Virtue signals are not prudent.

Mark Richardson, who notes that St Vincent de Paul is turning an retirement village they have just bought into a refugee centre…

Their primary concern is with currying favour with the liberal establishment on the terms of the latter
I think that’s part of it. The overarching mistake was to think that they could exist as an entity within the liberal frame, not realising that the liberal frame would require the abandonment of substantive positions. The Church now seems to mostly pursue that which does fit within the liberal frame (an aggressive open borders interpretation of charity). Maybe too it’s a human nature thing: of bishops and cardinals wanting to fit in with the establishment and be seen as good and loyal members of it, even if this means signing on to the dissolution of the Western tradition, including the Christian aspect of it. Maybe they are worried that if they appear too “anti” they might lose funding for Catholic schools. Or maybe it is that the liberal personalities within the Church have finally gained a firm ascendancy over those with a more traditionalist outlook.

What strikes me the most, though, is that there is no prudence in the Church now. It is like observing ideologues who put a simplistic principle over an intelligent attempt to create a workable order out of a complex reality. They will follow the principle all the way even if it means dissolving their own existence.

My apologies if this sounds harsh to my Catholic readers, but I don’t see how it can be denied. If we were to get on board with Pope Francis, it would mean embracing, as a sign of our virtue, an open borders understanding with the Muslim world, which would then inevitably over time lead to a Muslim West rather than a Christian one.

No one can possibly claim that this represents the Catholic tradition. It is a break from the tradition and it clearly lacks prudence.

He is right. Virtue signals are not prudent. And calling those who say otherwise racist or illiberal no longer works.