Vatican City, Feb 11, 2025 / 09:35 am (CNA).
Pope Francis addressed the bishops of the United States on Tuesday about the country’s ongoing mass deportation of immigrants, urging Catholics to consider the justness of laws and policies in light of the dignity and rights of people.
In a letter published Feb. 11, the pope — while supporting a nation’s right to defend itself from people who have committed violent or serious crimes — said a “rightly formed conscience” would disagree with associating the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.
“The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution, or serious deterioration of the environment damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness,” he said.
“All the Christian faithful and people of goodwill,” the pontiff continued, “are called upon to consider the legitimacy of norms and public policies in the light of the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights, not vice versa.”
‘Respectful of the dignity of all’
Pope Francis penned the letter to U.S. bishops amid changes to U.S. immigration policy under President Donald Trump’s administration, including the increased deportation of migrants, which numerous bishops have criticized.
The pope’s letter recognized the “valuable efforts” of the U.S. bishops in their work with migrants and refugees and invoked God’s reward for their “protection and defense of those who are considered less valuable, less important, or less human!”
Asking Our Lady of Guadalupe to protect all those living in fear or pain due to immigration and deportation, he prayed for a society that is more “fraternal, inclusive, and respectful of the dignity of all” and exhorted Catholics and other people of goodwill “not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters.”
Francis emphasized that immigration laws and policies should be subordinated to the dignified treatment of people, especially the most vulnerable.
“This is not a minor issue: An authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized,” he underlined. “The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all — as I have affirmed on numerous occasions — welcomes, protects, promotes, and integrates the most fragile, unprotected, and vulnerable.”
He said the just treatment of immigrants does not impede the development of policies to regulate orderly and legal migration, but “what is built on the basis of force and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being begins badly and will end badly.”
The ‘ordo amoris’
In his letter, Pope Francis also weighed in on the Catholic concept of “ordo amoris” — “rightly ordered love” — which was recently invoked by Vice President JD Vance in the ongoing debate over immigration policy.
“Christian love,” the pope wrote, “is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. In other words: The human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings!”
“The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation,” he continued.
“The true ordo amoris that must be promoted,” the pontiff wrote, “is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘good Samaritan,’ that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.”
Jesus the refugee
“The Son of God, in becoming man, also chose to live the drama of immigration,” the pope wrote.
Francis pointed out the social doctrine of the Church, that even Jesus Christ experienced the difficulty of leaving his own land because of a risk to his life and of taking refuge in a foreign society and culture.
Calling it the “Magna Carta” of the Church’s thinking on migration, Francis cited a passage from Pope Pius XII’s apostolic constitution on the care of migrants, Exsul Familia Nazarethana, which says: “The family of Nazareth in exile, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, emigrants in Egypt and refugees there to escape the wrath of an ungodly king, are the model, the example, and the consolation of emigrants and pilgrims of every age and country, of all refugees of every condition who, beset by persecution or necessity, are forced to leave their homeland, beloved family, and dear friends for foreign lands.”
“Likewise,” Pope Francis commented, “Jesus Christ, loving everyone with a universal love, educates us in the permanent recognition of the dignity of every human being, without exception.”
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Francis needs to stop interfering with the political will of the people of the USA.
But look what this Pope does in his own little nation:
“Vatican Promises Stiff Penalties for Illegal Aliens Crossing its Border
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/01/16/vatican-promises-stiff-penalties-for-illegal-aliens-crossing-its-border/
I agreed. Our current Holy Father never adored our President Trump and the mass illegal immigrants have already destroyed the safety and security of American people to have peace in living. Did our Pope consider the huge human trafficking to cause Americans in taking the fentanyl to death and mental crush, the rapes, the sexual business? Right now, President Trump is trying to clear up and clean up the Deep State their unending corruption at least for the past 20 years. Our Pope is sitting inside the Rome and giving the sarcastic remarks how terrible for what the United States of deportation of illegal migrants. I am as a cradle Catholic just so sad to hear what his ridiculous and nonsense and critical comments without constructive advices instead using the Bible to be kind of manipulation. No wonder our Mass have so many empty pews. It’s upset me after Pope Francis as our Holy Father, there are many young Catholics converted to other churches. I wish our US Bishops should require the entire American Catholic Churches in praying the movement for Trump’s administration instead condemning his greatest and beneficial policies. I heard someone suggested how about our Pope to take over those American illegal immigrants to Rome if he doesn’t concern about the safety of American peoples life. Sorry I hate to criticize our Holy Father but since he’s Pope, all I see he is more cling to communism because he never spoke one word to condemn Hong Kong government how to arrest so many innocent protestors.
