their families with them. These people never stop wanting handouts. But here Mr. Zmirak’s real concern again comes blazing through. “TV networks and Democratic candidates,” he says, “will eagerly feed on his remarks.” No, give no quarter to a Democrat! They’re wrong about everything!

But is this what it means to be an “open-borders Catholic: to be for the 14th amendment? Or to be against rounding up millions and kicking them out? Or to think that new citizens should have their families with them? So what teaching does this “falsify”? Once more, Mr. Zmirak does not say.

In his only—and even then partially—sound section, Mr. Zmirak points out that Catholic social teaching is not policy-specific:

The only authority that popes have is to pass on the deposit of faith given to the apostles, and clarify where needed the moral law as known by reason. When it comes to specific political applications of those principles, popes have wildly contradicted each other over the centuries.

Well, yes, I guess. Sort of. But a few notes must be made here.

First, the moral law is known not just by reason but also by revelation. Mr. Zmirak does not graduate from theodicy to theology.

Second, while it is true that “specific political applications” are left to prudential judgment, far too often “prudential judgment” is used as an excuse to avoid a moral law that we are not free to avoid. That workers are due a just wage, for example, is the moral law. We may not dissent on this point. (And it is dissent, Mr. Zmirak.) James chapter 5 tells us that, as does the Catechism (CCC 2434).

And Lev. 19:34 says: “The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Does that have application to such questions such as birthright citizenship or deportation? We need to look to it with care and moral sincerity. We may not just wave our hand and say, “Pish! I can ignore that! It’s those Democrats! They’re the ones in the cafeteria!”

Third, as an example of how popes have “wildly contradicted themselves,” Mr. Zmirak cites papal statements on slavery. That is an issue, like many Mr. Zmirak smuggles in, that is too complicated to be dealt with here. It is enough for now to say:

• these “contradictions” are not nearly as wild as Mr. Zmirak says they are, and he confuses chattel slavery with indentured servitude and the forced labor of prisoners;
• slavery is far from a mere “political application” or policy preference. If that is Mr. Zmirak’s example of a policy preference, then I would submit that he might not know the difference between the moral law and policy.

“Pope Pius IX,” he says, “defended the morality of slavery, and condemned religious freedom. Pope John Paul II taught the opposite on both counts. Case closed.” But no. It is not quite so simple, or so breezy, as that. But we should not let ourselves be detained, at this point, by the question of the Catholic Church and slavery. That’s a topic for another day.

Mr. Zmirak then quotes the Catechism to tell us what Catholics must believe about immigration:

The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens. (CCC 2241)

“To the extent they are able is precisely what we are arguing about!” cries Mr. Zmirak.

Well, yes, that is true—as far as it goes. But the Catechism also says that this is something we are “obliged” to do. It is a moral imperative. So when, in the same context, Mr. Zmirak sneers at “misty-eyed rhetoric” about “the sufferings of immigrants,” one must ask whether he really does accept or understand the moral imperative at the heart of the question. He seems more exercised about how all these immigrants are going to vote. We can’t just have all these new people voting Democrat.

Then, in a subsequent paragraph, Mr. Zmirak asks:

How many potential jihadists is Europe “able” to safely welcome, so that they may attend radical, Saudi-funded mosques that preach the need for sharia in London, Brussels, and Rome? Pope Francis’s hysterical speech at Lampedusa seemed to suggest the answer: an infinite number.

Yes, but could these Muslims also be refugees from ISIS? Or does the name Aylan Kurdi come to mind? That story broke the day before Mr. Zmirak’s piece ran in Breitbart Mr. Zmirak seems to look at Muslims only as “potential jihadists,” which is the same species of prejudice that many German immigrants to this country once faced. And if we go to the pope’s so-called “hysterical speech at Lampedusa,” we will find no hysteria of any kind. (The hysteria belongs exclusively to Mr. Zmirak.) The entire speech is a reflection on “immigrants dying at sea.” (Does this sound familiar, Mr. Zmirak?) The pope tells us they are our brothers and that we must weep for them.

So this is “misty-eyed rhetoric” about “the sufferings of immigrants” to Mr. Zmirak: concern for people who have died at sea and are trying to escape cities that have been left rubble by war?

Indeed I find no policy prescription of any kind in the pope’s speech at Lampedusa. All it does contain is a moral reflection on the very kind of thing Mr. Zmirak has just told us that popes do have the authority to teach. And yet for some reason it offends him. For some reason being asked to care about refugees who die at sea offends him. Only he can explain why.

But is this what it means to be an “open-borders Catholic”: to have solidarity with refugees who die at sea to reach a place not torn by war? And if so, what Catholic teaching does that falsify? Again Mr. Zmirak does not say.

But then, several paragraphs later, he decides it will be a good idea to read into the true motivations of “the U.S. Catholic bishops” who speak about immigration. That kind of thing is a “clear conflict of interest,” Mr. Zmirak says. The bishops are just “eager to refill the emptying pews”—pews that are empty because “bishops have proven unable to pass along the Faith.” And he knows this why? God has given Mr. Zmirak the prophetic ability to discern the hearts of American bishops? What a charism that is!

But if all this concern for charity and justice for the refugee and “the stranger who sojourns with you” is, to Mr. Zmirak, a mere desire to fill up pews and benefit the left, then maybe it is Mr. Zmirak who falsifies Church teaching. His is the kind of article that tells me that many on the right need to be made to squirm. They defend their party and make excuses to avoid the entire moral law about the dignity of the human person and the rights of the vulnerable. Just like the left, the right waves its hand at what it does not like.

But pro-life means all life. It means the murdered baby’s life and Aylan Kurdi’s life. So if people like Mr. Zmirak would cut out the pride and the self-appointed need to lecture bishops about Catholic social teaching, the squirming might do them some good. The moral law can not be cut off into parts and severed from itself. To do that is to “falsify Church teaching,” in this case to assure the rightness of its own rectitude.

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