migrants

Religion's impact on global migrant crisis: RNS concludes that it's Gordian Knot complicated

Religion's impact on global migrant crisis: RNS concludes that it's Gordian Knot complicated

Globalization has been a decidedly mixed bag.

On the plus side, it’s managed to knit diverse people together economically and, to a lesser degree, culturally. But it’s also further divided others along religious, political, race, and class lines.

It’s introduced us to a myriad of once exotic consumer products at relatively cheaper prices (cheaper for many Westerners, that is). Globalization has also brought us fresh ideas and life choices that — while I certainly don’t agree with every new view put forth — has enormously enriched my own life experience.

On the negative side — and this is huge — it’s allowed multi-national corporate boards (and shareholders) to escape the full weight of responsibility for the enormous environmental degradation their decisions have produced in exploited regions thousands of miles distant from their posh corporate headquarters.

Also, let’s not forget the foreign workers, including child laborers, exploited by unscrupulous employers trying to satisfy their Western customers insatiable demands for rock bottom prices.

For the United States and other Western nations, globalization’s complex outcomes has produced still another key Gordian Knot dilemma. I’m referring to the vast numbers of desperate human refugees heading, most often without proper documentation, to the United States, Europe, Australia — and even to neighboring countries that may be only relatively better off.

The latter group includes situations American news media rarely cover. They include Nicaraguans fleeing to Costa Rica and South Africa’s burgeoning refugee population comprised of hopeful immigrants from a variety of sub-Saharan African nations.

Is it any surprise to anyone with a working knowledge of Homo sapiens that we demand globalization’s creature comforts without us wanting to deal with those actual Homo sapiens that globalization has negatively impacted.


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Seeking complex reactions to latest Pope Francis ink? Head over to Crux, not New York Times

So Pope Francis has spoken, once again. This time we are talking about an apostolic exhortation -- Gaudete et Exsultate ("Rejoice and Be Glad") -- that includes pastoral comments aimed at Catholics in general, but also specific shots at his critics on the doctrinal right.

So let's say that you are looking for news coverage that includes voices on both sides of the Pope Francis debate. You want to hear from people who have just been attacked by the pope. You also want to hear from doctrinal conservatives, as well as liberals, who embrace what the pope had to say, or who see his message as consistent with that of other recent popes.

So, where do you look for coverage that does more than -- let's be honest -- serve as a public-relations office for Pope Francis?

Do you choose a website that specifically focuses on Catholic news or do you turn to America's most powerful newsroom, a newspaper that in the past has been highly critical of Catholic leaders?

That's a trick question, right? In this case, you want to check out Crux to get complex reactions to this apostolic exhortation, while The New York Times gives readers all Francis, all of the time (with zero input or information from critics of this pope).

Which newsroom showed the most independence from the papal powers that be? That would be (drum roll please) the website for a Catholic audience. It's also interesting to note which report framed this document primarily in political terms. Here's the overture at the Times ("Pope Francis Puts Caring for Migrants and Opposing Abortion on Equal Footing").

VATICAN CITY -- Caring for migrants and the poor is as holy a pursuit as opposing abortion, Pope Francis declared in a major document issued by the Vatican on Monday morning.
Pushing back against conservative critics within the church who argue that the 81-year-old pope’s focus on social issues has led him to lose sight of the true doctrine, Pope Francis again cast himself, and the mission of the Roman Catholic Church, in a more progressive light.


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