Hispanics and Catholicism Part II

In my previous post "Hispanics and Catholicism" I dealt with a certain article from Crisis Magazine that argued that Hispanic immigration will do much to help re-evangelize American society. At the time, there was no direct link to the article so I couldn't comment on any specific points made. Well now, apparently now there is a link to the article. Not impressive.

The author, John Burger, starts off by saying that the fears of men like Samuel Huntington about Hispanic immigration are bogus, since Hispanics are slowly becoming more American. Burger's proof for this assertion? Well apparently because "the Republican candidate for president garnered 42 percent of the Hispanic vote—a significant increase over that same candidate’s performance four years earlier."

So yes, apparently voting for a Republican candidate is proof enough to show how American you are. This is absolutely absurd to argue this point, but then again I'm not entirely surprised since the close relationship between Crisis and the Neo-Conservative movement has already been pointed out on this blog before.

Rather than go through all his arguments (which in some ways I already addressed) , I want to focus in on his most absurd argument. Burger agrees that Hispanic immigration will fundamentally change America's identity, but he's not worried. Why is that? As he explains:
"With massive Hispanic immigration, America is becoming less English-oriented and more reflective of Latino culture. But, as many in recent years have noted, America used to be a Christian nation. With Hispanic immigration, it may become so again."

It's quite clear that Burger has no idea what exactly it means to be a Christian nation. I devoted an entire post to that topic here. I even quoted from Adrian Hastings(a Catholic priest himself, although a very liberal one) who said the Israelite model of the Old Testament shows that a Christian nation icharacterizeded by "a unity of people, language, religion, territory and government." I also linked to an essay from John Mark Ministries, which quotes Biblical scholar Rowland Croucher as saying that "when the Bible speaks of 'nations' it is primarily referring to people groups defined not so much by artificial political boundaries, as by ethnic origin, language, group loyalty, custom and religion."

This runs counter to Burger's concept of a "Christian nation" which denies any reference to unity of ethnicity and culture. By dismissing America's English-orientated culture, he's dismissing America's national heritage altogether. Hispanic Catholicism reflects its own cultural heritage. American Catholicism must do the same. By importing Hispanics, you're destroying America's heritage(both ethnic and religious). People like John Burger can't seem to understand that.