Hooray for the Bishop of Charleston

Last week, I meant to post something on this article from the March 28 Charleston paper, but I got busy, and so I'm just getting to it now.

The Bishop of Charleston, South Carolina, Robert Baker, knows what's his business, and he knows what isn't. He directed his PR man to acknowledge that the immigration issues now being debated (and on which I take no stand myself) are prudential matters, not matters of doctrine. So as so many American Bishops are out campaigning against the immigration bill and handing out water to illegals along the Arizona border (while the few priests they have left are doing who-knows-what to who-knows-whom in the rectories, and the clericalized womyn lay staff at their chancery and in their schools are talking about touching to kindergartners), Bishop Baker is simply being a bishop, and not trying to be a lobbyist, social activist, or politician. Huzzah for Bishop Baker!

Charleston diocese hasn’t taken stand

The Catholic Diocese of Charleston, which serves South Carolina, has not taken a stand on the immigration aid question, spokesman Steve Gajdosik said. The diocese is relying instead on the faithful to make their own, prudent judgments, he said.

“It’s not a doctrinal issue,” said Gajdosik, the diocese’s director of media relations. “It’s a prudential issue. Well-formed, faithful Catholics and Christians can take different opinions because it is a prudential
issue.”

That said, Gajdosik said the church “is always going to seek to take are of people’s humanitarian needs. However the bill turns out, the Catholic church will do all in its power to take care of people’s needs within the law.”

He said he did not know if Bishop Robert Baker had been approached informally for advice by church groups that provide relief to immigrants.