Trump's wall and the challenge of vulnerability | National Catholic Reporter

Trump's wall and the challenge of vulnerability | National Catholic Reporter by Patrick Manning.  MGB: When I first saw the headline, I thought it meant the wall of electoral votes Trump was building up.  I don't take his comments on building a wall on the southern border seriously, although an impenetrable wall would save a lot of lives, as people die in the American desert after making the crossing.  The wall that is Trump's undoing is his wall of money, which was encouraged by his boyhood pastor in what was the precursor to the prosperity gospel.  I am wont to condemn either Protestantism or atheism on general principle - since both hold up a mirror to the Church that she does not often want to see - but in this case I have nothing but scorn for the idea that the rich are divinely favored due to their strategic contributions to the collection plate. That is not giving, its investing.  There is no part of that in the real Gospel.



As for immigration, I am not unsympathetic to the problem of migration - but I would revoke all restrictions on it and right to work laws as well.  I doubt that many foreign workers would be hired for union labor, especially if you could not call immigration to remove the ones that make trouble.  Still, any that are needed should be welcomed and immediately placed on a path to citizenship.  And the path should be short - the traditional five years.  Of course, if we make coming here less exclusive, it will probably be less popular.  A wall would just make coming to America more attractive.



On the biblical allusions, the original humans were hunter-gatherers - long before Adam of Kurdistan was born and was faced with the necessity of farming to deal with climate change.  As for Babel, we now routinely use rockets to touch the Heavens, only to find that Heaven is not a place in this universe.  As for Jesus, he was a day laborer - at the mercy of those who would hire him to be able to eat - he is the one that migrant workers identify with, for his life was the same.  He was no Trump (who is a builder).