Church could do more good if families were higher priority

Your support for people who choose to live in America without permission is troubling (CR, Feb. 7). Many fathers are leaving families behind in Central American countries to come here for money. The loss of a father’s presence in the home community is causing problems for their children. Girls are not protected and there is a big increase in out-of-wedlock births. Boys are joining gangs. This reaction to the missing fathers is very similar to the problems we saw happen to poor families when the War or Poverty encouraged fathers to abandon their children in Baltimore, so that mothers could benefit from government support.

Surely the Catholic Church could do more good if intact families were a higher priority. Action to help governments in countries with large populations of poor people to improve their treatment of their own people would be a more compassionate focus of church attention.

In what other areas of civic life are Catholics supposed to ignore the laws of the land? Is it a pick and choose situation for obedience in all things or just some situations?