In the USCCB’s recent Special Pastoral Message, the bishops of the United States highlight the suffering inflicted by a broken immigration system and empathize with vulnerable families who live every day under the shadow of uncertainty. Anyone who has met immigrants in our parishes, as many Catholics in America have, recognizes the truth of the bishops’ words.
Pastoral accompaniment is certainly necessary, but it does not encompass the entirety of the Church’s moral teaching. If anything, the Church insists on holding together truths that the political imagination is tempted to sever. The bishops acknowledge this when they write that “human dignity and national security are not in conflict,” and when they reaffirm that “nations have a responsibility to regulate their borders” for the sake of the common good. These are not caveats tacked onto an otherwise humanitarian manifesto: They are part of Catholic doctrine. To omit or minimize these truths would be to deprive the Catholic moral tradition of the wisdom our nation needs.
