The Pope’s disastrous letter on immigration

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Feb 12, 2025

In a letter ostensibly written to support the bishops of the US, Pope Francis has actually made life considerably more difficult for them. In his letter on the Trump administration’s immigration policies the Pontiff makes an argument that is poorly informed, easily rebutted, and likely to divide the American Catholic faithful. This is an argument that the American hierarchy cannot win. And, not coincidentally, the argument presented by the Pope differs notably from the most recent statements by more prudent American prelates.

Has any modern Pontiff ever written a statement so harshly critical of the policies of a sovereign nation? If so, it has escaped my notice. Mit Brennender Sorge unequivocally denounced Nazi racial ideology, but Pope Pius XI focused that encyclical on principles, not specific public policies. There is precedent for a papal letter cautioning the American hierarchy, of course, but in Testem Benevolentiae Pope Leo XIII too spoke in general terms—indeed, so general that the “Americanists” he set out to rebuke could and did reply that the Pope’s admonitions did not apply to them.

Not so with the letter from Pope Francis. There can be no doubt that he intended to criticize the Trump administration, and specifically its plans to deport illegal aliens. Nor can anyone who has followed the American political debate miss the Pope’s deliberate thrust at a specific Catholic political figure, Vice President J.D. Vance.

When they felt it necessary to intervene in political debates, previous Pontiffs were wise to limit themselves to the statement of moral principles. After all it is the province of the laity to apply those principles to the specific circumstances of life in the secular world, and the role of political leaders to make the prudential judgments that form public policies. The infallibility of the teaching magisterium does not extend to political debates. Indeed when prelates become partisan the results are usually injurious: to society, to the Church, or quite likely to both.

Which principles come first?

If the Pope’s primary goal is to uphold human dignity and expose injustice, it is curious that he addressed this letter—by far the strongest political statement of his pontificate—to the bishops of the United States. He might, for example, have denounced the injustices perpetrated by the Communist regime in China, with its suppression of democracy and religious freedom, its brutal treatment of ethnic minorities, and (since Pope Francis is keenly interested in “our common home”) its deplorable level of pollution. But this Pope has remained silent about injustice in China. In fact under his leadership the Vatican has done everything possible to ingratiate itself with the Beijing leadership, while one of the Pontiff’s key allies actually cited China as a model of Catholic social teaching!

And if the Pontiff wanted to bring the principles of Catholic social teaching to bear on the American scene, why did he never denounce the Biden administration for its worldwide promotion of abortion, same-sex marriage, and gender ideology? Pope Francis has, to his credit, frequently complained about the “ideological colonization” practiced by powerful nations that have foisted their destructive ideas on the developing world, using their financial clout as leverage to further the sexual revolution. Under the leadership of President Biden, a Catholic, the US was the world’s most powerful force for this ideological colonization.

Under Biden (and his predecessor, President Obama), the power of the federal government was also unleashed against Catholic targets on the domestic front. SWAT teams raided the homes of peaceful pro-life activists; Uncle Sam’s lawyers hounded the Little Sisters of the Poor; agencies created to fight discrimination singled out health-care practitioners who refused to be involved in immoral procedures. But Pope Francis never connected those dots.

Why, then, this harsh treatment of the new administration, just a few weeks after Trump took office? Some of the Pope’s supporters claim that Vice President Vance took the first shot, by barking back at the bishops who criticized the new approach to illegal immigration. But certainly Vance was not the first Catholic politician who responded to criticism from Church officials by criticizing those officials in turn. In the past prominent Democrats like the late Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi have been openly critical of the Church’s teachings on the impossibility of ordaining women, to cite just one example.

Or was Vance’s offense not that he criticized the Church’s teachings, but that he criticized the Church’s leaders?

At odds with Church teaching

In his letter Pope Francis is on very firm ground when he states the Church’s unshakable commitment to human dignity. No one—in the Catholic Church or in the Trump administration—should have objected to that principle. But the Pope’s distorted application of the principle now makes it easier to dismiss even that sound first principle.

As a nation the US has been historically generous in accepting immigrants, and most of us have reason to celebrate that generosity. The Statue of Liberty stands as a tribute to America’s willingness to accept new citizens. But there are limits to the immigration that a society can accept: limits that are well established in Catholic social teaching, which teaches that a nation has the right to protect its people and its culture. Where exactly should those limits be drawn? That is a prudential question, best answered by the nation’s own people and their leaders, not by someone 4,000 miles away.

Even Pope Francis, in this letter, acknowledges that “one must recognize the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival.” But he fixes his opposition to the Trump policy on a key distinction, insisting that someone who breaks immigration law is not a criminal:

The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.

