Religious-Based Civili Disobedience

No, I am not referring to those "wild and frenzied West Bank fanatic Rabbis" or those obscurantist ultra-Orthodox Bnei Brak/Meach Shearim Rabbis" or whatever our Israeli secularists view as the ultimate threat to democracy.

I am referring to a Roman Catholic clergyman in the United States.

A New York Times editorial informs us:-

It has been a long time since this country heard a call to organized lawbreaking on this big a scale. Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the nation's largest, urged parishioners on Ash Wednesday to devote the 40 days of Lent to fasting, prayer and reflection on the need for humane reform of immigration laws. If current efforts in Congress make it a felony to shield or offer support to illegal immigrants, Cardinal Mahony said, he will instruct his priests — and faithful lay Catholics — to defy the law.

The background?

The cardinal's focus of concern is H.R. 4437, a bill sponsored by James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin and Peter King of New York. This grab bag legislation, which was recently passed by the House, would expand the definition of "alien smuggling" in a way that could theoretically include working in a soup kitchen, driving a friend to a bus stop or caring for a neighbor's baby.

And the NYT adds:-

The cardinal is right to argue that the government has no place criminalizing the charitable impulses of private institutions like his, whose mission is to help people with no questions asked.

Well, now, so it is conceptually conceivable to accept that a faith-based position that being forced to leave the Land of the Jewish People should be opposed by...law-breaking.