American Catholics deserve moral clarity regarding the ongoing immigration crisis. Unfortunately, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ amicus brief in Trump v Barbara this week failed to give them that.
The brief categorised ending birthright citizenship as an immoral attack on human dignity and so reduced a complicated moral and political issue to an incoherent emotional appeal. It also excluded or misinterpreted key Catholic teachings regarding the obligations of citizens, national leaders and immigrants. It was not even written by a Catholic.
This half-hearted attempt at virtue-signalling from the USCCB was unpardonable. Not only that, but it damaged the bishops’ credibility at a time when the richness of authentic Catholic teaching, particularly regarding the contentious immigration debate, is needed more than ever.
Instead, the USCCB’s brief abandoned faithful American Catholics to their personal consciences on the issue, while demanding a fundamentally anti-Catholic approach: love divorced from the truth.
The crux of the USCCB’s brief was that ‘ending birthright citizenship denies the innate dignity and freedom of the person’. This assertion assumes that birthright citizenship laws are inherently moral rather than a matter for prudential politics. Given the Church teaches that just laws must promote the common good and respect the dignity of the human person, birthright citizenship laws in the US fall short.
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