The night before yesterday, I was entertained by a thrilling day at the Lord’s Test match between India and England which could still go either way. The football match between England and Wales had a predictable result with England winning 6:1, going on to play Sweden but the Welsh can console themselves with the absolutely stunning goal that they scored half way through the second half. It looks and feels that the hot weather may be moderating itself just a tad which means that we may have a few cooler days of respite, and even a little rain, to which to look forward. I have been reading on Sky News, with increasing horror, the operations of the US ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agency in deporting so-called illegal immigrants in recent weeks, . In the past month, immigration and customs enforcement agents – known as ICE – have intensified their raids on homes and workplaces across Los Angeles. Since the beginning of June, nearly 2,800 undocumented immigrants have been arrested in the city, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The previous monthly high was just over 850 arrests in May this year. People being deported who came to the country when they were teenagers and are now in their late 50’s so have children and grandchildren but if they undertake such operations as selling fruit or tacos on a street corner, they are easily visible and quite liable to be picked up and put into detention somewhere. But now the local community is getting organised with mobile phones so that the local residents can come to the aid of the arrested person. Often the ICE subcontracts its operations to masked men with no uniforms or means of identification which is part of the Trump way of doing things. But his Vice President, J D Vance a convert to Catholicism is seeking to redefine what is meant by ‘neighbour’ given additional piquancy because in the Church’s liturgical calendar, on Saturday in Church we given the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ where Jesus was asked ‘Who is my neighbour>?’ So, a dispute is growing between the Papacy and the White House along the following lines. In a letter, Pope Francis in his lifetime argued that Catholic Christians ought to have a fundamental disposition of compassion toward immigrants because Israel was a migrant people who fled Egypt, because Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were exiles and refugees in Egypt (fleeing Nazareth), and because Jesus in his incarnation ‘chose to live the drama of immigration.’ With the recent turn in U.S. immigration law toward the mass deportation of illegals, the Pope signalled his displeasure with this development, declaring that this moment is ‘a decisive moment in history to reaffirm not only our faith in a God who is always close, incarnate, migrant and refugee, but also the infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person.’ Pope Francis heavily emphasised the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights. To defend the dignity of all people—regardless of their citizen status—and to protect their universal human rights, the Pope argued, was the essence of the common good: ‘the true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all—as I have affirmed on numerous occasions—welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable.’ In other words, good government is determined by how well it cares for the most vulnerable of the world, for ‘an authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalised.’ I will be interesting to see how the conservative and Trump-supporting elements of the Catholic church in the USA responds to this one but at the moment, the evident tensions are clear.
The weather being a bit fresher today, I made my way fairly slowly down the hill in order to pick up my copy of my daily newspaper from Waitrose . There I availed myself of the cup of coffee made available to cardholders and then started up the hill. I was delighted to bump into our Irish friend and we chatted for a little before I carried up the hill. About two thirds of the way home, a little ed car drew up alongside me and it was the very chatty Liverpudlian parishioner who I actually met in the Methodist Centre last Wednesday. I had in my knapsack a copy of the eulogy (and résumé of Meg’s life) for which I had given her the web address but I had a paper copy of it in case she couldn’t access it. She was delighted by this and also intimated that she enjoyed reading this blog which she had managed to access. First thing this morning, I had put out a ham joint to cook in the slow cooker so later on the morning did my normal procedure of saving half of it in the freezer whilst slices from the other half were added to some freshly prepared onion gravy which I ate with half a baked potato and some green beans. I had a bit of a doze after my dinner but then girt my loins to go out and give the car a wash which I am trying to make into a regular Monday afternoon job from now onwards. I use a watering can with a long flexible spout to give the car an initial wetting. This is followed by a going over with a long-handled brush, a further treatment with a big car washing glove and then a final rinse off with plain water and a certain amount of drying on the horizontal surfaces. I tuned into what seemed to be a long and rambling press briefing which Donald Trump was giving in the Oval Office of the White House. It may be that Trump has finally run out of patience with Putin’s prevarications over the war in Ukraine Trump is now going to authorise the sale of long-range missiles to the European members of NATO who will, in turn, give their existing stock of long-range missiles to the Ukraine. This is to even up the disparity in strengths between Russia and the Ukraine but whether it bring Putin to the negotiating table remains to be seen. The Russians have been given 50 days before new sanctions or tariffs are applied against them but this is certainly a development to be regarded with interest.