I have a few questions to Americans who call themselves Christians and their clergy.
How can Christians turn their backs on innocent people fleeing war-torn or gang- and drug cartel-ridden countries, who flee only because their lives are at stake, especially since our country has been one of the greatest contributors to their plight?
We devastated Iraq based upon a blatant miscalculation about weapons of mass destruction.
We are the greatest purchasers and consumers of illegal drugs funneled into the U.S. by cartels. We drove gangs out of our country into Mexico and Central American countries that don’t have governments that can protect their citizens from them.
We have supplied all sides of the warring factions in the Middle East with weapons they use to kill each other.
We claim to be a country that desires peace and we present ourselves as taking the high road in foreign matters, when in fact we are complicit in bringing about suffering, death and destruction in these conflicts, largely due to foreign policies that fail to calculate unintended consequences.
Finally, how can Christian clergy keep silent about the plight of immigrants and refugees from these countries and not contest President Donald Trump’s near-blanket condemnation of them as terrorists, rapists and gang members, when they are the ones fleeing such people? Why are the clergy not the voice of the poor, powerless and disenfranchised?
Would Christ and the apostles have kept silent were they alive today? Would they have adopted the “build a wall,” “America first” posture?
I don’t believe they would.
Thomas Severin
Connellsville