Prelates, in Minnesota, decry mass deportations

February 28, 2026

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CWN Editor's Note: Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, joined Cardinal Robert McElroy, Cardinal Joseph Tobin, and over two dozen other bishops at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota for conversations about immigration.

At a February 27 Votive Mass of Solidarity with Migrants, Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis preached:

I’ve been angry a lot in these recent weeks. I’ve been angry when our brothers and sisters have been intimidated to the point that they’re afraid to come to Mass, or to go to work, or to the doctor, or to take their children to school. … And I’ve been angry when I’ve felt helpless or unable to find the right words or the way forward to stop the madness unfolding before my eyes.

Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington said at a press conference:

Catholic teaching supports a nation’s right to control its border, and in these cases, to deport those who have been convicted of serious crimes, especially violent crimes.

But to go into the heartland—and literally the heartland of our country—and to begin to deport in a way with almost a siege on the city of Minneapolis, to seek to deport millions of men, women and children, families who have often lived here for decades—many children who know no other country—is contrary to Catholic faith, and more fundamentally contrary to basic human dignity.

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• Posted by: frjimt.stjudes7938 - Today 8:36 AM ET USA

  Where was the anger of the mitres when millions were crossing the border and so many criminals? Please, the faux outrage is pure Theatre