How U.S. Churches were profiting from illegal immigration

I have been receiving emails from the Episcopal organization bemoaning the fact that due to cuts by the Trump administration they are having to lay off 22 employees who were handling their illegal immigration (they call it "migration") ministry. 

 From The New York Post,

Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde’s sermon to President Trump during an inaugural prayer service, coupled with her church’s advocacy for humanitarian immigration programs, reveals a striking hypocrisy — one that could be seen as self-serving and even a conflict of interest.

That’s because the federal contracting arm of the church, Episcopal Migration Ministry (EMM), is paid to bring in people on resettlement programs that Trump has temporarily paused and targeted for re-evaluation.

EMM budget figures for 2024 are not available yet, but in 2023 it earned $53 million from various taxpayer-funded government programs to resettle 3,600 individuals.

EMM “sponsored” 6,400 individuals from 48 countries in 2024. The leading nationalities were Afghans under a special humanitarian program, refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and others in smaller numbers from seven distinct special resettlement programs.

In an wild understatement, a 2012 Government Accountability Office report quotes an official noting that “funding is based on the number of refugees they serve, so affiliates have an incentive to maintain or increase the number of refugees they resettle each year rather than allowing the number to decrease.”

Since EMM’s ability to lobby is restricted, the Episcopal Church itself, being a separate legal entity from EMM, lobbies in D.C. for more programs that benefit EMM.

EMM brings in LGBTQ refugees and asylees in a special federal refugee program started during the Obama administration called “Preferred Communities.”

This program pays a premium over standard refugee resettlement for contractors that resettle “refugees experiencing social or psychological difficulties, including emotional trauma resulting from war and/or sexual or gender-based violence; survivors of torture; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) refugees; refugees who are HIV positive; populations with physical disabilities or other medical conditions.”

”Of course, it is not fair to question the Episcopalians alone on this.

Add this from Crisis, 

According to recent numbers obtained from Complicit Clergy, the Biden administration granted Catholic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and charities nearly $3 billion in immigration-related funding over the past four years. In comparison, Catholic charities received $0.8 billion during the first Trump administration. Since 2009, Catholic Charities and related organizations have received over $5.2 billion tax dollars by providing immigration-related services to the federal government. 

Churches had been facilitating illegal behavior and have likely passed along violent criminals into our cities. These "migrants" were not properly vetted entering the U.S.A. 

The money the NGOs got created more of an incentive for illegal entry as well as creating incentives for the NGOs to provide more services to more people.

Good for Trump for cutting off that gravy train of unaccountable dollars. 

 

 

Four Blessings and Four Woes

 This Sunday's reading is from Luke 6:17-26,

He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

 Then he looked up at his disciples and said:

‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. ‘Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. ‘Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. ‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.'

‘But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. ‘Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. ‘Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.

 ‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.'

Jesus is reminding us that there is good and there is evil, and we must be thankful and joyful even when things do not seem to going our way. This helps explain why Paul and Silas could sing after being beaten and thrown into prison.

The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods.  After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully.  When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.  Acts 16:22-25

I wonder if I would be able to do that. 

"Speechcrime" goes in one direction

I had not seen "speechcrime" (one word) in print before reading the post below, but "speech crime" (two words) is something that shares a commonality with "hate crime" legislation. Initially, speech crime was intended to restrict the incitement of genocide, or other horrors, but now we see speech crime being applied to other forms of expression.  

We are all aware that to burn a Bible in public will not land you in jail or cause you to go into hiding for fear of your life, but to burn a Koran...

From Spiked Online,

A man was arrested at the weekend after allegedly burning a copy of the Koran – no, not in Iran or in Saudi Arabia, but in Manchester, in the UK. Apparently, it can now be a criminal offence in 21st-century Britain to express your distaste for a seventh-century religion.

The arrest followed a livestream on social media that appeared to show a 47-year-old man setting light to the Koran, page by page, on Saturday. This was just two days after Salwan Momika, an Iraqi atheist, was assassinated in Sweden, seemingly as punishment for burning copies of the Muslim holy book in public.

You might have imagined that in a modern, liberal democracy such as Britain that blaspheming against a religious text would be none of the police’s business. After all, laws criminalising blasphemy against Christianity were officially repealed in England and Wales in 2008, with the last successful blasphemy conviction obtained in 1977. But the old crime of blasphemy has been slowly replaced with a new raft of criminal offences against so-called hate speech.

