Where Moth Destroys: Why Has the Pope Appointed a Pro-Migrant Fanatic to Lead the Catholic Church in England?

I was in Westminster Cathedral last week and the place was heaving with migrants and asylum seekers. Only kidding. I was in the cathedral showing my grandson around, but the place was remarkably devoid of migrants and asylum seekers which was probably the result of the two security guards at the entrance.

Funny that, when the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church – my church – seems too keen to welcome migrants, legal or illegal, to our shores and is so keen on the British Government giving so much of our hard-earned taxes to people who have broken our law and make no contribution to the economy, often at the expense of essential services such as GP appointments and housing benefits for people born and bred in this country.

We have recently had one of the most radical and controversial Popes in the history of the Catholic Church and, while his successor Pope Leo XIV is not such a firebrand for some of the issues on which Francis scattered confusion amongst the flock (gay marriage and climate change), his actions may speak much louder than his words. His blessing of a block of ice surely betrayed his views on climate change and he seems, also, to be soft on migrants. Yet, like Westminster Cathedral, the Vatican also remains remarkably devoid of asylum seekers. It is, in fact, remarkably devoid of ordinary Roman Catholics, who are not permitted to penetrate its almost watertight security.

Virtue-signalling in vestments

Of course, Pope Leo is not a lone voice regarding migration in the Catholic Church, which, certainly in the United States – as I reported in these pages – is largely The Democratic Party at Prayer. He is simply the lead singer in the choir of virtue-signalling bishops, archbishops and cardinals across the world who see migration and asylum-seeking unquestioningly as self-evident virtues.

Of course, Christians must care for migrants and asylum seekers fleeing persecution and warfare. But those flooding our shores daily and illegally are, largely, economic migrants; many may be breaking into our country in the hope of building a better life for themselves. But, to put it bluntly, many are simply criminals. They are here to steal from us and increasingly are adding intimidation, harassment, molestation and rape of our young women to the list of their crimes. They have also passed through several perfectly safe countries to reach our shores. These facts are never referred to in sermons from those who fetishise migrants.

Lest anyone within the Catholic Church was in any doubt where Pope Leo stood on the issue, he has proceeded to dispel that doubt with the election to the head of the Catholic Diocese of Westminster of Bishop Richard Moth, currently Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, who will become Archbishop of Westminster and de facto leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. He replaces Cardinal Vincent Nichols – no slouch when it came to virtue-signalling about migrants – and one imagines, if Moth sticks to the script, that it will not be too long before he himself is wearing a red hat.

Bishop Moth is about as pro-migrant a senior clergyman as could be found. He was lionised in the Guardian – that well-known bastion of Christian and Catholic values – which reported how “he recently put his name to a statement calling for empathy for ‘those who come to this country for their safety’, reminding Catholics that Jesus’s family fled to Egypt as refugees”.

Nazareth to Egypt: not quite Dover to Kent

The image of the Holy Family as refugees is now a popular motif. While Bishop Moth and his ilk among Roman Catholic clergy may stop short of portraying Jesus, Mary and Joseph in a rubber dinghy wearing lifejackets, as was recently done outside St Paul’s Cathedral, he has perpetuated the erroneous idea that there is any similarity between the situation in which the Holy Family found themselves after the birth of Jesus and a bunch of priapic Muhammadans running up the beaches in the southeast of England. Apart from anything else, the Holy Family did not cross any borders as both Palestine and Egypt were under the Roman rule of Augustus Caesar. For Mary and Joseph this was like fleeing from Scotland to England to get away from the Hate Crime Act. One almost wishes there was a book in which all this was explained… oh, wait a minute – there is!

The militant wing of compassion

There has been remarkably little negative public comment on Moth’s appointment, But I expect that Catholic Unscripted and Gavin Ashenden will pick this up on their respective channels soon. However, there has been plenty of enthusiastic support from all the expected sources. For example, Director of CAFOD, Christine Allen, congratulated Archbishop-elect Moth saying: “His emphasis on the virtue of justice, as a means of maintaining right relationships with God and one another, is one which is needed to ensure our society is one based on love not hate.” And she thanked Cardinal Vincent Nichols “for all his work and support to CAFOD” and his “important voice, especially speaking up for refugees and migrants”. For non-Catholics, CAFOD is essentially the political wing of the Catholic Church, as I have commented previously in Country Squire Magazine and the New Conservative.

Unsurprisingly, from the armed wing of the Catholic Church, Dr David Ryall, Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service UK, gave “heartfelt thanks” saying Bishop Moth “spoke strongly about the UK’s moral duty to welcome refugees and encouraged the Catholic community as it offered sanctuary. The cardinal’s support for the work of JRS UK gave hope and comfort to so many of our refugee friends.” I would have fewer objections to these exhortations to welcome asylum seekers if all things were equal. But they are not; popes and bishops exhort but they expect the rest of us to bear the burden both economically and socially.

People as informed as Bishop Moth cannot be ignorant of the terrible effects uncontrolled immigration of largely young Muslim men of military age is having on some areas of our country. Whole neighbourhoods are becoming unrecognisable. He also cannot be ignorant of what the influx of the same demographic is having on some areas of Europe: Christmas markets being attacked, Nativity scenes being vandalised and the live donkeys which some feature being tormented and abused, and Christian churches being vandalised.

This largely does not happen in the UK, perhaps because Christmas markets are banned, Nativity scenes are removed lest they cause offence and Catholic Churches have long had to remain locked when not in use. Even if it did happen, clerics and politicians would undoubtedly blame it on the far-Right for not making marauding male Muslims feel sufficiently welcome.

In the Gospel of Matthew it says: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy…” I’m sure that was a reference to a physical and chemical process, but it may also have been a warning.

Professor Roger Watson is Academic Dean of Nursing at Southwest Medical University, China. He has a PhD in biochemistry. He writes in a personal capacity.