The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1959-03-20
JOSEPH BREIG-
Peoples Right
TO Migrate

| wonder whether we will ever realize that God
made our planet to be the home of the family of man.
and that every last one of us is entitled to the help
Of the others in making a successful life.
You can tell this a simplification If you please,
and no doubt it is; but all statements of basic prin-
clple are simplifications that 60 to the root of a
question, and leave the Towering and leafing for flu
ture developments. IS
The Founding Fathers s~implified when they
wrote In the Declaration of independence that all
men are created equal and are endowed by their
Creator with certain inaienable rights.
Such packing-together of great theological and
political truth was sheer genius; and out of it has
grown not only the American nation, but movements
for independence and human rights which 60 on
sweeping the world like huge winds.
NOW WE ARE LIVING in the Century of the
Exodus, or perhaps we should say the Decade of the
Exodus. In the years since the end of World War II,
40 million human beings have left everything to flee
from despotism.
To this day, despite mine fields, guards with
automatic rifles, floodlighted frontiers, masses of
barbed wire, and constant police surveillance, the iron
curtain leaks thousands into the free world every
month.
We are faced, therefore, with the question of the
right of human beings to migrate. Thus we are con-
fronted with the challenge to measure up to the fam
illness of all mankind.
No one is more keenly conscious of this gigantic
reality, with which the minds and consciences of all of
us must grapple, than the bishops of Australia. into
which pour hundred of thousands of goth century
settlers.
THE AUSTRALIAN bishops, therefore, after
much study, issued a Joint statement that the right to
migrate is "a natural heritage of man. which must be
recognized, protected and promoted by the state and
the community of nations"
Is this revolutionary? 1t is revolutionary only in
the sense that every great ~trenchant basic truth is rev.
dictionary demanding, as it does, that humanity
rise to its stature as a family of children of God.
Pilgrims of the Night was the touching phrase
with which the Australian bishops described the mill
lions who are hewing out-or waiting their opportun-
IV In how OIt-npu l1ynC in frpndnrn from ftrrannv
After setting forth the Fundamental truth that
man has a right. as a heritage from the nature God
gave him. to look to new frontiers and horizons, the
bishops wisely emphasized certain qualifying ccndi-
tons.
RIGHTS. they noted, are not absolute,
but exist in relation to such factors as the natural
moral law and the common good. The rights of the
individual are modified, even is they are protected, by
such realities.
Nations, and of course the world community
tsaid the bishops may Justly control migration, with
in reason, in order to safeguard public, economic well
fare and security.
Within such boundaries, however, the nations and
the community of nations have an insistent duty to
open up decent futures for those who choose free
dom in preference to grovelling under goddess dicta-
torships.
Rightly, the bishops praised Australian authori-
ties for efforts already expended in behalf of hum
dreds of thousands who have found homes Down
Under" and who will certainly make a much greater
Australia in the future.
TIE ST70 dlSU FOicSu t1elI appreciation u
the herculean work done by American Catholics
through the us. Catholic Relief Services, the ac-
complishments of which are multiplied with the help
of surplus food and clothing given by the us. govern
ment.
Nevertheless, the bishops faced the fact that
more must be done for the pilgrims of the Night
who flow out of the Empire of Satan-as the Germans
call the area under communist enslavement.
The bishops asked the Australian government to
admit more of these pilgrims. Surely, by inference,
they also addressed the appeal to other nations.
This is one of the great challenges of our time.