According to Greater Manchester Police, the alleged Koran burner was arrested under suspicion of a ‘racially aggravated public-order offence’. Assistant chief constable Stephanie Parker told GB News that police felt compelled to make a ‘swift arrest’, fearing the livestream could cause ‘deep concern… within some of our diverse communities’. The modern language of diversity and multiculturalism disguises the medievalism of the decree that’s being enforced.

The injunction to police so-called hate speech, especially when it comes to ‘Islamophobia’, has led British police forces to routinely do the bidding of Islamic reactionaries. In 2023, when four boys in Wakefield brought a Koran to school, and one ended up lightly scuffing it, police recorded it as a ‘non-crime hate incident’. Ten miles down the road, at Batley Grammar School, a teacher was forced into hiding in 2021 after showing a cartoon of Muhammad in his religious-studies class. He remains in hiding to this day, but no action has ever been taken against those who maliciously circulated his name or sent him credible death threats. If anything, in the eyes of the authorities, his hardline Islamist aggressors, whose religious sensitivities were offended, were the actual victims here.

The Europe-wide expansion of hate-speech laws to cover blasphemy against Islam means there is now an alarming affinity between the authorities and hardline Islamic conservatives and even violent Islamist extremists. It is striking that when Salwan Momika was assassinated last week in Sweden after burning the Koran, he was due to face trial for exactly the same alleged ‘crime’. Of course, the modern European state insists it is punishing hate speech, not blasphemy, and it does so with arrests, fines and prison sentences, not with violence or executions. But both our secular authorities and Islamist radicals agree that ridiculing Islam must be punished as a speechcrime.

Alarmingly, in Britain at least, restrictions on what we can say about Islam are only likely to get tighter. The Labour government is considering whether to impose a broad and controversial definition of Islamophobia on all public bodies, which would chill discussion on just about any issue that might touch on Islam or Muslims. Home secretary Yvette Cooper and security minister Dan Jarvis have both vowed to expand the recording of non-crime hate incidents to tackle Islamophobia. This would further entrench the role of the police as enforcers of Islamic blasphemy law.

In a modern, free society, the right to mock, scorn and reject all gods, prophets and religious texts ought to be sacrosanct. This new regime of speech policing, however ‘progressive’ and ‘inclusive’ it purports to be, represents a catastrophic step backwards.

Fraser Myers is deputy editor at spiked and host of the spiked podcast. Follow him on X: @FraserMyers.

As Christians, we are saddened when someone burns a Bible. They may be rejecting God, but they are in need of our love, and they cannot harm God or us by burning a book or by drawing a cartoon. The Word will live on.

C'mon Muslims, it is just ink on paper that is burning. Don't worship a book. Worship God.

"And So You Have Come to Believe"

In this Sunday's reading from 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, Paul testifies of the early witnesses to the Resurrection.

Now I should remind you, brothers, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 

Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 

Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.

Paul mentions that most of the witnesses are still living, and that lends veracity to his testimony and to the historical truth of the Resurrection.  

 

Meanwhile, "en France"

I saw this at The European Conservative and thought I should re-post it here.

French TV Channel Fined for Calling Abortion the World’s Leading Cause of Death

Hélène de Lauzun — November 21, 2024

The French media regulator has fined the conservative channel CNews €100,000 for, during a Catholic programme, saying that abortion is the world’s leading cause of death. The episode reveals the extent to which the debate on abortion is deadlocked in France.

In February 2024, presenter Aymeric Pourbaix, during the Catholic programme “En quête d’esprit,” broadcast every Sunday on the conservative channel CNews, showed an infographic on the causes of death, ranking abortion as the leading cause, with 73 million deaths each year worldwide. That translates to 52% of annual deaths, far ahead of cancer (10 million) and smoking (6.2 million).

The journalist’s comments sparked a wave of indignation in the mainstream press, on the grounds that abortion cannot be considered a “cause of death” because the foetus should not be considered a living being.

Violent criticism was levelled at the CNews channel, owned by Catholic businessman Vincent Bolloré, prompting an investigation into the channel in the following weeks. The channel was accused of being dangerous and of broadcasting biased information—in other words, contrary to the canons of progressive thought. The alleged scandalous nature of the comments made by Pourbaix justified, according to the Minister Delegate for Health at the time, the inclusion of the right to abortion in the French constitution, which was achieved a few months later.

