No, not the one of the poor Italians in need of shelter and food, or the one of homeless veterans living on the streets of any major US city, or even the poor souls escaping the crumbling Communist economy in Venezuela?

It is a statue of migrants arriving with an angel in their midst to be welcomed wherever they decide has the best deal to supply their needs.

 

Although the reporter, Erica Evans, at Deseret News gives her story a slight tilt toward the views of US federal resettlement contractors doing their usual spin about how they are driven entirely by their Christian zeal to help the stranger, she throws in some commentary from others who question the wisdom of hauling the third world (at great expense to taxpayers) to the first world every time there is a conflict somewhere on the globe.

The pope is making a statement about immigration with this new statue at the Vatican

SALT LAKE CITY — Pope Francis has repeatedly warned against exclusivist immigration policies and called for broader options for migrants and refugees to enter destination countries safely and legally at a time in which refugees are fleeing violent and unstable countries around the globe.

On Sunday, the Pope unveiled a new statue at the Vatican depicting 140 migrants and refugees traveling on a boat. He counseled people of faith to respond to displaced people with four words: “welcome, protect, promote and integrate,” The New York Times reported.

The pope’s outspoken views on refugees and immigration policies have raised questions about the role religious leaders play in debates about immigration.

Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, says religious leaders are too narrowly focused on humanitarian needs and fail to consider nations’ rights and interests.

“My critique of them is that sometimes they implicitly conflate the purposes and mandate of the church with the purposes and mandate of the state.” said Tooley. “The church, of course, is called to offer aid and hospitality to all people in need, but the secular state’s primary purpose is to look after the interest of the nation and people over which it has jurisdiction.”

Tooley said there is nothing wrong with the statue if it is meant as a call for concern for people fleeing violence, but “inevitably” some will use it for political reasons to demand higher levels of immigration and refugee resettlement. [Exactly!—-ed]

[….]

The presence of the sculpture in St. Peter’s Square is meant to commemorate the 105th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, according to Vatican News. In his message for the occasion, Pope Francis said that extreme individualism is being reinforced by the media in rich countries and resulting in the “globalization of indifference” towards migrants, refugees and other people in need.

Tooley, however, doesn’t think that prioritizing national interest when it comes to immigration is a sign of “indifference.” He said religious people might think it’s selfish for a government to look after its own citizens first, but that is not the case.

“That’s not selfish,” Tooley said. “That’s similar to parents looking after their own children. Hopefully they treat other people’s children well, but they shouldn’t prioritize other people’s children over their own.”

According to Tooley, the pope and other Christians advocating for more lenient immigration laws should acknowledge that there are limits to the number of people who can be resettled in a given country, in addition to economic and security risks to be considered.

[….]

Church World Service, Episcopal Migration Ministries, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services are among the organizations listed as U.S. resettlement partners by the United Nations.

Here it is! Finally 29 paragraphs into the story (how many uninformed readers got this far)?  These phony-baloney non-profit Christian groups get their funds from us—the taxpayers—not from their parishioners and church members!

Soerens [Matthew Soerens, the U.S. director of church mobilization for World Relief], said his organization, World Relief, has closed resettlement offices in seven cities, including in Boise, Idaho, Nashville, Tennessee, and Miami, Florida. He said the closures were a result of fewer refugees and a reduction in government funding.

Continue reading, there is a lot here.

In case you missed it, see how much payola the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Migration Fund lost in just the first full year of the Trump Administration, here. 

It is no wonder they are squawking!

One day I hope to see the mainstream media shut up on the ‘welcome the stranger’ BS and tell the full story about how much of your money is doled out from the US Treasury to these supposed ‘religious charities’ (all hardcore Leftwing political agitation groups!) so they can brag about their compassion.

I can dream!