In an era when Church leaders urge the faithful, without qualification, to embrace the migrant as the salvific face of Christ Himself, it is tempting to dismiss any resistance as uncharitable, or worse. Yet true charity demands wisdom, and wisdom sometimes requires confronting uncomfortable truths.
Jean Raspail’s 1973 novel The Camp of the Saints offers precisely that confrontation, at a time when we need to hear it. For believers grappling with the influx of millions into the European first world, often contributing little to the common good of host societies, Raspail’s work illuminates how a Christianity reduced to boundless empathy can lead to disaster and spiritual betrayal. It warns that mass migration, when met with unchecked sentiment, exposes fractures in a gospel misinterpreted as pure self-abnegation, turning the virtues of mercy and hospitality into instruments of self-destruction.
