How very sad that a Dedham Catholic parish has used a Christmas manger scene to attack law enforcement and promote open borders and illegal immigration. The teachings of past Boston Cardinals and the Universal Church have much more in common with President Donald Trump’s America First policies than with the angry social justice warriors who have effectively desecrated a church.

In a famous post-World War II sermon at the Boston Cathedral of the Holy Cross to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Cardinal Cushing summed up real Catholic teaching very well: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. The same law which calls us to love all, even enemies, binds us to love more intensely those who are nearer to us in kinship or in association. Hence, the love of our fellow citizens and of a civil society which they have organized for their common good — which society we call our country — is a derivative of the Divine law of charity itself.”

Further, Saint Thomas Aquinas made a philosophical study of immigration and clearly reasoned that “if foreigners were allowed to meddle with the affairs of a nation as soon as they settled down in its midst, many dangers might occur, since the foreigners, not yet having the common good firmly at heart, might attempt something hurtful to the people.”

The evil of 9/11 and the Boston Marathon Bombing bear out the wisdom of Aquinas. The Tsarnaev brothers travelled back to Chechnya, a country they had sought “fake” refuge from for jihadi training. The 9/11 Commission concluded that 15 of the 19 hijackers were vulnerable to potential foil by authorities because of their immigration status. That commission also concluded that targeting travel is at least as powerful a terrorism fighting weapon as targeting terrorist funding.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court in the bogus Lunn ruling has made Massachusetts a Sanctuary State. Several other cities and towns, including Boston, have taken this lunacy even further, enacting laws forbidding their police to cooperate with ICE.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states clearly in section 2241: “Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various judicial conditions (laws), especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.”

There are so many ways that illegal aliens do not obey our laws. However, the greatest evil that illegal aliens have brought to South Boston, Brighton, Dorchester, Roxbury, West Roxbury, Dedham, and Roslindale is the drug and fentanyl trade.

The key ingredients of fentanyl and methamphetamine are smuggled by Mexican drug cartels, who also profit from smuggling people into the United States. The Boston Police Department leaked their regional Drug Trafficking Report in 2016, it said, “In 59% of the cases where the suspect listed Puerto Rico as their place of birth, there were signs of identity fraud or use of aliases. This would suggest that heroin trafficking in Boston is largely controlled by Dominican drug organizations.”

Many great families in and around that misguided parish in Dedham will be yearning for a missing loved one this Christmas. A loved one who was caught up in the ugly spider’s web of addiction, incarceration, and death that springs from the opioid trade.

Organized crime is alive and well in Greater Boston. These mafioso are illegal alien drug traffickers. Their crimes are being propped up by the ACLU, social justice warriors, progressive judges, liberal politicians, liberal churches, and liberal clergy who champion illegal immigration and demonize law enforcement.

Sadly, ideologues like the pastor of Saint Susanna’s Church in Dedham are even willing to obscure the joy of our Savior’s birth with anti-ICE rhetoric. Maybe the best way to answer Father Feelgood and his ilk this Christmas is to make a special visit to the infant Jesus in the creche at your local church and say a prayer for the brave men and women of ICE … and the Border Patrol.

Louis Murray is a Bostonian and a Roman Catholic.  He is frequent contributor to the Boston Herald.  He tweets on the social media platform X.  Follow him @LouisLMurrayJr1.