any thoughts ?

[Don Corleone]

Such a hypothetical country might have a legal right, but morally, I think would still be wrong. For me, no discrimination on grounds of race, sex, creed etc is right up there with no torturing innocent kittens as a no-brainer. It seems a surprisingly relativist approach for you, Don, to imply that constitutions trump morals.

Oh dear. I apparently left myself open to misinterpretation. I suppose I should have clearly stated that there is a difference between what a being is entitled to do by virtue of their sovereign rights and what a moral course of action in a given situation would be.

In this particular case, I was linking the right or the ability to pursue a course of action as being legally valid to the Constitution that defines said sovereign state. I did not mean to imply that I thought it was a good thing, just that it was a legally permissable thing.

Honestly, I agree with you that discrimination is one of those areas that Christian and secular principles coincide. Jesus didn't rant on ad nauseum, adding up his collected teachings makes for a rather short read. Each of His teaching parables was chosen as a pearl of wisdom and the one about the good Samaritan, groundbreaking for its day, makes it quite clear how He thinks we should treat 'the other'.

From a purely self-interested point of view, I think the Church has got this bass-ackwards. They should give preferential treatment to non-Catholics. Why? Their ultimate goal is to spread the gospel, especially to those who haven't heard it, right? How are they going to spread it to these 100 kids they kept out of class? Who's most likely to have not heard the gospel, the Catholic kids or the 100 children of African refugees (most likely muslim)?