Here the Pope might have said that an otherwise law-abiding immigrant who entered the US illegally at some point long ago should not be treated as a dangerous criminal. That would be a defensible argument; mass deportations may not be the best solution to the current American crisis. But what the Pope actually said is that someone who violates immigration law is not a criminal. That claim is not only illogical but hypocritical, since less than a month ago the Vatican—of which Pope Francis is the supreme legislator—raised the criminal penalties for anyone who enters the city-state illegally, allowing for four-year prison terms and fines of about $25,000.

And then Pope Francis takes a gratuitous shot at Vice President Vance by writing about the ordo amoris—using the term that Vance had used to explain why the government’s duty to protect citizens of the US takes precedence over the needs of people from other countries. This principle, best explained by St. Thomas Aquinas, can be readily understood as a matter of common sense—so readily, in fact, that the argument against it seems silly. Every sensible person knows that a father’s first obligation is to his family; a government’s first obligation is to its people.

Pope Francis encourages us to understand this ordo amoris by “meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.” Yes, as Christians we recognize a duty to help all those in need, whenever we can. But that duty does not obviate the priority due to those closest to us, those entrusted particularly to our care. Even the Good Samaritan eventually went home, presumably to his family.

An anti-American bias…

To date, so early in the second Trump presidency, we still do not know how many immigrants will be deported. (Will it be as many as the 5 million deported during the Obama years, without a protest from Rome?) Sensible critics of White House policy will no doubt continue to argue against mass deportations. By making unreasonable arguments—and arguments that can be so easily dismissed—Pope Francis has complicated the challenges facing Church leaders who want to take that line. Like any other issue in a democracy, this policy is subject to debate, compromise, and change. But with his frontal assault on the Trump administration, the Pontiff has encouraged the White House to be equally combative: a posture not likely to favor compromise.

Nor is the Pope’s letter the first signal of open hostility. The appointment of Cardinal Robert McElroy as Archbishop of Washington, and the subsequent statement by McElroy that Trump was unleashing a “war of fear and terror,” were equally clear indications that the Pope was anxious for direct confrontation. This week’s appointment of a new Archbishop of Detroit, Edward Weisenburger, who in the past has floated the possibility of excommunication for Catholic border officials who enforce immigration policy, is another. (Has any American prelate ever suggested excommunication for the insurance agents who cut checks to pay for the mutilation of children, or the police who haul pro-life protesters away from the doors of abortion clinics?)

There are, again, serious prudential issues involved in the deportation of immigrants. Will it be harmful to families? Disruptive to communities? These are questions worthy of debate, and some American bishops are raising them—having first established their bona fides by acknowledging that the current American immigration system is irreparably broken and must be repaired.

Pope Francis does an injustice to Americans when he writes that a more restrictive immigration policy would be “built on the basis of force,” with the suggestion that restrictions benefit the rich and powerful at the expense of those in need. In fact it is the poor who live in neighborhoods where crime has soared because of immigrant criminal gangs; it is young working-class families who struggle to make ends meet as they compete with immigrants for jobs and for housing. Affluent liberals assure us that we need not worry about the costs of services for immigrants because “we can afford it.” Yes, we can, but only if we pile the costs onto the massive federal debt that we hand over to our children. Isn’t the willingness to saddle our progeny with a debt that already runs to over $300,000 apiece a clear violation of that ordo amoris?

… which will fuel anti-Catholic prejudice

Since it is an unabashedly political document, the Pope’s letter should be judged by its likely political impact—which will be negative. The Pope’s arguments themselves are defective. Worse, they tempt the many Americans who disagree with him to question the Pope’s moral authority, and the authority of the Church as a whole.

Catholic prelates frequently fail to recognize the enormous loss of credibility that the hierarchy has suffered in recent years, as a result of successive scandals. Pope Francis himself is a prime example. On the very day that the Pope’s letter to the American bishops was released, other headline stories dredged up the damaging scandals of Bishop Zanchetta and “Uncle Ted” McCarrick, both very damaging to this papacy. As long as Father Marko Rupnik remains in good standing, the Pope’s critics will have an easy reply to any unwelcome statement from Rome.

Sure enough, the Trump administration’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, who is Catholic, responded to the Pope’s tough letter with some tough language of his own. “I’ve got harsh words for the Pope,” he said, adding that the Pontiff “ought to fix the Catholic Church.” The scandals within the Vatican may have no direct bearing on the American immigration debate, but they make it all too easy to dismiss the Vatican voice.

Perhaps significantly, in his statement responding to the Pope’s letter, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the president of the US bishops’ conference, did not echo the specific arguments that the Pontiff had raised. He reaffirmed the fundamental principle that in considering the problems of migrants, “we are ever mindful that in them we see the Face of Christ.” But he did not attempt, in his brief reply, to draw practical applications from that principle. Instead he respectfully thanked the Pontiff “for your prayerful support.”

Reading the archbishop’s reply, do I detect a gentle hint that the American bishops hope the Pope will support them, as they take a more nuanced approach to the immigration debate? I hope so.