In a report posted on the BBC website, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the former Archbishop of Westminster, said the temporary ban imposed by President Trump on refugee admissions to the United States supports a false notion that Islam and Christianity are in conflict.
The Cardinal accuses the President of “overreacting” and said the ban would “increase the determination of terrorists to make US objects a target.”
He, likewise, characterized the protests against the President that were held in the United Kingdom as “hysterical overreaction.”
The Cardinal stated: “British opposition and hysterical overreaction to Trump itself poses a danger to the constructive relationship we should have with him, or indeed, any new and untested American president. "He and his team are learning the art of governing. Though the executive order banning travel from certain destabilized Muslim-majority countries has misfired, the principle behind the order is surely not in itself wrong.”
Once again, misguided Church leaders continue to involve themselves in political disputes in which they have no competence or authority.
I have repeatedly pointed out the consistent teaching of the Church regarding the right of the state to protect its sovereign borders. The right to do so is firmly entrenched in both civil and ecclesiastical law.
The duly elected President of the United States is carrying through with the enactment of a legitimate order to protect the sovereignty and national security of the United States. He made his intention to do so crystal clear throughout his campaign. The citizenry of the country understood his promises to them and elected him to the highest office in the land precisely on account of those promises.
Whether or not the Executive Order of the President is to the liking of the former Archbishop of Westminster is irrelevant. The Cardinal has no expertise which would invest his remarks with any particular wisdom or counsel.
I suggest His Eminence seek the guidance afforded by another member of the College, His Eminence Cardinal Wuerl, who wrote most elegantly in his pastoral letter to Catholics in the Archdiocese of Washington, DC, reminding them that the mission the Church is to lead mankind to the truth and redemptive grace of Jesus Christ and not to engage in what are purely political matters of the state.
In other words and respectfully, your Eminence, it would be best to keep your political opinions to yourself for they serve neither the interest of good government nor the preaching of the Gospel.
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