ROME — Catholics on the left have denounced a statement by the U.S. bishops following President Donald Trump’s plans to deport “millions” of illegal immigrants, saying that the response was too weak and conciliatory.
On Saturday, the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops (USCCB) released a statement in response to the Trump administration’s “impending immigration enforcement actions,” acknowledging the right of nations to control their borders, while urging greater attention toward the root causes of migration.
Calling for immigration reform, the statement, signed by Bishop Joe S. Vásquez, the chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration, also declared that the bishops “stand ready to work with the Administration and Congress to achieve those objectives.”
The lack of sufficient outrage in the bishops’ statement provoked a reaction bordering on the hysterical on the part of notorious Catholic social justice warriors.
Jesuit Father Ken Homan, a self-described “social justice warrior,” said that at some point, the U.S. bishops “need to be willing to say that participating in ICE raids is a sin, family separation is a sin, and those enforcing child concentration camps are torturing children, preventing reception of Eucharist.”
Moral theologian Meghan Clark called the bishops’ response “a terrible and embarrassing statement,” because it was “framed around reassuring ‘dont worry we believe immigration laws should exist’” and failed to respond with the “prophetic call required by this moment.”
Jesuit-trained Marcus Mescher, who teaches Christian Ethics at Xavier University in Cincinatti, said that the bishops’ “tepid words about the violence being done to migrant families” remind him of Christ’s severe words in the book of Revelation: “because you are lukewarm … I will spit you out of my mouth.”
Italian theologian Massimo Faggioli, a Trump critic who teaches at Villanova University, tweeted that the bishops’ remarks were “worse than saying nothing.”
In the face of this avalanche of criticism from the left, the U.S. bishops released a second statement on Wednesday, denouncing with far more intense language the death of a father and his baby daughter who drowned crossing the Rio Grande.
This event “reaches heaven itself,” the bishops said. “This unspeakable consequence of a failed immigration system, together with growing reports of inhumane conditions for children in the custody of the federal government at the border, shock the conscience and demand immediate action.”
“This image cries to heaven for justice. This image silences politics. Who can look on this picture and not see the results of the failures of all of us to find a humane and just solution to the immigration crisis?” the bishops said.
“Sadly, this picture shows the daily plight of our brothers and sisters. Not only does their cry reach heaven. It reaches us. And it must now reach our federal government,” they said.
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