“You stand with me, and I stand with you,” Pope Leo told El Paso’s Bishop Mark Seitz, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on migration, when he met him and a U.S. delegation in the Vatican on Oct. 8.
“The church cannot remain silent” about the situation of migrants in the United States, Pope Leo said. According to Bishop Seitz, the pope made clear that he wants the Catholic bishops and the church in the United States “to be united” on this crucially important issue, which is “a matter of human dignity.”
“Pope Leo said he would really like the [U.S.] bishops to speak together on this issue,” Bishop Seitz told America in a one-to-one interview immediately after the papal audience. “I am still processing what he said,” the bishop added, clearly encouraged and affirmed by the meeting with the pope.
Leo’s words reflect what he said in an interview with his biographer Elise Ann Allen in July, when she asked him if, as an American, he had a better shot at engaging with President Trump than his predecessor had. At that time, Leo said, “I think that it would be much more appropriate for the leadership in the church within the United States to engage him, quite seriously.”
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