Remember Nuremberg trials, West Virginia bishop says in immigration statement

August 01, 2025

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CWN Editor's Note: In a statement on the current immigration crisis, the bishop of West Virginia’s sole diocese reflected on “our government adopting harsh measures to deport as many immigrants as possible, often without distinguishing between true criminals and law-abiding persons.”

Bishop Mark Brennan of Wheeling-Charleston also recalled the Fugitive Slave Act, which “required not only local police but ordinary citizens to assist federal marshals in returning escaped slaves to their Southern masters or face heavy fines and jail time,” as well as the Nuremberg trials after World War II, in which “the judges held that a soldier, guard or official, who authorized or engaged in gross violations of human rights, was personally responsible for his acts.”

Bishop Brennan added:

What has been reported about excesses in immigration enforcement does not approach the horror of Nazi treatment of prisoners but the principle of personal responsibility for one’s actions remains the same. Challenging a superior’s unjust or cruel order risks retaliation, so the degree of injustice a government agent perceives in such an order must be weighed against the potential for severe repercussions against the agent.

Still, we should all keep in mind that the final judge of our actions is God. Our Church would have no martyrs if the highest good was to preserve one’s life. Some things are worth taking a principled stand for. How would God judge actions that pull a man away from his wife and children in order to deport him? How would He judge arresting a person just because “he looks like an immigrant?” How does He look at a large, rich nation that turns away the world’s poor and suffering?

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