Of course no such letter regarding the democrats’ pro abortion and pro transgender lgbtq policies. Not being consistent just indicates a political preference.
I agree that this is disturbing. However, I doubt that sending letters to Democrats would make any difference. Pres. Biden (and other Democrat elected officials in the U.S.) professes to be a “good Catholic” but utterly ignores the Catholic (and many Protestant sects’) teaching against abortion. Of course, we could be charitable and contend that Pres. Biden was just suffering from the onset of old age “confusion”–but many Catholic-professing politicians are certainly in their right minds and still support “the right of a woman to choose to kill her child.” Even Bluey (the beloved cartoon dog from Australia) recognizes that a baby in the womb is a baby! God be merciful to Americans!
Agree jbg. No apocalyptic crisis statement about abortions in the U.S. (including as a media event at the Democrat National Convention) or the transgender surgical mutilation of confused and manipulated children. Those statements would have been welcomed.
Respect for human dignity of all? Yes, definitely. But open borders and no immigration that is illegal. A profoundly political statement that certainly can be ignored by faithful Catholics.
The beam in thine own eye prevents the seeing of dignity, order, charity, civility, justice in another. Does the pope have any claim on any US Catholic citizen except canonically? He himself should recognize the rigid legalistic pharisaism in putting forth a canonical argument. We note the words and we note the shape of the tongue putting them out.
Sorry Francis, wrong again! In a nation governed by the rule of law, the law comes first. We are to uphold the dignity of law abiding, tax paying citizens first and foremost. If you’re so cover about immigrants, open up the Vatican City to migrants. Let us know how that goes.
Jesus the Refugee. How can any American in good conscience now oppose open borders if Our Lord himself wandered about seeking refugee status?
Agreed. I’m headed to the safety of the good life guarded by Swiss dudes tucked inside the Vatican walls.
Birds have their nests, the fox his lair. But the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. Did he not say that? He wanders in the desert seeking entrance into our miserable hearts. Yet we hesitate to dismantle the barriers that keep him outside in the cold. To offer him more than the usual tryst.
Jesus and His Father set an example for us by Giving us Laws and urging that we follow them. Jesus was not illegal. Jesus was neither sinner nor criminal. Jesus was not illegal.
Jesus was King, living in the world but not of it. Borders between sovereign nations do not keep Jesus out. Have you not heard? Jesus can go anywhere and everywhere, passing through walls, closed doors, and even hard hearts when that is His sovereign will.
My response to God’s Fool is intended to be spiritual only, not an oblique support of illegal migration, which I have consistently written against.
You’ll be arrested, sure, and maybe luck will place you in the Vatican walled prison. Francis may deliver ice cream to you.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2021/09/08/vatican-pope-francis-ice-cream/1231631103034/
How can the Vatican have walls and announce more strict penalties on illegals there? https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2025/01/15/vatican-cracks-down-on-illegal-entry-into-its-territory/
Jesus was not a refugee, and He would not have violated the law. We do not have open borders. The border is governed by established federal laws that must be upheld. It is a matter of law, not conscience. As a priest, you should not be aiding and betting criminal behavior.
The Holy Family were in fact seeking refuge from Herod but within another region of the Roman Empire where there were already Jewish communities.
Fr. Morello has a heart for those in need & oppressed. We all should. We should also realize that the US is by default cooperating with criminal smuggling gangs by not securing our border properly & not establishing & enforcing better immigration & visa laws. Our enabling the cartels creates more of the violence in Latin America that people are fleeing from. It’s a never ending circle of corruption & extortion that we need to put the brakes on.
I’m obliged to defend myself here because of your damaging accusation. If I’m wrong, correct me. You apparently are referring to me since I believe I’m the only priest commenting. My comments were not intended to support open borders or illegal migration. I take offense to your accusation of my aiding and abetting criminal behavior, which is slander. Serious sin.
How can anyone think that I would actually believe that “Our Lord himself wandered about seeking refugee status”? Unless he had a preset prejudiced opinion of me, because its sarcasm is so evident? You must suffer from Fr Morello Derangement Syndrome.
You have expressed support for illegal immigration in multiple posts now. Your points, though morally misguided, have, nonetheless, been perfectly clear. Recognizing that fact is not slander; it’s simply calling you out. You just don’t it like when people expose and challenge your viewpoints on the site.
If charity in respect to limited hardship cases is deemed support of illegal immigration I proudly stand guilty.
