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March 9, 2020
Donald J. Farber
San Rafael
Rebuffed in 2016 by the voters’ choice of Donald Trump’s strict immigration enforcement, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has doubled down in its support for illegal immigrants and migrants as the 2020 election approaches.
Posting Mexican-born Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez to head their conference in November 2019, a position Archbishop Gomez never originally sought, the USCCB persists that its interpretation of the New Testament takes precedence over the people’s democratic will. This should be troubling to all Catholics regardless of one’s view on immigration.
The USCCB’s longstanding intervention for, even glorification of illegal aliens and associated vilification of Donald Trump for answering the people’s demand to stop illegal immigration, is a deviation from Catholic doctrine the bishops don’t talk about. Paragraph 1951 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church requires Catholics to honor the rule of law as established in civil societies, amplifying the principle that “law is declared and established by reason as a participation in the providence of the living God, creator, and redeemer of all.”
The bishops’ focus on Matthew’s “I was a stranger and you invited me in” (Matthew 25-35) to justify ignoring illegal immigration as a national problem. At the same time the USCCB has effectively censored Matthew’s Gospel that arguably supports President Trump’s strict immigration enforcement as a rightful tool of the civil law, i.e., “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).
The USCCB membership appears in total lockstep with supporting illegal immigrants whatever the cost, and subordinating the catechism’s respect to the rule of law to that shortsighted political objective. If this administration is replaced in November with one advocating abortion up to birth, public funding of genocide, and abolition of conscience clauses as was the case before 2017, the USCCB will have been a party to that.
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