Vance vs. the bishops on immigration, Part II

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Jan 29, 2025

After reading Part I of this essay, several readers wrote to lament that for every dollar the US bishops’ conference spends to support pregnancy-help centers, roughly $50 goes to programs assisting immigrants. If the Church is truly committed to helping those most in need—the poorest of the poor—shouldn’t the defenseless unborn children have higher priority?

The question is valid, but irrelevant to my argument. Pregnancy-help centers and refugee-resettlement programs fall into completely different categories in the work of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). When they provide support for pregnant women, the bishops are performing a charitable act. When they provide support for refugees, they are fulfilling a government contract.

The bishops themselves do not carry out the terms of federal contracts, of course. The hired staff at the USCCB does the day-to-day work. Like any other government contractors, those staff members have a vested interest in continuing their employment, expanding their responsibilities, emphasizing the importance of what they do, and lobbying the government to increase their funding. If the contracts are not renewed, the bishops face an unpleasant choice between laying off the employees or digging into an already strained budget to find new ways to pay them. So the USCCB has a strong institutional incentive to endorse federal programs that increase immigration.

Charity vs. contract work

For the last four years, that institutional incentive coincided neatly with the policies of the Biden administration. Now, under Trump, things are changing. Wasn’t that predictable? Government contractors comply with government policies, and government policies change with the political winds. Evangelical counsels do not. At times a Church agency may judge that the terms of a federal contract match the demands of charity, and all will be well. But sooner or later the government may require something more, or less, or different from, what Christian charity dictates.

So situations arise in which a Church agency defends an illegal immigrant accused of sexual assault, but ignores the needs of the impoverished woman who was his victim. Or a Church agency, committed to supplying interpreters for immigrants who do not speak English, provides a young woman with an interpreter to accompany her on her visit to Planned Parenthood. In these situations—both taken from real life—the government contract takes precedence over the demands of charity and of prudence, to the detriment of the common good.

The simplest way to avoid such conflicts would be to eschew government contracts, and provide Christian charity as it was traditionally understood: offering help to the needy on the basis of freewill offerings from the faithful, not taxpayer subsidies. But the leadership of the Catholic Church has become accustomed to partnerships with government: partnerships that always and everywhere entail moral risks.

What the Church teaches

In its statement explaining its immigration polices, the USCC proclaims: “The Church supports immigration reform that would increase the number of visas available for low-skilled workers and facilitate family reunification.” In that sentence, what does the reference to “The Church” actually mean? The USCC supports immigration reform, certainly, as described. But have the People of God given their assent to those policies? It seems abundantly clear that faithful American Catholics have different opinions about the proper solution to the immigration crisis.

The formal teachings of the Catholic Church allow ample room for such differences of opinion, and clear reminders that the question of immigration is a question of prudence, a question best left to the secular government, which is responsible for judging the particular needs of the common good. (In the quotations that follow, the emphasis is mine.)

  • From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2241): “Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws, and to assist in carrying civic burdens.”
  • From Pope John Paul II, in his Message for the 87th World Day of Migration in 2001: “The exercise of such a right [that is, the right to immigrate to a particular country] is to be regulated, because practicing it indiscriminately may do harm and be detrimental to the common good of the community that receives the migrant.
  • From Pope Benedict XVI, in his Message for the 99th World Day of Migration in 2013: “Every state has the right to regulate migration and to enact policies dictated by the general requirements of the common good, albeit always in safeguarding respect for the dignity of each human person.”
  • From Pope Francis, in an interview with the Spanish daily El Pais just days ago: “Can borders be controlled? Yes, each country has a right to control its borders, who enters and who leaves, and countries that are in danger—of terrorism or the like—have more right to control them more . . . “

Are Trump policies too harsh?

Pope Benedict XVI, in the message quoted above, taught that the fundamental test of immigration policy is whether it respects human dignity. On that score the announced policies of the Trump administration are certainly open to question—as were the laissez-faire policies of the Biden administration, which allowed chaos at the border and real dangers to American security.

