Orthodox Reflections

The subject of unchecked, largely illegal, immigration is causing a firestorm of controversy in the United States and other Western countries. The foreign born population is skyrocketing. Infrastructure, government services, and social cohesion are being overwhelmed. Crime is rising, and native born citizens are feeling unsafe in their own homes. Everywhere, people speak of invasion, of decay, of betrayal, of collapse. Disillusionment is deep and widespread.

Americans feel as if they are losing their culture, their language, and their nation. In such an untethered time, many turn to religion as a source of stability and encouragement. Given our high Roman Catholic population, and the Roman Church’s historical connection to the roots of Western Civilization, it would be logical for many to seek solace within her parishes. Unfortunately, for those concerned about the destructive effects of open borders, turning to the Roman Church is not the solution, or even part of the solution. Because, unfortunately for all of us in the West, the Roman Catholic Church is very much at the heart of the problem.

We can start with the top – Pope Francis himself. According to the “Vicar of Christ”, trying to secure the borders of the United States, or any other Western nation, is actually a sin.

Pope Francis on Wednesday denounced those who willingly work to repel migrants as sinners, calling out restrictive immigration laws, border militarization and rejection as tools that endanger migrants.

 

Francis opened his weekly address — usually heavy on theology — with a call to think about both people who “are crossing seas and deserts to reach a land where they can live in peace and safety,” and people who actively oppose migration.

 

“It must be said clearly: There are those who work systematically and with every means possible to repel migrants. To repel migrants. And this, when done with awareness and responsibility, is a grave sin. Let us not forget what the Bible tells us: ‘You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him,’” Francis said.

Want to keep your town, your state, and your nation recognizable as the places where you were born and grew up? Want to spend money and resources helping those who are actually citizens of your nation, as opposed to prioritizing newcomers? Well then, shut up, you sinner! Anyone who wants to come in must be let in. You have no right to decide who gets to live in your country. Only completely open borders are acceptable to Christ.

Of course, when Pope Francis is not calling us sinners for wanting to stem the flow of illegal immigrants, he is busy abasing himself by kissing the feet of Muslim immigrants to Europe. Nothing says, “Successor to St. Peter” more than engaging in ritual humiliation by groveling at the feet of a man whose religion is stained red with the blood of innumerable Christian martyrs. But the Pope is not alone in his devotion to open borders among Roman Catholic hierarchs. In Germany, the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AFD) has attracted significant support in recent state elections. What was the reaction of the Italian Roman Catholic bishops? They accused 1/3 of the German voters in Thuringa and Saxony of being Nazis.

We hear the same “Nazi” and “fascist” smears in the U.S. as well, indiscriminately leveled against anyone taking even the mildest position in favor of border security. “Racist” also makes a frequent appearance, as does the claim that Roman Catholic immigrants will help to “revitalize” the many largely empty parishes in the U.S. Heck, these immigrants are even better Roman Catholics than our homegrown variety, so maybe they can school all those “cultural Catholics” how to really serve God! Obviously a little thing like violating American law would never impact their sheer holiness.

Picking up new mass attendees, however, is not the only way the Roman Catholic Church benefits from unchecked immigration. After crossing and surrendering to U.S. Border agents, many illegal immigrants are directed to Catholic Charities, which provides them with hotel rooms, meals and clothing. Frequently, Catholic Charities also pays for their bus or plane tickets to their chosen destinations. In fact, Catholic Charities ships so many illegal immigrants around the country, that Texas Governor Greg Abbott should probably send them a thank you card. Remember the secret flights to the New York area, where the Biden administration was flying illegal immigrants on charter flights in the middle of the night? After those flights landed, usually at Westchester County airport in White Plains, illegals got on chartered buses to destinations all across the region, including to several Catholic Charities facilities.

How can Catholic Charities afford to provide all those “services”? Do Roman Catholics contribute enough money to cover the expenses, out of love for these poor migrants? After all, Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley explained all these “services” are the equivalent of merely “giving a cup of water in Jesus’ name.”

Roman Catholics are not paying for all these “services” to the illegals through voluntary donations. Instead, this is all covered by over $1.4 billion stolen from tax payers. Americans are being forced to pay for the demise of their own national culture, via public funds laundered through Roman Catholic NGOs to hide the activities as much as possible. These Roman Catholic charities are functioning as arms of the U.S. Federal Government in a conspiracy against the American people.

Want another example of the largesse being visited on Roman Catholic institutions? In 2018 the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston only brought in $44 million. In 2021, the revenue for this NGO exploded to $217 million. For the illegal immigrant trade, business is booming.

