U.S. bishops approve ‘special pastoral message’ in Baltimore on immigration

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a “special pastoral message on immigration” Nov. 12, voicing “our concern here for immigrants” at their annual fall plenary assembly in Baltimore.

The statement came as a growing number of bishops have acknowledged that some of the Trump administration’s immigration policies risk presenting the church with both practical challenges in administering pastoral support and charitable endeavors, as well as religious liberty challenges.

Archbishop Richard G. Henning of Boston told OSV News in an interview that the feeling “we have to say something” on the subject of showing solidarity with immigrants has been “kind of bubbling up from the bishops.”

“Obviously, the beliefs of the church have political consequences, but they’re not political in the usual sense of the word,” he said. “And so there was a real effort to make sure that this would be a pastoral address to our people rather than an attempt to lobby.”

Despite differences in age, geography or other viewpoints, Archbishop Henning said, the U.S. bishops have almost universally heard from parishioners or pastors about “suffering the effects of this.”

“We’re pastors,” he said. “We care about the people we serve, and what we’re hearing from them is fear and suffering. So it’s hard not to want to respond to that.”

The statement, released in the late afternoon, said, “As pastors, we the bishops of the United States are bound to our people by ties of communion and compassion in Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement,” it said. “We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care. We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status.

“We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools,” it continued. “We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones. Despite obstacles and prejudices, generations of immigrants have made enormous contributions to the well-being of our nation.

“We as Catholic bishops love our country and pray for its peace and prosperity. For this very reason, we feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of human dignity.”

The statement also refers to Catholic social teaching on immigration, which seeks to balance three interrelated principles: the right of persons to migrate in order to sustain themselves and their families; the right of a country to regulate its borders and immigration; and a nation’s duty to conduct that regulation with justice and mercy.

For example, Archbishop Henning told OSV News that “Catholic teaching doesn’t like chaos, because chaos often produces great injustice for the most vulnerable.”

“But it’s possible to go too far the other way too,” he said.

Catholic teaching “exhorts nations to recognize the fundamental dignity of all persons, including immigrants,” the statement said. “We bishops advocate for a meaningful reform of our nation’s immigration laws and procedures. Human dignity and national security are not in conflict.

“Both are possible if people of good will work together. We recognize that nations have a responsibility to regulate their borders and establish a just and orderly immigration system for the sake of the common good. Without such processes, immigrants face the risk of trafficking and other forms of exploitation. Safe and legal pathways serve as an antidote to such risks.”

The church’s teaching, it noted, “rests on the foundational concern for the human person, as created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:27).”

“As pastors, we look to Sacred Scripture and the example of the Lord Himself, where we find the wisdom of God’s compassion,” it continued. “The priority of the Lord, as the Prophets remind us, is for those who are most vulnerable: the widow, the orphan, the poor, and
the stranger (Zachariah 7:10). In the Lord Jesus, we see the One who became poor for our sake (2 Corinthians 8:9), we see the Good Samaritan who lifts us from the dust (Luke 10:30–37), and we see the One who is found in the least of these (Matthew 25).

“The Church’s concern for neighbor and our concern here for immigrants is a response to the Lord’s command to love as he has loved us (John 13:34),” it said.

The message was approved by the vast majority of voting bishops and was met with a standing ovation. Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, newly elected president of the USCCB, spoke in favor of the statement from the floor, saying, “I’m strongly in support of it for the good of our immigrant brothers and sisters,” adding that the statement sought “balance” in “protecting the rights of immigrants, but also securing and calling upon our lawmakers and our administration to offer us a meaningful path of reform for our immigration system.”

According to a USCCB news release issued with the text of the statement, this “marked the first time” in 12 years the bishops’ conference “invoked this particularly urgent way of speaking as a body of bishops. The last one issued in 2013 was in response to the federal government’s contraceptive mandate.”

Details of the statement were a matter of some debate at the public session Nov. 12, with Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago suggesting the addition of language opposing “indiscriminate mass deportation.” Others voiced concurrence but raised qualifications, like also adding “without due process,” or questioned the conference’s procedures for making an amendment at the assembly. The added phrase was ultimately approved, and is found in the final paragraph of the message: “We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people. We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement. We pray that the Lord may guide the leaders of our nation, and we are grateful for past and present opportunities to dialogue with public and elected officials. In this dialogue, we will continue to advocate for meaningful immigration reform.”

The bishops’ concern has a reference point in existing magisterial teaching. St. John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical “Veritatis Splendor” (“Splendor of Truth”) and 1995 encyclical “Evangelium Vitae” (“The Gospel of Life”) both quote the Second Vatican Council’s teaching in “Gaudium et Spes,” that names “deportation” among various specific acts “offensive to human dignity” that “are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honor due to the Creator.”

St. John Paul underscored that these acts were examples of “intrinsic evil” incapable of being ordered to God or the good of the human person.

When the U.S. bishops ultimately approved the language after some debate, Archbishop Henning quipped, “The amended amendment passes.”

In his interview with OSV News after the vote, Archbishop Henning said, “It’s not an easy thing to kind of get us all moving completely in the same direction.” But he said the overwhelming support for the message showed “a fundamental unity among us.”

“I think there was a pretty powerful sense among all the bishops that what we’re experiencing on the ground in our dioceses is that there’s a great deal of suffering and confusion, and I would say even chaos,” he said. “There’s kind of arbitrariness right now, in the experience of the people, that generates pretty significant fear.”

Contributing to this story were OSV News’ Kate Scanlon, Gina Christian, Maria-Pia Chin and Peter Jesserer Smith, national editor.

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