The Dignity of Home

Why are so many people rejecting their homelands? Home is where we are born. Home is where our family is. Home is where our relatives are buried. Home is where we communicate in the same language. Home is where we share a common land and law and know the geography and topography and weather patterns. Home is what nurtures us and makes us who we are as a people.

So why are so many people rejecting their homelands and moving hundreds or thousands of miles away to foreign lands? War has often been the reason for taking in migrants and is undoubtedly a noble gesture. Persecution is another reason, but that gets more tricky to define and to prove. After that it is a massive slippery slope that ends with “the right” of everyone to live anywhere regardless of borders. No matter the reason for one's flight from their country of origin, they should always be encouraged to go back home when conditions stabilize (in the case of war) if they love, honor, and respect their heritage. But why are non-war, non-persecuted people fleeing their countries of origin en mass with no intention of ever going back? I'm sure there are some nuances, but it probably boils down to opportunity. For some – and unfortunately this increasingly looks like a minority – it may be an opportunity to provide better for their families. For many others, it is an opportunity to be taken care of by the modern welfare state and/or to exploit the laws of their host country through fraud (as we have recently seen). And for others still it is an opportunity to conquer via colonization...and to use the resources of the welfare state.

Another important question is why these migrants are encouraged and assisted to come to our homelands by our own people. The motivations of our fellow countrymen probably boil down into two categories: ideology and misplaced compassion. It is misplaced compassion that is my current subject. Catholic non-governmental organizations (NGO's) received $2.9 billion during 2020-2024 in immigration-related funding, including $2.6 billion to Catholic Charities and $1.6 billion directly to the USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) to assist the estimated 11 million people who came here illegally. Although resettling immigrants and refugees have long been policies aligned with Catholic social teaching, the massive amount of taxpayer money that poured into these groups is astonishing. Therefore, it is probably not surprising that many in the Catholic hierarchy have been critical of the current administration's policies on stopping the immigration flood and their attempts to send some of them back home – allegedly focusing on murderers, rapists, and other criminals - including bishops at the USCCB putting out videos and cardinals going on 60 Minutes to condemn immigration enforcement. This is clearly a case of a conflict of interest, misplaced compassion, or both, and how a legitimate concern for the vulnerable and the weak has led to institutional confusion or decadence. How much of that $2.9 billion was channeled into helping victims of human smuggling and sex trafficking caused by the illegal immigration machine of which they were one of the cogs? Whatever the answer, my concern as of this writing regards the pathological paternalism of all those in the U.S. and other 'developed' nations toward 'developing' nations. For all the talk in some quarters of the evils of colonization, there is something very smug and condescending about the western nanny state and their enablers withing the church implying that the cultures of these migrants are worthless and that we need to take care of them and they need to adopt our way of living. They don't. Our materialistic way of life is splintering the family and society and causing despair. What they – and we – need to adopt is a radical following of Christ.

Diversity has always been a lie. Diversity will not and can not make a stronger society, but integration which brings unity can and does. Many people who have fled their homelands into our homelands – legally or illegally - have no interest in learning our languages, obeying our laws, or subscribing to our Judaeo-Christian morality and ethics. We all need to be integrated into Christ and united with a common vision. This is why people should remain at home with their ancestral lands and church graveyards. We need to embrace what is good about our heritage while rejecting what is bad. The Haitians, Somalis, Mexicans, Venezuelans, Chinese, etc. need to toil among their own people to create societies of agricultural and spiritual abundance as well as dignity and love of neighbor instead of abandoning all for free housing and welfare checks. Catholics and most Christians have always believed in the dignity of work (i.e. The Protestant Work Ethic), so resettling poor strangers with limited skills in foreign lands who have a language barrier is not a good policy for a dignified life...and that assumes they are not actually hostile to western foundational principles.

All I have said so far precludes that one's home is worth living in and not abandoning. If this were true than all cultures are worthy of respect and none are superior to others. This, of course, is not true. Mayan child sacrifice was worth abandoning. Planned Parenthood child sacrifice must also be abandoned. One of them occurred prior to the Christianization of a culture and the other occurred after the slow de-Christianization of another. This doesn't mean everything about those cultures is evil but that the chaff must be separated from the wheat. The chaff, or weeds, must be burned. Cultures need to be purified and that purification comes from the gospels and the democracy of the dead within the church. The ancestors of the Mayans in the 21st century should be proud of their unique apparel and the architecture of their forefathers while living enlightened lives brought about through Jesus' sacrifice. They should respect who they are and to work together to bring dignity and health to all their people. Instead, many of them have fled and many more would like to flee the lands of their birth for foreign lands further north. This must stop. Unless it involves war, these people and all people are fleeing from their fellow countrymen who created their societies. And this goes on year after year, decade after decade, with no end in sight. There is no end because many of them are dependent on other countries to prop them up. If they are impoverished, defrauded, and have high levels of societal distrust or violence then they have no self respect as a people.

The answer is not a gigantic world-wide melting pot. Sameness brought about by globalism is not a recipe for unity but for totalitarianism. People wearing the same suits and neckties in New York, Nairobi, Dubai, and Kuala Lumpur and eating at the golden arches is not a sign of progress but of cultural tragedy.

Therefore, go back home. Build each other up and embrace what is good and special about your cultures so that it may enrich the rest of us when we visit your lands with your unique topography, geology, history, architecture, apparel, cuisine, etc. Cherish what makes you unique in your lands and reject the lie of a globalist 'diversity' of uniformity and exploitation.