Shepherds ought to protect their flocks from wolves. Instead, we find them demanding that the wolves share our pastures.
Last week, The Atlantic’s Francis X. Rocca penned a damning indictment of America’s Catholic bishops, although I doubt he intended it as such. “The most urgent political concern for America’s Catholic leaders is no longer abortion; it’s immigration,” Rocca wrote. Noting that immigration concerns are addressed in Catholic teaching, he added, “But now immigration dominates U.S. Catholic leaders’ public messaging.”
How shameful. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade nearly four years ago, but the butchering of unborn children in their mother’s wombs continues anyway. According to the abortion industry’s official research center, the Guttmacher Institute, abortions increased across the U.S. between 2024 and 2025, remaining above the one million mark in both cases, while the number of abortions committed via the abortion drug mifepristone increased by 26 percent. In other words, while over one million unborn children are ripped apart with scalpel and forceps or starved and expelled via a drug regimen, and the U.S. bishops are focusing their attention almost exclusively on ensuring that illegal aliens are not arrested and deported.
A U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) spokeswoman cited by Rocca stated that “human dignity and national security are not in conflict.” That’s true. Stringent immigration enforcement is in line with the perennial teachings of the Catholic Church and is, in fact, in accord with the virtue of justice. The arrest and detention of those who have violated the law (in this case, federal immigration law) is not a violation of human dignity, nor is returning foreigners who have abused U.S. hospitality and services to their home countries. In fact, it’s something of a merciful move.
Continue reading at the American Spectator