Official Catholic opposition to border control (as discussed in "America's Vaticrats") received additional attention in a Jan. 12 panel sponsored by the American Bar Association. Council of Bishops representative Kevin Appleby appeared with a gaggle of open-borders enthusiasts from Cecilia Munoz (La Raza) to Anthony Romero (ACLU).

Mr. Appleby outlined the Church's policy positions, e.g. earned legalization and support for the McKennedy bill, also noting, "Ours is a church of immigrants."

Toward the end of his little spiel, Appleby let it slip that "Many who oppose immigration are Catholic," so the Church has launched a new website, Justice for Immigrants, to "educate" parishioners into correct Vaticrat thinking. Like so many institutions today, the Catholic elites are out of touch with the constituents they are supposed to serve.

You can watch the panel discussion (truly 90 minutes in space) by pasting rtsp://video.c-span.org/15days/e011206_aba.rm into the URL line of your RealPlayer, or clicking on American Bar Assn. on Immigration Reform. The link will be good for a couple weeks, and you must have RealPlayer loaded up.

In addition, Grover Norquist was memorably evil in his remarks, no small achievement among such a group. The arrogant self-designated tax reformer (recently a friend of terrorist followers of Islam) actually said that America was the pre-eminent power in the world because of our success with immigration, calling it "our number one competitive advantage against the rest of the world." That's extreme talk, even for the most fervent cheerleaders of unrestricted immigration.

But a day later, I could find no mention of Grover's dramatic declaration in the press.