Catholic bishops rebuke Trump on immigration

U.S. Catholic bishops meet for annual conference, criticize President Donald Trump's immigration policies

Catholic Bishops met for their annual conference in Baltimore

(Image credit: Stephanie Scarbrough / AP Photo)

What happened

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Wednesday issued a rare “special message” that implicitly rebuked President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown. The pastoral statement — approved 216-5, with three abstentions — came at the end of the bishops’ annual meeting in Baltimore. The last time the Catholic bishops “invoked this particularly urgent way of speaking,” the USCCB noted, was in 2013, in response to the Obama administration’s contraceptive coverage mandate.

Who said what

The message did not call out Trump by name, but it was clearly a “public reproach of his immigration policies,” Axios said. The government’s treatment of immigrants, including “arbitrarily” revoking legal statuses, separating families and denying sacraments, is creating a “climate of fear” and “we feel compelled now” to “raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity,” the bishops said. “We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and “pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence” directed at immigrants and law enforcement.

U.S. bishops “were often divided by American politics in the Pope Francis era,” The New York Times said, but they “showed a united front in standing behind Pope Leo XIV, the first pope from the United States.” Leo “has been blunt — more so than the U.S. bishops — in his criticism of the Trump administration’s treatment of migrants,” The Washington Post said. Some observers view the “USCCB’s actions this week” as a sign they have “begun to stiffen their resolve to support immigrants, who represent one-third of the U.S. church.”

What next?

The bishops narrowly elected conservative Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley to a three-year term as USCCB president, and Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas — the more moderate runner-up — as vice president.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.