AND YOU WELCOMED ME: MIGRATION AND CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING.

Edited by Donald

Kerwin and Jill Marie Gershutz. Lanham, Md.: Lexington, 2009. Pp. xiv + 164.

At this crucial time in the United States debate on migration, especially on the neuralgic

issue of “illegal” immigration, the Kerwin and Gershutz volume demonstrates how Catholic

social teaching can frame “the issues of migration in a vibrant and challenging way.” It clearly

and provocatively illuminates the data of the social sciences, the veritas if you will, with the

caritas of the Church’s person-centered and common-good-centered social teaching, delivering a

solid dialogue between theology and migration studies around the issues of and commitments to

basic human dignity and global common good.

Daniel Groody offers four theological ways of thinking about the “divides” involved in

migration and, for that matter, in all human ways of distinguishing peoples: (1) the imago Dei

that addresses the problem-person divide, (2) the verbum Dei, addressing the divine-human

divide, (3) the missio Dei, the human-human divide, and (4) the visio Dei, the country-kingdom

divide. This manner of doing a theology, of course, follows deep traditions of Catholic

theological reflection; Groody’s argument is also the only one in the volume that is based in

“high theology.” The other essays, in sharp contrast, are more compellingly grounded in

communion-oriented theologies, and for that reason they are more helpful in theologically

understanding and responding to migrants and their receiving communities. A fine example of

the latter approach is William O’Neill’s focus on Christian hospitality and solidarity as keys to a

theological reconstruction of the notion and reality of immigration, an article that nicely closes

the volume.
 Mary DeLorey places migration in a global economic context by taking up the impact of

free trade agreements on migration, tapping into and adjudicating between seven theories of why

people do migrate. She touches on the impact of migration on countries of origin and argues for

improved social conditions in those countries. Her focus, however, remains narrow; she never

sufficiently reflects on the “right not to have to migrate” nor on the obligation to improve

conditions in migrant countries themselves. This topic is sorely absent in migration discussions

in the United States, especially regarding the U. S.-Mexico relationship.

John Hoeffner and Michele Pistone discuss business, labor, and economic migration from

the perspective of “authentic development.” They call for a reevaluation, in light of modern

technology, of the Church’s strong opposition to policies that encourage a “brain drain” to

technically more advance receiving countries. Their argument for a change in church

recommendations around this issue is a genuine development, even as they acknowledge that

increasing tolerance of high-level, economically-based migration can “create obstacles to

development under certain circumstances.”

Kerwin asserts that the government’s sovereign responsibility to control its borders must

be understood in the context of migrant human rights and of the core purpose of sovereign states,

namely, the safeguarding of those rights. Kerwin and the other authors emphasize and build on

the twin affirmations of Catholic social teaching for a right to emigrate from a particular country

as well as a right to immigrate to a new country. International law, in contrast, recognizes the

former but not the latter. This particular difference is not sufficiently addressed by Kerwin, and

thus his argument tends to present the Catholic position as based on a claim to be “above the

law,”—not a problem to be ignored in the context of the current sexual abuse scandal.
 Jill Marie Gerschutz, with Lois Ann Lorentzen, explores the challenges facing the U.S.

church in its attempts to help immigrants adjust to their new lands, challenges that stand in

contrast to the presuppositions involved in most governmentally-endorsed policies of

assimilation. Although they praise the concept and effectiveness of past national churches, the

authors endorse the more contemporary model of the multi-ethnic parish, without adequately

addressing the problems inherent in this later model.

And You Welcomed Me is an outstanding application of Catholic social principles

informed by migration studies, and its judging of current migration policies is well illuminated

by the person-centered Catholic social teaching. The book does not seek to “bring religion” into

the current debate but to demonstrate how theology in dialogue with the social sciences can

frame the issues of migration in a practical way while preserving the global common good. In

this, it exemplifies a methodology that can with benefit be carried into other areas of religious

and moral concern.

Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome ALEJANDRO CROSTHWAITE, O.P.