How can we not support open borders? For the same reason we support prisons–because we don’t want criminals to murder Americans, sell them drugs, run inner-city street gangs, or kidnap our kids for sex-trafficking. Decent, law-abiding people are welcome into our land, but not criminals. Adding an influx of criminals into our nation would be nightmarish for our police departments who are woefully short-staffed due to our decreasing population (due in large part to legal abortion). Let the good refugees in and welcome them with open arms–they are a part of our hope for the future of the United States! But keep the criminals OUT, please! Nations, including the Vatican, have a right to protect their borders and their people.
That comment was sarcasm Mrs Whitlock.
I hear you Father. Johnny Cash had some thoughts on this matter:
“If you’ve never fed the hungry, or given clothes to the poor
If you’ve never helped the stranger who came knocking on your door
If you forgot to send some flowers to sick and shut-in friend
Well if you ain’t helping none of these, then you ain’t helping Him
If you’ve ever seen some children, playing ball behind a school
If you’ve ever watched an old man, plowing ground behind mule
If you’ve ever stopped and listened, when you could not hear a sound
Then brother you have met Him, because Jesus gets around
Would you recognise Jesus if you met Him face to face?
Or would you wonder if He’s just another one you could not place?
You may not find Him coming in a chariot of the Lord, Jesus could be riding in a “49 Ford”
**********
How we deal with each other face to face can differ from how we enforce federal policies. But it shouldn’t be one or the other. Hopefully one day it will be both. We need immigrants. We just need them to come here safely, minus organized crime
The dignity of illegal immigrants can be upheld as they are arrested and deported in an efficient, professional and humane manner. Force may be needed, although how much depends on if they resist while being apprehended. Discrimination against lawbreakers is quite justifiable. There is some suffering associated with being jailed and expelled from a country where one has no right to be. Law enforcement should, of course, avoid brutality in carry out their duties, but sometimes some violence is required. The United States has no moral or legal obligation to take in any person “seeking a better life.” It certainly owes absolutely no consideration to anyone who came in without permission.
The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution, or serious deterioration of the environment damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness,” he said.
That statement by the Pope is so vague that anyone can place themselves in a position where they feel they have a right to illegal enter another country. How many of the millions of people who crossed the border sought out refugee statu?
On another issue, where was the justice in the Pope shutting down the TLM.
Bare-knuckled clericalism. Is there a lay sphere? There was for Biden…
And for what it’s worth, the Holy Family were not illegal immigrants. They never left the Roman Empire. Unlike the Pope, God does not enable others to disobey laws. (See, Amoralist Laetitia.)
The Holy Family also returned to Judea once the threat was over.
The property and safety of legal citizens come first. The political scoldings of Jorge Bergoglio come last.
The safety of folks in places like Latin America is important to consider also. The more illegal entries, the more profit to the trafficking cartels and the more violence back on the home turf where they operate.
We just enable and strengthen organized crime through our lack of border security.
Equating the three members of the Holy Family and the single victim in the story of the Good Samaritan, which is also done, with the flood of immigrants coming over open borders is quite a stretch. God gave Joseph and Pharaoh a heads up about seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine to give them time to prepare. The Pope and adulthood responsibility look like they are not on speaking terms. I’m tired of him making messes and then using emotional blackmail and extortion to make others clean them up.
Can His Holiness cite an Egyptian law that the Holy Family broke when they emigrated to Egypt?
I don’t think it broke any law since Egypt, if I remember correctly, was under the Roman Empire. There were established Jewish communities in Egypt at the time also.
All I see in the comments is a grand display of the arrogance of the typical American Catholic!
Ify Oby: easy solution…don’t come here to read them.
Much like the Democrats, he seems to be on the wrong side of every issue.
Note to Francis: No one has a RIGHT to enter the United States unless we consent. Most certainly they have no claim on the many financial resources we have here.That very issue has caused great difficulty in our attempts to care for our OWN poor and needy. Its notable that he NEVER suggests these illegals have a home country of birth that should be taking responsibility for them. That they do not do so is less a reflection of lack of resources as much as greed, government corruption, crime and political power struggles. Why doesn’t he say something?? And how do these people become OUR problem?
Why does he not tell the illegals that if a country allows them entry, they have a moral obligation to obey ALL that country’s laws and not engage in crime?
I could phrase this more forcefully, but an awful lot of us would like Francis to stop targeting the US for his opinions on illegals.
What is so terrible about sending illegal migrants back to their home countries? We are not putting them out to sea on a raft with no food and water. They are not being sent to a gulag or concentration camp or sold into slavery. They are being flown back, at our expense, to where they were raised and where many still have family and friends.
Few face death (as Herod threatened the Christ Child) or imprisonment in their native countries. For those who do, we have an asylum system which has been very
much abused by healthy adults seeking more earning opportunities.
