Does John Zmirak even understand Church teaching?

fter 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?

•••

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. Hand­picked? What does that even mean? 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 nun­cio, who 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! 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. 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.

One begins to won­der what Mr. Zmi­rak knows.

•••

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. But 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.”

Suf­fer­ing from hunger is not an “incon­ve­nience.”

Unem­ploy­ment is not an “incon­ve­nience.”

Gun vio­lence is not an “incon­ve­nience.”

Being exe­cut­ed is not an “incon­ve­nience.”

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.

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? What 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? To be against round­ing up mil­lions and kick­ing them out? To think that new cit­i­zens should have their fam­i­lies with them? 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 s birthright cit­i­zen­ship or depor­ta­tion? We need to look to it with care and moral sin­crity. 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: (1) 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; (2) 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.

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? 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.

This is “misty-eyed rhetoric” about “the suf­fer­ings of immi­grants” to Mr. Zmi­rak? Con­cern for peo­ple who have died at sea try­ing to escape cities that have been left rub­ble by war? Wow, Mr. Zmi­rak. Wow.

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.

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? 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!

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. 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.