BALTIMORE (LifeSiteNews) — The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has approved a new initiative aimed at supporting illegal immigrants, heightening tensions with the White House.
The bishops’ “You Are Not Alone” program was announced at the USCCB’s plenary assembly in Baltimore this week by ultra-liberal El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz.
Trump is “intimidating and dehumanizing the immigrants in our midst regardless of how they came to be there,” Seitz claimed during a speech Tuesday.
Seitz is the chairman of the bishops’ committee on migration. He and his colleagues have been criticized in the past by conservative commentator Steve Bannon and Vice President JD Vance, both Catholics, of promoting open borders.
“When they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line?” Vance wondered during an interview in January.
In a symbolic gesture Wednesday, USCCB members voted 216 to 5, with 3 abstentions, to publish a “special pastoral message” on the topic of immigration, the first time in 12 years that such a message has been approved.
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The statement notes that the bishops “recognize that nations have a responsibility to regulate their borders and establish a just and orderly immigration system for the sake of the common good” but it also says they are “saddened” and “disturbed” by the way in which “immigrants” are treated in the U.S. currently.
The statement pits the bishops squarely at odds with President Donald Trump, though it crucially fails to note that the Trump administration is first and foremost concerned with the deportation of illegal immigrants and criminals.
Various news outlets are also reporting that deportation numbers under Trump are not as “record breaking” as they are made out to be in comparison to years past.
Bishop Seitz has a long track record of promoting leftist causes. During the 2020 presidential campaign, he participated in a Black Lives Matter protest where he was photographed kneeling. He also said he was “encouraged by the Biden campaign’s promises to address climate change” as well his plan to “create a path to citizenship for the undocumented.”
In September 2020, less than six weeks before the presidential election, Seitz claimed in an op-ed for America magazine that Catholics cannot be single-issue voters. He also praised Joe Biden’s concern for the working class, despite Biden’s outspoken support for abortion and pro-LGBT policies.
Seitz gleefully announced his new initiative just as the USCCB elected its new president and vice president — Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City and Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas, both of whom have previously issued statements rebuking the Trump administration for its immigration policies.
Seitz also told America magazine last month that Pope Leo XIV supports him speaking out against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
“You stand with me, and I stand with you,” Leo told Seitz and a handful of other clergy during a meeting he had with a U.S. delegation at the Vatican on October 8. “The church [sic] cannot remain silent.”
Seitz’s meeting with Leo was the third time the two have crossed paths. While he was prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, then-Cardinal Robert Prevost invited Seitz to speak to newly consecrated bishops “about the ministry of bishops to immigrants.” They also met at the papal audience for the Jubilee for Missions and Migrants in September.
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Seitz’s initiative is the latest in the ongoing war between the Vatican and the president. After emerging from Castel Gandolfo last week, Pope Leo told the press that there needs to be a “deep reflection” on the U.S.’ current immigration policy.
But government officials have pushed back against the claim that illegal immigrants are being treated unjustly.
“Religious organizations are more than welcome to provide services to detainees in ICE detention facilities,” Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs for the Department of Homeland Security, told Axios.
“ICE staff has repeatedly informed religious organizations that due to Broadview’s status as a field office and the ongoing threat to civilians, detainees, and officers … they are not able to accommodate these requests at this time.”
In 2018, Bishop Athanasius Schneider told an interviewer from Milan’s Il Giornale that “the phenomenon of so-called ‘immigration’ represents an orchestrated and long-prepared plan by international powers to radically change the Christian and national identities of the European peoples.”
Cardinal Robert Sarah also said in 2017 that liberal individualism is promoting a “blending” of cultures that is leading to a “post-national, one-dimensional world” where migrants “of another religion and culture” are being used “for the relativization of the absolute value which is the common good of the nation” they are being welcomed into.
During his speech at the United Nations in September, Trump declared climate change to be the biggest “con job ever perpetrated on the world,” dismissing it as a “hoax made up by people with evil intentions.” He proceeded to label it, alongside illegal immigration, as part of the “double-tailed monster” of the 21st century.