The Vatican seems totally unwilling to make vital distinctions. “Don’t confuse me with the facts.,” they seem to say.
Our asylum laws are set up so that anyone who steps foot on US soil has the right to request asylum, whether they enter legally or not. The only requirement is that they have credible fear of returning home, not facing an imminent death. Sadly a great many migrants really have been threatened with extortion & bodily harm to themselves & their families. People aren’t stupid though. That claim can also be abused to gain asylum. The more we allow cartels to bring people here, the more people will have legit claims of asylum due to increased gang turf wars back home.
If our laws need tweaking that’s on us to fix.
“Threatened with bodily harm”.. Well, thats a lot different than threatened with death. Further, why didnt they then remain in Mexico when they arrived THERE? But no, they have a bearing interest in coming to the US. Its likely because Mexico isnt so free with a peso to criminal migrants and is not putting them up in luxury hotels.
This week our Coast Guard captured a Chinese migrant trying to paddle from Bermuda to Florida!!! Bermuda is a tourist spot, how bad can it be?? Why didnt the Chinese migrant STAY there? Thats because this is NOT about safety, its about getting freebies , crime and taking our jobs in the US . Illegals go home!
AS I have said before, there are billions of folks out there who would come here if they could. Witness what happened these last 4 years. Its a catastrophe for us here. The time has come to say NO to an overflow of folks breaking in here. We cannot absorb or Americanize them in those numbers. Thats assuming they even WANT to be Americanized. I say bravo to Tom Homan and Trump for the job they are doing.
Good points. And maybe the responsible thing for them to do is to return home and try to be agents of change in their own societies rather than being burdens on ours.
I’m not a theologian, so I have a question.
If a pope is infallibly fallible, as Bergoglio clearly is, does it count as infallibility?
Why would you write an article like this?
The people of this country and the current group of deportees are at odds because one group believes in abiding by our laws and the other not only violates by crossing illegally but also committing crimes here as they did in their own country.
Wake up and get your facts straight.
By citing the Pope you purposely try to infuse your opinion by hiding behind the the authority of the Pope. Shameful!
A couple of thoughts; 1.A lot of United States illegal drug money from people in the US buying illegal drugs fueled the cartels for decades all so US citizens can enjoy their high. For Example Stevie Nicks from the famous band Fleetwoodmac admittedly spent over a million dollars on cocaine. That million really helped build up the cartels who create the violent atmosphere the some migrants have to flee from.
2. Having said that I agree that we should at least consider sending all illegal immigrants back for another reason. They will certainty change the voting power of the party or politicians that allows illegal immigration further fueling fentanyl, theft, rape, murder and terrorists entering the US. Not all but enough where both Americans and Immigrants suffer.
3. Suggestion, send them back humanely with help in their home countries. Work with their governments and provide food, safety etc where they live there. Then at least we can trust the Bishops and Catholic Charities that they are not assisting illegal activities.
Absolutely. We are on the receiving end of the drug smuggling. It takes two sides cooperating for a smuggling operation to continue, no matter what kind of contraband.
“All so US Citizens can enjoy their high”….Really?? Well, you must know about ADDICTION, don’t you? Its not so easy to kick. Ask anyone who is overweight or a chain smoker. And that stuff is easy to kick compared to drugs and alcohol. When drugs are free flowing, they are CHEAP. Therefore more people are apt to try them. You do have the Hollywood and music folk who do it to seem cool. But an awful lot of the dead fentanyl victims are young kids too stupid not to respond to a dare , or simply lacking the understanding this could kill them. Tighten up supplies of street drugs and guess what? They become too expensive for a lot of those types of young or marginal users to buy. Therefore they DON’T become addicts and they dont die. And the sex trafficking, thats the subject of a whole other long winded post. But the source is exactly the same. Creepy illegal criminals waved into the US by leftists and the Biden folk.
Its clear the Pope is uninformed on the negative impact of illegal immigration. Therefore maybe it would be smart for him to stop talking about it. He is seemingly on the side of those who bring death and violent crime into our nation. Americans are not interested in this pope’s take on the subject.
Agree with all your points and thanks for the clarification on point 1. My use of the phrase “so US Citizens can enjoy their high” did not take into account kids drug use and the need for better law enforcement. I was thinking of celebrities and rock stars when I wrote that. THx!
John Daniel Davidson on Pope Francis’ letter – The Federalist, Feb. 12.
As a Catholic, I didn’t get to vote for Jorge Bergoglio as my Pope.
I did vote for Trump/Vance as my President and Vice President.
When it comes to running our country, I’ll defer to my elected officials and ask Pope Francis to mind his own business.
I’ll defer