Bishop Dewane: Immigrants deserve compassion, not 'Alligator Alcatraz'
“It is unbecoming of public officials and corrosive of the common good to speak of the deterrence value of ‘alligators and pythons,’" says leader of Catholic Church in southwest Florida.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’s “Alligator Alcatraz,” or the Gator Gulag, as I choose to refer to it, is an embarrassment to Florida, and to the nation. We should be ashamed at how our government is using our tax dollars to establish in the Everglades a concentration camp that institutionalizes President Donald Trump’s dehumanizing approach to immigration, which is marked by masked secret police agents treating all undocumented immigrants as if they were all hardened criminals deserving to be tortured by the threat of being eaten by alligators as part of some sort of performative horror story.
Bishop Frank Dewane of the Catholic Diocese of Venice in Florida, whose flock includes thousands of Southwest Florida Catholics from Latin America, agrees — albeit, his condemnation of Alligator Alcatraz is somewhat more pastoral than mine.
“It is unbecoming of public officials and corrosive of the common good to speak of the deterrence value of ‘alligators and pythons,’ at the Collier-Dade facility.,” Dewane said in a statement released last week. “Decency requires that we remember individuals being detained are fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters of distressed relatives. ”
Quoting his boss, Pope Leo XIV, Dewane continued: “This dignity of every person always remains unchanged: it is the dignity of a creature willed and loved by God.”
The church, as Dewane notes in his statement, has long advocated for immigration reform that both secures the nation’s borders, “as well as to accommodate needs for labor, family stability and the ability of those at risk of grave harm to migrate with due process. Enforcement should be proportional. We continue to propose reforms that will enhance our immigration system, respect human dignity and promote the common good.”
Read Dewane’s full statement here.
Here is story offering some clues on how awful it is inside Alligator Alcatraz. https://popular.info/p/the-memeification-of-cruelty
Let me just say I am in disagreement with the bishop. No where in the Scriptures are we commanded to be nicer than Jesus. It seems the stance by some Christian leadership (Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, and Charismatic) is to pronounce on society their take on forgiveness and reconciliation. It seems they have added a tenet of their own making. That is the no consequence heresy. It’s a heresy because nowhere in Scripture is there a verse that says upon your forgiveness (by man or God) will the physical consequences of your sinful, unlawful activity, be in any way concluded without suffering and possible pain(physical, emotional, or otherwise.
I’m sorry if the slang, “Alligator Alcatraz” brings upon you some sort of self righteous shame or guilt, but this could have all been avoided if the illegal aliens (sorry, they are not immigrants, and by the way, neither was Jesus.). I am not saying that we should not love our neighbors as ourselves. Yes we should! We should also pay attention to the total verse: “The greatest commandment is, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all soul, with all of your mind. The second is like it. Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” You love quoting the latter without paying attention to the former. The denial of consequences that are directly attached to our sin… cannot be denied. I know that referring to Scripture as the basis of my opinion is not something many take into account. Basically because you don’t believe the Bible to begin with, and I don’t fault you for that. If you take time to read 1 Corinthians 2:14, and 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, you will hear the Apostle Paul’s explanation as to why you do not believe.
All that to say,”God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, he shall reap.” (Galatians 6:7-8). For us to forgive is one thing. For us to be in the consequence abatement business, is neither helpful nor beneficial to society, or the perpetrators. Not to mention it is against the law…