There’s more. Through the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the Roman Church facilitates the migrant invasion at every level. CLINIC’s lawyers work with the DHS to bring in more illegals, provide legal services to illegals, and use lawfare at local levels to quash “state and local anti immigration measures.”
A host of nonprofit-paid activists, with ties to Roman Catholic NGOs, have also been caught spreading the word far and wide on just what to say to have enough of an asylum claim to get released into the U.S. interior. Far from just “helping the stranger” who has already made it across an international border, Roman Catholic NGOs appear to be in the business of recruiting illegal immigrants to come here.

These are just some example NGOs. There are many more Roman Catholic organizations actively undermining U.S. national cohesion and security. Far too many to cover here. In fact, there is so much money flowing into her coffers, that it is not an exaggeration to refer to the Roman Catholic Church as the world’s largest beneficiary of government welfare.All of this is very tough to hear for many traditionalists in Western countries. Nevertheless, we all have to face the ugly truth – the Roman Catholic Church, as she is currently constituted, cannot “save the West”. In fact, Rome is an active and enthusiastic participant in Western decline and possible ultimate annihilation. This was not always the case, of course.

Once upon a time, Roman Catholic bishops felt ties to local places and to their local flocks. The Roman Church felt an obligation to preserve and protect the local cultures in which she operated. It was common to refer to the “Polish Church”, to the “Anglo-Catholic Church”, to the “Austrian Church”, etc. and for those terms to really mean something in practice.

Sadly, not anymore. The Roman Catholic Church is now an integral part of the Globalist enterprise actively seeking to erase the West.

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Now, let’s compare the Roman Catholic attitude on immigration, illustrated previously, with that of the Orthodox Catholic Church of Russia. The Orthodox Catholic Faith is universal. All canonical Orthodox Christians are in communion with one another, and all of them share the same Faith Once Delivered to the Apostles. However, the organization of the Orthodox Church is a union of local Churches. Each local Church looks after a specific area, which often equates to a specific ethnicity (sometimes also coinciding with a national government). The situation gets somewhat muddled outside the traditional Orthodox homelands, but we will come back to that.

The biggest local Orthodox Church is in Russia, with the ruling primate in Moscow. So in terms of immigration, what does the Russian Church have to say?  A lot actually, and all of it completely different from the Roman Church.

During a cathedral congress on March 27, 2024 under the chairmanship of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, the Instruction of the XXV World Russian People’s Council “The Present and Future of the Russian World” was approved. This document outlines significant proposals addressed to the legislative and executive authorities of Russia. Here is part of the section on immigration:

The main priorities of the new migration policy of the Russian Federation should be:

1. 1. 1. Protection of Russian families, their socio-economic rights and interests. Creation of conditions that guarantee employment of Russian citizens, as well as a high level of income for Russian families;
      2. Protection of the Russian civilizational identity, the unity of the legal, cultural and linguistic space of the country.
      3. Protection of the rights and legitimate interests of the Russian and other indigenous peoples of Russia;
      4. Protection of the domestic labor market, ensuring scientific and technological development of the Russian economy, and growth of labor productivity;
      5. Implementation of effective state control, as well as planning and management of external migration flows;
      6. Creation of conditions that facilitate the mass repatriation of compatriots to Russia, as well as the relocation of foreign highly qualified specialists, scientists, investors and members of their families who are loyal to Russia and ready for linguistic and cultural integration;
      7. Significant restriction of the influx of low-skilled foreign labor of other cultures into the Russian Federation. Introduction of the principle of maximum legal and economic responsibility of the employer for the foreign workers of other cultures attracted by him;
      8. Ensuring anti-terrorist security, combating illegal migration, and ethnic crime.

The document also called for policies designed to increase the Russian population through reducing (hopefully outlawing) abortion and increasing the average size of Russian families. Unlike the West, which is trying to lock mostly childless, impoverished people into “15 minute cities“, the Russian Church wants to spread Russians out into leafy suburbs to take advantage of the vastness of the Russian land mass.

This may seem strange to Americans in the 21st Century, but it was once perfectly normal to have a national church, and a national government, that did not hate their own people and wish to see them destroyed. We seem to have forgotten that such a state of affairs is even possible. Thanks be to God for the example of Russia.

However, the Russian Church is not unique in her desire to protect the language, culture, and traditions of her people.  The Bulgarian Church, the Serbian Church, the Romanian Church, and pretty much every local Orthodox Church feels the same way. Orthodox Christians, largely rooted in the local and the traditional, make poor globalist conspirators.