In a fairly balanced statement issued last week, the Catholic bishops of Colorado recognized the disastrous state of American policy before Trump, saying: “Since 2020, the US immigration system has grown more unlawful.” But then, having established that they were not promoting a partisan political agenda, they complained: “Mass deportation is not the solution to our present situation in the United States, especially when it may separate parents and children.”

Fair enough. We can and should continue debating the particular means that the federal government uses to carry out its policies. Having made illegal immigration his top campaign issue, President Trump is taking very aggressive steps in these first weeks of his administration, no doubt hoping to generate the sort of “shock and awe” that will deter further immigration and encourage some illegal residents to leave voluntarily. Perhaps in time the Trump policies will be eased, if and when the situation at the border is stabilized.

In that respect the USCCB and its institutional allies were on much safer ground when they protested the Trump administration’s decision to end a policy that treated churches, hospitals, and schools as “sensitive locations” that should not be disrupted by immigration raids except in cases of emergency. A statement issued by the USCCB responded:

We recognize the need for just immigration enforcement and affirm the government’s obligation to carry it out in a targeted, proportional, and humane way. However, non-emergency immigration enforcement in schools, places of worship, social service agencies, healthcare facilities, or other sensitive settings where people receive essential services would be contrary to the common good.

Reasonable Americans should readily understand why churches, especially, should be treated as “sensitive locations” or “protected areas,” not subject to government incursions. If the US bishops frame their argument in those principled terms, rather than joining the partisan political battles, they could have a more salutary influence on the immigration debate.

Next: The White House fights back

Phil Lawler has been a Catholic journalist for more than 30 years. He has edited several Catholic magazines and written eight books. Founder of Catholic World News, he is the news director and lead analyst at CatholicCulture.org. See full bio.

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  • Posted by: tjbenjamin - Feb. 01, 2025 7:34 PM ET USA

    Taking money from secular governments unavoidably compromises faith-based organizations.

  • Posted by: rsnewbill7950 - Jan. 31, 2025 5:49 PM ET USA

    Sorry, but it is not harsh to insist that potential immigrants respect and abide by the laws of the country they wish to enter. As soon as they enter illegally, they have done neither of the above. And the Church ought never to contract with government; what the government funds it's allowed to control.

  • Posted by: Retired01 - Jan. 30, 2025 3:10 PM ET USA

    The following may also shed light on the issue. According to data collected by the Lepanto Institute from 2019-2024 the breakdown of political contributions by employees of the following Catholic institutions to the Republican (R) and the Democratic (D) parties were: Catholic Charities 23% R and 76% D, Vincent De Paul 11% R and 88% D, and Catholic Relief Services 1% R and 99% D. Is this a reflection of the political inclination of the bishops?

  • Posted by: loumiamo4057 - Jan. 30, 2025 8:20 AM ET USA

    Let's bring this down to a level where possibly even our wayward catholic bishops might understand, "We recognize the need for just [Anti-Squatting] enforcement and affirm the government’s obligation to carry it out in a targeted, proportional, and humane way. However, non-emergency [Anti-Squatting] enforcement in schools, places of worship, social service agencies, healthcare facilities, or other sensitive settings where people receive essential services would be contrary to the common good.

  • Posted by: ewaughok - Jan. 29, 2025 8:08 PM ET USA

    Again, thanks, Mr. Lawler for your careful attention to this. As you point out, the bishops continue to make arguments from economic necessity and political expediency rather than moral principle. They continue to ignore the vast amount of suffering brought about by huge illegal immigration: sex trafficking, child slavery, multiple deaths due to human smuggling, illegal drug trade, and many more serious instances. it does seem to boil down to feeding at the government trough, unfortunately

  • Posted by: miketimmer499385 - Jan. 29, 2025 11:58 AM ET USA

    "Mass deportation" evokes images of packed train cars and detention camps, better swift and wide apprehension of known and dangerous criminal elements, which is what we are seeing. The sensitive location issue is a sticky wicket. The Israelis have confronted that exact problem on steroids with Hamas. I wouldn't trust people in control of the identified locations given the tendency for blatant disrespect for immigration law exhibited by many of their kind. Questions have to be asked and answered.