Fatima Perspectives #1365
In his “Urbi et Orbi” Message on Christmas Day, Pope Francis could not, of course, refrain from promoting his obsessive demand that Western nations accommodate wave after wave of illegal immigration by predominantly male “refugees” who have supposedly been forced to flee countries to which they remain connected on their smartphones.
As one inadvertently revealing article explains, smartphone-wielding “refugees” illegally entering EU countries, many from Syria, are using their phones “to keep in contact with relatives” — meaning wives, children and other close relations they left behind, who apparently are in no fear of imminent death or starvation. These contacts are conducted via “WhatsApp, Facebook and Viber” and “Some even take selfies to let their family know they have reached Europe safely.”
Just a moment: If a purported “refugee” is sending selfies home to his family, who are not refugees, how exactly does this selfie-sending smartphone user credibly claim that he, but not his family, had no choice but to seek refuge as an illegal alien in the host country?
Wirelessly connected “refugees” are also “using GPS navigation tools, Google maps, online translators, [and] currency exchanges…” Currency exchanges are useful for electronic transmission back home of money the “refugees” will siphon off from the EU social welfare system or the employment market in which they will compete unfairly with citizens or legal residents.
The liberal media have labored to explain away the glaring significance of “refugees” who all have smartphone connectivity to their home countries. For example, this article admits that Syria is not as poor as people assume, which severely undermines the claim of “refugee” status, although the author declares that anyone who thinks so is an idiot. Another article, likewise full of revelations damaging to the “refugee” narrative, observes that “The possession of a smartphone during migration can also be valuable in itself, allowing refugees to complete mobile transactions and directly pay for their transportation expenses. A lot of monetary transactions are done over the phone now.”
One academic study, summarizing the results of other studies, notes that “a number of academic studies have emphasized the importance of mobile phones in assisting migrants in: the maintenance of relationships with their home countries… remittance transfers… or job networking…”.
Mobile banking activity between a “refugee” and his wired-up relatives back home seems hard to square with refugee status. How can one credibly claim to be a “refugee” while using his smartphone to say in touch with his home country and send remittances to relatives still living in the same country who have not sought refuge anywhere? Such a person is no refugee. He is an economic migrant flouting the laws of the host country while other economic migrants follow the law and wait years to gain citizenship or permanent resident status.
Now, of course, there are legitimate refugees from war-ravaged countries and their claims should be taken seriously and handled justly. But this is a matter for civil authority to adjudicate on a case-by-case basis. It is not a matter on which a Roman Pontiff should be issuing a stream of blanket pronouncements, even on Christmas day, demanding that civil authorities admit endless waves of illegal immigrants under the label “refugee” or demagogically denouncing without distinction “inhumane detention camps” and “walls of indifference,” as Francis did in his “Urbi et Orbi” address.
Christ did not commission His Church so that the Pope could demand open borders or, for that matter, a reduction in CO2 emissions or some ill-defined “ecological conversion.” If this Pope wishes to be a politician of the globalist Left, he should consider a career in politics. Meanwhile, this Christmas the Church is desperately in need of the divine gift of the Vicar of Christ that Francis was elected to be.
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