Episode 291: Fr. Piotr Mazurkiewicz on the Immigration Question in his Two Towers and a Minaret (August 21, 2024)

In this episode of The Open Door, panelists Jim Hanink, Valerie Niemeyer, and Christopher Zehnder discuss the multi-faceted issue of immigration. How can we better understand the new waves of immigrants, whether in the United States or Europe? What does the Church teach about the ethical issues that come into play? How can we assess the politics of immigration? What role should our parishes play and how might we best respond at a personal level? Our special and welcome guest is Fr. Piotr Mazurkiewicz. He is a professor of political science and Catholic social thought at Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw as well as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Christianity—World—Politics. From 2008-2012 he served as Secretary General of the Commission of Bishops of the European Community COMECE. Mazurkiewicz recently authored Two Towers and a Minaret: Migration from a Catholic Perspective (En Route Books, 2024). Among the questions we’ll ask are the following. 

1.  Fr. Piotr, could you tell us how you came to your work on the topic of migration?
2. How would you compare current migration to Europe with migration to the United States?
3. What is national sovereignty and what is its foundation? What are the limits of sovereignty?
4. Is there a right to emigrate? A right not to emigrate?
5. What happens to property rights in times of grave necessity? 
6. How do you understand multiculturalism? Is it an ideology?
7. On what basis can we evaluate the practices of a given culture?
8. Here in the United States we often speak of a “culture of death.” Might not the first concern of many cultures be the need for repentance?
9. Should Poland respond to migration from Africa and the Middle East in the same way that it is responding to refugees from Ukraine?
10. What might it mean with regard to immigration to be neither right nor left but simply Catholic? What might be some promising political approaches to migration?

Mass migration is a serious challenge in both America and Europe. Hence the question of the ethical limits of hospitality. The answer must consider not only the needs of migrants, but also the ability of the host country to integrate migrants. This depends not only on the size of the migration, but also on its homogeneity. For example, a peculiarity of the current migration to Europe is the strong dominance of Muslims, which is changing its religious demographics and, consequently, European culture.

https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/twotowers/