Except for the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Patriarchate of Alexandria. These two unfortunate Churches are extremely small minorities within hostile Islamic states. These two Churches, with practically no domestic flocks, are controlled assets of the U.S. National Security State – the dark heart of Globalism. Constantinople is also in a particularly close cuddle with Rome.Outside of Turkey, the Patriarchate of Constantinople controls various “Greek Archdioceses” around the world. These are comprised of parishes that were (predominantly) founded by Greek immigrants to various (mostly Western) countries. The Patriarchate of Constantinople is dependent on these overseas Greeks for most of its financial and political support. Among this “diaspora”, the Patriarchate has been very active in trying to promote “Hellenism” to keep Greek heritage Orthodox Christians tied to the Greek language, Greek culture, and a sense of Greek ethnicity. If the “diaspora” goes too native, who will prop up Patriarch Bartholomew, whose flock in Turkey numbers a few thousand at most?

Constantinople, out of sheer self interest, is happy to promote for overseas Greeks what its globalist sympathies would deny to everyone else – the right to preserve traditional language, culture, and religion. Further making a mess of things, for historical reasons, the Greek Archdioceses in the West tend to be the largest local Orthodox bodies. The focus on maintaining “Hellenism” harms Orthodox evangelism in the West, gives other Orthodox church bodies a greenlight to focus on preserving their own ethnicities, and thus delays the day when we shall have truly local, Western Orthodox Churches dedicated to saving the souls, traditions, languages, and bodies of their various peoples.

The Globalists are terrified of fully localized Orthodox Churches in the West. These Orthodox Churches would see protecting their people from the depredations of depraved Western Governments and oligarchs as part of their missions. From the Globalist perspective, the local Orthodox Churches will be giant pains in the ass. One only has to look at the determined resistance of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to Zelensky’s efforts to outlaw her very existence and seize her temples.

Orthodox Christians, clergy and laity alike, are called to resistance when necessary. Fr. Geoffrey Korz explored this in an article entitled Orthodox Saints Got Involved in Politics and Civic Life:

Such is the courage of the saints. Such is their confidence in the consistent and steady example shown by their holy predecessors within Holy Tradition. With great confidence in these great witnesses, clergy and bishops today can draw strength when they are called to protect the holy places, or to defend the faithful when they are threatened by the state or a secular employer on a matter pertaining to their faith.

 

It is a contradiction to exhort silence from those who defend the faithful, while seeking public approval alongside political elites. Nowhere is this found in the example of the saints, rather, courage, and total faith in the power of Christ to help those who will act – first with prayer, fasting, repentance, and the strength of the Holy Mysteries, but also with reasoned action.

 

In all cases, each and every faithful Christian runs the risk of losing his or her inner stillness when engaging with issues relating to the state. This is perhaps the greatest risk, since it is a risk to the salvation of our own soul, and it is for this reason that any civic actions must not be undertaken lightly.

 

As we can see, while partisanship is forbidden to the clergy, active participation in civic life – by both clergy and laity – for the welfare of the faithful and the preservation of the freedom of the Church is not only permitted, but commanded by the example of the saints. We should mark carefully: in none of these cases do either clergy or laity act only with the blessing of a bishop as some would wrongly argue (in the manner of the Papal church in the West). Instead, this is the normal initiative of a well-formed Orthodox Christian conscience, guided by all the norms of a normal Orthodox Christian life, and the middle path of Holy Tradition.

Now this may seem foreign to many Americans – the idea that the Church has a role to play in checking the government on behalf of the people. The truth, however, is that various Churches within the U.S. have played exactly that role through most of our history:

Ever since the settlement of New England, churches made themselves the principal vehicles for citizen participation and checks on government. The proliferation of churches as voices of political dissent was the driving force behind both the English Revolution of the 17th century and the resulting exodus to America.

 

Churches shaped and articulated citizens’ voices into some coherence, so that people had more than individual, changeable opinions; they had fixed principles and shared beliefs. Churches allowed citizens to combine their voices, enabling them to be more effectively heard. Finally, the churches demanded that we act when government officials were too weak or corrupt, even when action might cost us something.

 

They inculcated virtues necessary for effective citizenship and for which today’s lobbying firms have no substitute: self-discipline, self-sacrifice, sobriety, delayed gratification, a work ethic, perseverance, fidelity, a fierce commitment to family integrity and sexual morality, courage. Today’s pressure groups, even the most “Christian,” would never dream of trying to elevate their membership morally.

With the Roman Church and traditional “American Churches” bribed, brainwashed, infiltrated, and cowed, now is the time for the Orthodox Catholic Church to step up and protect the longsuffering people of the West. To be truly free to do that, however, the Orthodox Faithful will have to make bold sacrifices. Let us pray we are prepared for that.

Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America