How does the Bible help us to think about migration?
McKeever / 17 Maggio 2019

How does the Bible help us to think about migration? The relationship between the Bible and morality is notoriously complex (see the document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Bible and Morality, 2008). Looking to the Scripture for enlightenment and guidance on any moral issue requires prudence, intellectual honesty and humility. All of this is true in a particular way concerning the contemporary question of migration because it is such a sensitive and controversial issue. In this brief reflection we will consider just one biblical text, perhaps the most important verse in the Bible on this question: “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I the Lord am your God” (Leviticus, 19,34). The verse can be broken down into three parts: a moral obligation concerning the treatment of strangers, the historical fact that the people of Israel were once strangers and the assertion by God of his authority over his people. The key word linking these three parts is the word “for”. Taken literally, this term expresses the idea that one assertion follows logically from another, but…

The Politics of Migration: a Total Eclipse of Faith by Ideology?
McKeever / 29 Marzo 2019

  The Politics of Migration: a Total Eclipse of Faith by Ideology? On the 25th February 2019 there was a panel discussion in the Alphonsian Academy, Rome, on “Faith and Ideology”. It is a vast question which embraces many forms of faith, many forms of ideology and the various forms of interaction between the two. This interaction, often conflictual in nature, manifests itself in the context of numerous concrete questions of our time: the environment, Islamic terrorism, nuclear rearmament and so forth. In this short piece we will consider how faith and ideology interact when faced with the question of migration. There is a real danger that ideology, in its various forms, is in danger of producing a total eclipse of Christian faith on this question. To understand this metaphor we may think of the Christian faith as the Sun (the “light of the world”, in scriptural terms). This Sun sheds light on all human history, including the contemporary history of migration. It allows us to view this immensely complex question with faith, hope, charity, justice and truth. The metaphor of the total eclipse suggests that the light of the Sun is blocked out by the Moon, which intervenes between…