{"id":5463,"date":"2018-06-22T11:27:11","date_gmt":"2018-06-22T15:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.staindy.org\/church\/?p=5463"},"modified":"2018-06-22T11:29:12","modified_gmt":"2018-06-22T15:29:12","slug":"st-thomas-aquinas-statement-family-separation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.staindy.org\/church\/st-thomas-aquinas-statement-family-separation\/","title":{"rendered":"St Thomas Aquinas Statement on family separation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cLet the little\u00a0children<\/a>\u00a0come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of\u00a0God<\/a>\u00a0belongs.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We remain greatly concerned and cannot remain silent.\u00a0 At least 2,000 children have been separated from their parents at the border and remain imprisoned at the command of the current administration. \u00a0They and their families are dehumanized and cast as vermin trying to \u201cinfest\u201d this country by the highest authorities in the land.\u00a0 The children have either been put into cages or transported far away and denied access to their loved ones.\u00a0 This cruel policy is aimed at the most vulnerable, even asylum seekers, who are allowed by law to attempt entry into the USA to escape indescribable suffering. Whatever public gestures have been offered in the last few days, the following facts remain:\u00a0 1) the children remain separated from their loved ones; 2) no clear path exists for their reunification; and 3) the policy of immediate detention of all persons seeking safety in our country which caused this crisis remains in effect.<\/p>\n

Mary and Joseph carried their child into Egypt seeking safety.\u00a0 If Christ\u2019s family were refugees, we are all refugees.\u00a0 Each one of these migrants is following in our Savior\u2019s footsteps. We should not rest until they are safe and reunited.<\/p>\n

Policies punishing families for the most human instinct of seeking refuge from suffering are inherently unjust. \u00a0Cruelty toward vulnerable children is evil. \u00a0As St. Augustine taught, an unjust law is no law at all. \u00a0As St. Thomas Aquinas himself said, \u201cif the law purports to require actions that no-one should ever do, it cannot rightly be complied with; one\u2019s moral obligation is not to obey but to disobey.\u201d\u00a0 No Christian can rightly take a screaming child from her mother\u2019s arms, nor stand silent in the face of a policy that does so on a wholesale basis.\u00a0 It is our Christian duty to rail against this injustice.<\/p>\n

Each immigrant is pilgrim bearing, like the rest of us, a weight of loss and fears and a faint leavening of hope.\u00a0 All this they\u2019ve borne across the desert.\u00a0 We cannot imagine depths of their fear, nor comprehend the beauty of their faint hope.\u00a0 Christ\u2019s command to welcome the stranger was never more relevant.\u00a0 It is our Christian responsibility to help these people in any way we can.<\/p>\n

We the Pastor and Parish Council of St. Thomas Aquinas ask you to prayerfully consider what you can do to defend these most vulnerable and desperate families. Please pray, call your elected officials, offer comfort to the afflicted, march in the streets and do what you must until this injustice is ended and remedied.<\/p>\n

Father Michael Hoyt<\/em><\/p>\n

Shanna Martin, President \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tim DeLaney, VP\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cara Swinefurth, STA Principal<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cLet the little\u00a0children\u00a0come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of\u00a0God\u00a0belongs.\u201d We remain greatly concerned and cannot remain silent.\u00a0 At least 2,000 children have been separated from their parents at the border and remain imprisoned at the command of the current administration. \u00a0They and their families […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5464,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.staindy.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.staindy.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.staindy.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.staindy.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.staindy.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.staindy.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5465,"href":"https:\/\/www.staindy.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5463\/revisions\/5465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.staindy.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.staindy.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.staindy.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.staindy.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}