Catholic bishops say they will defend migrants

TEXAS – The Religion News Service says that gathering in Baltimore on Tuesday (Nov. 12), just a week after former President Donald Trump won reelection, leaders of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops promised to defend immigrants and poor people in the coming years. “As the successors of the Apostles and vicars of Christ in our dioceses, we never backpedal or renounce the clear teaching of the Gospel. We proclaim it in and out of season,” said Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the conference, who also leads the Archdiocese for the Military Services. Broglio’s comments expanded on an appearance last week on the Catholic media network EWTN, where the archbishop said the majority of Catholics had supported Trump due to concern for the “dignity of the human person.” In Baltimore Broglio made clear that human dignity should be protected “from womb to tomb,” saying the bishops were committed “to see Christ in those who are most in need, to defend and lift up the poor, and to encourage immigration reform, while we continue to care for those in need who cross our borders.”

Cautioning that the bishops “certainly do not encourage illegal immigration,” he said, to applause from his fellow bishops, “we will all have to stand before the throne of grace and hear the Lord ask us if we saw him in the hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless, stranger, or sick and responded to his needs.” At a press conference, El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz, current chair of the migration committee, said that while the conference was waiting to see how Trump’s campaign rhetoric will materialize as policy, the conference would speak out for migrants in the event of mass deportations. “We will raise our voice loudly if those basic protections for people that have been a part of our country from its very beginning are not being respected,” Seitz said, referring to both legal and human rights. “This is going to be a test for our nation. Are we in fact a nation based on law, on the most fundamental laws about the rights of the human person?” When asked how he would respond if Trump followed through on suggestions about involving the military in mass deportations, Broglio said he had a responsibility to “ensure pastoral care” for the military. “Unfortunately, the way the military is set up, you cannot conscientiously object to a policy or to a certain war, you have to conscientiously object to war in general, and so that doesn’t really provide an avenue out of the service,” Broglio said.