Kat Bowman

Faith Religion and society

Dr. Gabrelli

7 May 2018

The World Refugee Crisis

Today’s world is a world of fear. 9/11 made the country paranoid. People fear that a

terrorist could easily enter the country claiming to be a refugee and then wreak havoc. Although

I understand why people are hesitant to let refugees into the country, Catholic social teaching

says that we should welcome refugees into the country and we should care for them.

The Catholic Social Teaching shows us that helping refugees is charity in its purest form.

Not everyone who helps has pure motives. The reason that some of the countries take in refugees

is that they want to look good to the rest of the world and not necessarily because the refugees

need help. In truth countries are using the crisis to benefit them and boost their image. “Without

truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality.” (Benedict XVI Caritas in Veritate paragraph 3).

We do not help refugees because we feel bad for them, we should help them because it is the

right thing to do . “Charity reflects the personal yet public dimension of faith in the God of the

Bible, who is both  Agápe and Lógos: Charity and Truth, Love and Word…I would like to

consider two of these in particular, of special relevance to the commitment to development in an

increasingly globalized society: justice and the common good.” (Benedict XVI Caritas in

Veritate paragraph 6). It is hard to say we believe in charity and love if we are not willing to put

ourselves out there and help our fellow man.

 Refugees coming to the US is lower this year due to the current process for admittance in

this country, which includes approval from multiple government agencies, background checks

and an interview process. This has made it more difficult to get into our country.

“The current level of refugee arrivals leaves thousands of vulnerable people in harm’s way and

searching for protection,” said Bishop Joe Vasquez, speaking as chair of the U.S. Conference of

Catholic Bishops’ Committee On Migration. “Most often they are at-risk women and children

who are too vulnerable to remain in the region and/or in situations too dangerous for them to

wait in the host country until the conflict at home has ended.” (CNA). If we don’t help them

there could be dyer consequences for them.

On March 26, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter to Homeland

Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and to the U.S. State Department, “As Christians, our

concerns for refugees is integral to our life of faith,” the bishops said. “In this spirit, we urge the

Administration to renew a bipartisan commitment to resettlement for refugees, including

religious minorities. ” (CNA). In the past, “the average number of refugees admitted to the

United States exceeded 95,000 per year. For fiscal year 2018, the administration has set a target

at 45,000, but only 9,616 were resettled by March 16. This places the U.S. on pace to resettle less

than 20,000 refugees, 25 percent of the number who arrived in fiscal year 2016” (CNA).

Unfortunately, “The Trump administration refugee admission target is “historically low,” as is

the “extraordinarily low” number of refugees it is on pace to resettle, said the bishops. Among

those denied admittance were 87 Christian refugees and other persecuted minorities from Iran.

This is despite previous years in which refugees from Iran had a 99 percent admission rate.”

(CNA). This is an example of what we as the US should be doing from the Catholic Community

Services: refugee resettlement.

“Since 1975, Catholic Community Services of Utah’s Refugee Resettlement Program has

resettled thousands of refugees from Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bosnia, Burma, Chad, the Congo,

Cuba, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Serbia, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, the Former

Soviet Union and Vietnam. Many of these refugees have fled war-torn countries, the atrocities of

war and repression, and other inhumane conditions. Currently the program resettles

approximately 600 clients per year” (“Refugee Resettlement”).

It is a good start but the church should be trying to do more in more places.

Love thy neighbors as yourself as Jesus taught us. Love of the neighbor “consists in the

very fact that, in God and with God, I love even the person whom I do not like or even know.

Then I learn to look on this other person not simply with my eyes and my feelings, but from the

perspective of Jesus Christ. His friend is my friend” (Benedict XVI Deus Caritas Est paragraph

18). It is easy to love someone you know or someone who has like background, but it is difficult

to love someone that you don’t know and who seems to be very different that you. Because of

different backgrounds and religious views of the refugees, many Catholic refugees are coming

over. Many people claim that the Church is only supporting the push for more refugees to be

allowed in the country to put more butts in pews. The United States Conference of Catholic

Bishops responded to this claim with this statement:

“It is preposterous to claim that justice for immigrants isn’t central to Catholic teaching. It comes

directly from Jesus Himself in Matthew 25, ‘For I was hungry and you gave me food…a stranger

and you welcomed me.’ Immigrants and refugees are precisely the strangers we must welcome.

This isn’t Catholic partisanship. The Bible is clear: welcoming immigrants is indispensable to

our faith. Caring for and about the ‘Dreamers’ is nothing more than trying to carry out that

seemingly simple, but ultimately incredibly demanding, commandment. It is a commandment

found throughout Sacred Scripture, reaching back to the Hebrew scriptures, including Leviticus,

‘when an alien resides with you in your land, do not mistreat such a one’ (Lv. 19:33). In fact, the

Church has been pro-immigration since God called Abram to leave Ur: ‘Go forth from your land,

your relatives, and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you’ (Gn. 12:1). To

suggest otherwise is absurd. The witness of the Catholic bishops on issues from pro-life to pro-

marriage to pro-health care to pro-immigration reforms is rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ

rather than the convenient political trends of the day. We are called not to politics or

partisanship, but to love our neighbor. Our pro-immigration stance is based on fidelity to God’s

word and honors the American dream. For anyone to suggest that it is out of sordid motives of

statistics or financial gain is outrageous and insulting.” (Skojec). God has taught us that if our

neighbor is in need it us our duty as Catholics to help them however we can.

We are one human family whatever our national, racial, ethnic, economic, and

ideological differences are. Whether we like our families or not we are to care for them as God

has taught us to do. Catholic Social teaching tells us that “We are our brothers and sisters’

keepers, wherever they may be. Loving our neighbor has global dimensions in a shrinking world.

At the core of the virtue of solidarity is the pursuit of justice and peace. Pope Paul VI taught that

if you want peace, work for justice. The Gospel calls us to be peacemakers. Our love for all our

sisters and brothers demands that we promote peace in a world surrounded by violence and

conflict. (“Seven Themes of Catholic Social Teaching”). If we work towards justice for the

refugees, we could help to promote peace in our world. If the world were at peace there would

no longer be refugees to help.

Fear can be a motivator for people to treat others without justice. Without justice there is

no peace. Catholic Social teaching says, “No way, José.” We need to love our neighbors as
ourselves because helping those who have no home is charity in its purest form. It is also what

God wants from us . We should do this because we are all one human family.
 Works Cited

“Caritas in Veritate (June 29, 2009) | BENEDICT XVI.” Catholic Charities of St. Paul and

Minneapolis, w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-

xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate.html.

CNA. “US Bishops: 'Extraordinarily Low' Refugee Limits Harm the Innocent.” Catholic News

Agency, Catholic News Agency, 28 Mar. 2018, www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/us-

bishops-extraordinarily-low-refugee-limits-harm-the-innocent-15686.

“Deus Caritas Est (December 25, 2005) | BENEDICT XVI.” Catholic Charities of St. Paul and

Minneapolis, w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-

xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est.html.

“Refugee Resettlement.” Catholic Community Services of Utah,

www.ccsutah.org/programs/refugees/refugee-resettlement.

“Seven Themes of Catholic Social Teaching.” United States Conference of Catholic Bishops,

www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catholic-social-teaching/seven-

themes-of-catholic-social-teaching.cfm.

Skojec, Steve. “Welcoming the $Tranger: What's Really Motivating the USCCB on Immigration

& Refugees?” OnePeterFive, 8 Sept. 2017, onepeterfive.com/welcoming-the-tranger-

whats-really-motivating-the-usccb-on-immigration-refugees/.