Tancredo Blasts the Pope on Immigration

As the New York Times reported, the Pope spoke in favor of immigrants several times during his visit, including in his speech to the American bishops, where he urged them and their communities "to continue to welcome the immigrants who join your ranks today, to share their joys and hopes, to support them in their sorrows and trials, and to help them flourish in their new home. This, indeed, is what your fellow countrymen have done for generations."  He also spoke of the need to prevent the breakup of families in the immigration context, since the separation "'is truly dangerous for the social, and human fabric' of Latin and Central American families."

One of the Pope's comments -- that the U.S. should do "everything possible to fight . . . all forms of violence so that immigrants may lead dignified lives" -- set off anti-illegal-immigration obsessive Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who issued a statement saying, "I would like to know what part of our lax immigration policy is violent" and claiming that the Peope had "encourag[ed] Bush to provide blanket amnesty to all illegal immigrants in the United States."  (HT: Kathryn Lopez)  Tancredo went on, as described by the Times:

Accusing the Pope of "faith-based marketing," Mr. Tancredo said Benedict's comments welcoming immigrants "may have less to do with spreading the Gospel than they do about recruiting new members of the Church."  Mr. Tancredo, a former Catholic who now attends an evangelical Christian church, said it was not in the pope's "job description to engage in American politics."

Obviously there are legitimate arguments for strengthening anti-illegal-immigration policy in various ways.  No one could reasonably criticize Benedict for his calls for humaneness in treatment of illegal immigrants -- which has implications for the policy issues like deportations (although I'm quite confident he's never urged "blanket amnesty").  But one can colorably argue that a call, like his, to "welcome immigrants" must always be qualified by recognizing the need for legal-immigration requirements to manage the flow of incomers in an orderly way.

But my preexisting impression that Tancredo carries beyond these arguments to foment prejudice has now been strengthened by his rush to beat off any challenge by invoking, explicitly or implicitly, other prejudices: that the Church is mostly concerned to "recruit" rather than uphold human dignity, and that the Pope should not comment on American moral-political issues (combining allusions to "religion should stay out of politics" and "the Pope is a foreigner").

Tom