Ohio Patriots Protest Catholic Church for Distributing Matricula Cards

By Brenda Walker

06/21/2010

It may not have been the biggest anti-illegal demonstration in recent months, but any time Americans pin the tail on the Catholic church for its fifth-column activities, attention must be paid. Many churches work for the benefit of illegal alien lawbreakers and against law-abiding citizens, but the Catholics are the big dogs leading the pack.

The anti-American church in question (St. Julie Billiart) is located in Hamilton, Ohio, and apparently sees servicing illegal alien job thieves as part of its ministry. On Saturday, it got some pushback to its immoral policy of aiding lawbreakers.

Below, Johnny Van Styn unloaded signs on Saturday to voice his opposition to the Catholic Church’s open-borders ideology and actions.

His statistics are spot on. A 2009 Zogby poll found that 64 percent of Catholics supported enforcement to encourage illegals to go home and 69 percent thought immigration was too high.

Catholic church in middle of immigration reform issue, Hamilton Journal-News, June 20, 2010

Nowhere was it more apparent than at St. Julie Billiart Parish Saturday, June 19, how much the Catholic church has placed itself in the center of the immigration debate.

Inside the church’s bingo hall, hundreds of Mexicans lined up for passports or Mexican IDs at the Mobile Mexican Consulate’s Office.

In front of the cathedral on Dayton Street, dozens of activists marched along the street with picket signs, some reading “Immigrants welcome. Illegals go home.”

The Rev. Manuel Viera said the church for years has agreed to host the consular office “as a way to serve the community here, very much in line with the teaching of the Catholic church.”

“We have a higher authority to attend to,” he said, surrounded by the organized hum of more than 100 people asking questions and filling out forms in Spanish.

One of the main functions of the consular office is to issue consular IDs — issued by Mexico without concern for immigration status — that Mexican residents can use to open bank accounts or access hospital services in the U.S.

“So at least they’ll now have some official government document to identify them,” Viera said. “The alternative is they’ll buy IDs from people who sell fake IDs.”

In an open letter sent out last week, Most Reverend Dennis M. Schnurr, archbishop of Cincinnati, outlined the Catholic church’s controversial view on the issue.

The Wednesday, June 16, letter states the church must respect national borders and laws, but “the Catholic Church also teaches that all human beings have a right to migrate.”

The letter is critical of the current immigration system, saying there are too few paths to legal citizenship and those who are here illegally are left “living in fear, hiding in the shadows.”

Of course, the United States has the most generous system of legal immigration on earth, awarding citizenship to over a million annually. The Catholic Church is part of the anti-nation-state left, which believes there should be no borders on earth. The Vaticrats alway voice “respect” for national borders and laws (as above), but acts against those restrictions at every opportunity.

Continuing…

“I’m very much opposed to the Catholic church’s opinion on power politics and greed,” said Joe Macke, standing on Dayton Street with a sign that read “Viva Arizona SB 1070,” and waving at honking cars as they passed.

The new Arizona law requires local law enforcement to ask people stopped in the course of enforcing other laws about their immigration status if there’s reason to believe they’re in the country illegally. Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones and state Rep. Courtney Combs, R-Hamilton, are working to pass a similar law in Ohio.

“Any country that doesn’t protect its border will soon be no country at all,” said Macke, who called the consular IDs “an absolute farce … because it’s not recognized as a legal document in this country.”

The cards, called a Matricula Consular, are issued without any check of someone’s immigration status. They can be used to open a bank account and access other services. They are not a work permit, and are not recognized by the U.S. government for Social Security, welfare or other social programs.

Macke is a member of the Southwest Ohio Patriots, which organized the protest. He said he has seen Americans lose jobs to illegal immigrants, and wants the problem fixed before his 14 grandchildren grow up.

Down the street, in front of the church’s towering steeple, Hamilton resident and fellow protester Bobby Knight called it hypocrisy for the church to teach “thou shalt not lie, yet you’re supporting people who came here illegally.”

“That’s theft by deception,” he said. “You’re taking jobs from somebody else.”

Congrats to the patriots who weren’t dissuaded by the Catholics’ pretense of morality, which is really just Marxist wealth redistribution where American citizens are the victims.

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