Pope Francis issued a clarion call to U.S. Catholics Feb. 10 to reject the anti-immigrant narrative of the Trump administration. He also rebutted Vice President JD Vance’s appeal to ordo amoris to justify the administration’s “America First” policies.
Vance, who is a convert to conservative Catholicism, already has drawn rebuke from Catholic leaders in the U.S. over his Jan. 29 comments during a TV interview: “There’s this old school — and I think it’s a very Christian concept, by the way — that you love your family and then you love your neighbor and then you love your community and then you love your fellow citizens and your own country, and then after that you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.”
In his letter to U.S. Catholic bishops, Pope Francis said: “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings! The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation.”
“The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the Good Samaritan, that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception,” Francis declared.
The brief papal letter was written to address “these delicate moments that you are living as pastors of the people of God.”
Trump ally Tom Homan, a lifelong Catholic recently confirmed as border czar in the administration, lashed out at the pope in comments to reporters Tuesday: “He ought to focus on his work and leave enforcement to us. He’s got a wall around the Vatican, does he not?”
Later Homan told reporters at the White House: “I wish he’d stick to the Catholic Church and fix that and leave border enforcement to us.”
READ: The Dangerous Depravity of Trump ‘Border Czar’ Tom Homan
In the letter, Francis cited the biblical story of the Exodus “to reaffirm not only our faith in a God who is always close, incarnate, migrant and refugee, but also the infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person.” Then he cited the fact that Holy Family became refugees in their flight from King Herod.
“Even a cursory examination of the church’s social doctrine emphatically shows that Jesus Christ is the true Emmanuel; he did not live apart from the difficult experience of being expelled from his own land because of an imminent risk to his life, and from the experience of having to take refuge in a society and a culture foreign to his own,” the pope said. “The Son of God, in becoming man, also chose to live the drama of immigration.”
Francis said he has “followed closely the major crisis” in the United States Trump’s program of mass deportations.
“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,” he explained. “At the same time, 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. That said, the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.”
Francis affirmed the “rule of law” as essential to government but said “an authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized.”
Proper “rule of law” includes “strict respect for the rights of all,” he said, and “welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable. This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration.”
What’s not orderly, he warned, is when immigration policy plays to “the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others. What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.”
READ: Words That Wound: How the MAGA Movement’s Language of Immigration Fuels Dehumanization
He admonished the U.S. bishops for their work to serve migrants and refugees, “proclaiming Jesus Christ and promoting fundamental human rights. God will richly reward all that you do for the protection and defense of those who are considered less valuable, less important or less human!”
He concluded: “I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of good will, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters. With charity and clarity, we are all called to live in solidarity and fraternity, to build bridges that bring us ever closer together, to avoid walls of ignominy and to learn to give our lives as Jesus Christ gave his for the salvation of all.”
This article was originally published at Baptist News Global, a reader-supported, independent news organization providing original and curated news, opinion and analysis about matters of faith. You can sign up for their newsletter here. Republished with permission.