The violence of the attacks forced the channel to backtrack and apologise for what was presented as a handling ‘error’: the computer graphics should never have been broadcast on screen. On X, the channel was even asked to apologise “for the people who may have been hurt by this infographic.”

I consider that apology to be a spineless act of capitulation.  

After several months of proceedings, the French media regulatory authority Arcom has fined CNews €100,000 for this episode. According to Arcom, the broadcaster failed in its “obligation of honesty and rigour in the presentation and processing of information.” 

In the weekly magazine Valeurs Actuelles, Jean-Marie Le Méné, head of the Fondation Jérôme Lejeune, denounced the totalitarian nature of this decision, which proves the denial of reality that surrounds the practice of abortion in France:

Arcom writes: “Abortion cannot be presented as a cause of death.” Equating an aborted child with a dead person would make abortion a homicidal act. So that abortion can be carried out with a clear conscience, it is forbidden to say that abortion takes away life. Otherwise the keystone of the system collapses. But who believes this fiction?

He adds: “Abortion, the leading cause of death in the world, is unfortunately a fact, not an opinion.”

CNews and C8—also owned by Vincent Bolloré—are the only channels ever to have been subject to financial penalties in France.

Hélène de Lauzun is the Paris correspondent for europeanconservative.com. She studied at the École Normale Supérieure de Paris. She taught French literature and civilization at Harvard and received a Ph.D. in History from the Sorbonne. She is the author of Histoire de l’Autriche (Perrin, 2021).

The word police are out there. I wonder when hate speech laws will be applied here to anyone who even hints that an abortion "kills" a "living" human being. 

Truer Words

The next time an Episcopal bishop or priest says something about speaking truth to power, I want you to ask them if they included the words of this Sunday's psalm and Old Testament readings in their sermon/lecture.

 Psalm 71 In te, Domine, speravi

1 In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge; *

let me never be ashamed.

2 In your righteousness, deliver me and set me free; *

incline your ear to me and save me.

3 Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe; *

you are my crag and my stronghold.

4 Deliver me, my God, from the hand of the wicked, *

from the clutches of the evildoer and the oppressor.

5 For you are my hope, O Lord God, *

my confidence since I was young.

6 I have been sustained by you ever since I was born;

from my mother's womb you have been my strength; *

my praise shall be always of you.

Jeremiah 1:4-10

4 Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,

5 ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

and before you were born I consecrated you;

I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’

6 Then I said, ‘Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.’ 7 But the Lord said to me,

‘Do not say, “I am only a boy”;

for you shall go to all to whom I send you,

and you shall speak whatever I command you.

8 Do not be afraid of them,

for I am with you to deliver you,

says the Lord.’

9Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,

‘Now I have put my words in your mouth.

10 See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,

to pluck up and to pull down,

to destroy and to overthrow,

to build and to plant.’

God knows us before He forms us in the womb, and He is our strength even before we are born. Truer words have never been spoken.

Lord, save the unborn. Those are the words of truth that will never be spoken by those in power in the Episcopal organization. 

The Bishop and the President

After "Bishop" Budde lectured President Trump and Vice President Vance from the pulpit of the National Cathedral, I have witnessed reactions from many sides. My revisionist friends rejoiced and placed images of the Budde onto their social media posts while my Christian friends posted well reasoned responses to the "Bishop's" lecture like this one from Campbell. 

"Christians must speak about the conditions which exist in the world, and play our part in shaping society. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells us we are salt and light, the salt which prevents corruption and the light which pushes back darkness. We should act from a biblical standpoint, holding the world and its ways up to the bar of God’s judgement, not our own.

The pronouncements of liberal Christians like Bishop Budde make that task more difficult. She makes it easier for unbelievers to dismiss Christian intervention in social affairs as ill-thought-out regurgitation of progressive talking points garnished with a few Christian terms. If Christians are to speak out, we must do the serious and hard work of examining our world from a biblical perspective. Only then will we deserve to be heard."

The President and Vice President probably never thought a "Bishop" would put on such a performance as a "sermon". I was not at all surprised. I remember when Budde was elected, and she behaved exactly as predicted back then.

 

When I heard her speak I thought, "I've heard this before." 

Indeed I have from many a pulpit, and that is one of the many reasons why I am no longer an Episcopalian. 

I am glad that Budde has gotten so much publicity. She has shown the world what it takes to be an Episcopalian, and what you must believe if you want to join their club. While my die hard Episcopalian friends loved it, I think the majority of Christians saw it as a stark warning to avoid the Episcopal denomination.