On the day Donald J. Trump took office, he immediately began fulfilling many of his campaign promises. Arguably first among them was his vow to deport the millions of undocumented immigrants who have called the United States their home for years or even decades.
The U.S. bishops, as well as other leaders in the church, have made clear their position on immigration. On a national level, this often comes in the form of statements issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. But ordinaries in dioceses throughout the nation have consistently taken stands for immigrants and against anti-immigrant legislation, upholding the dignity of the human person and the sacredness of the family.
It’s been more than 20 years since the U.S. bishops began the Justice for Immigrants campaign. Its website details the church’s nuanced position on immigration, which is neither “open borders” nor restrictionist. As a Catholic journalist, I have often turned to it as a resource over the years to ground my reporting in church teaching.
“The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin,” according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is quoted on the Justice for Immigrants website. “Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.”
Despite the church’s efforts, however, many American voters seem unpersuaded. Most Americans favor increased border security, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, and a recent poll from Axios/Ipsos found two-thirds of Americans support the deportation of immigrants who are in the country illegally.
I believe that the current impasse on immigration reflects a failure on the part of the church to engage U.S. culture. We must begin anew. Our nation is in urgent need of evangelization.
In “Evangelii Nuntiandi”, Pope Paul VI said that evangelization is the deepest identity of the church. Evangelization, the pope wrote in his 1975 apostolic exhortation, includes: the proclamation of Christ to those who do not yet know him, preaching, catechesis and conferring the sacraments. In some circles of the U.S. church today, I believe catechesis is emphasized over and above the other aspects of evangelization. This development is detrimental to the church’s mission.
“Any partial and fragmentary definition which attempts to render the reality of evangelization in all its richness, complexity and dynamism does so only at the risk of impoverishing it and even of distorting it,” according to Paul VI. “It is impossible to grasp the concept of evangelization unless one tries to keep in view all its essential elements.”
Evangelization seeks an interior change, he said. It involves the conversion of “both the personal and collective consciences of people.”
In “Evangelii Gaudium,” Pope Francis gives us a blueprint for evangelization. In this apostolic exhortation from 2013, the pope writes of “a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything,” and of wanting “a church that is poor and for the poor.”
“They have much to teach us,” he writes of the poor and marginalized. “We need to let ourselves be evangelized by them.”
Evangelization and missionary discipleship are central to Francis’ pontificate. His papal visit to the United States in 2015, for example, was dubbed, “Love is Our Mission.”
“We are the ones who announce the Lord, we do not announce ourselves, nor a political party or an ideology,” Francis said during a general audience in 2023. “Put people in contact with Jesus without convincing them. Let the Lord convince them.”
We cannot help but be transformed when we encounter Christ. True evangelization is a spiritual conversion that inspires Christians to take action on behalf of the disadvantaged. Christian life entails not only prayer and spiritual devotion but also action toward political and social transformation.
In the United States, the moment calls for renewed missionary vigor. The suffering of migrants demands immediate action, like lawsuits that stop cruel immigration crackdowns and initiatives that tend to basic the needs of our brothers and sisters. But the plight of migrants also demands long-term engagements that aim at the conversion of hearts.
Hearing from the pulpit will help, and statements and press conferences from our leaders are indispensable. But media reports and second-hand testimonies will not suffice. Conversions on this issue will only come about through face-to-face encounters with migrants. Parishes must find ways to facilitate such meetings.
“To know the truth is to become a participant in the life of the crucified and risen Christ, which in turn implies a participation in the lives of those peoples who are themselves crucified victims, those whose wounded bodies are the mirrors or our souls,” the theologian Roberto Goizueta writes in Christ Our Companion: Toward a Theological Aesthetics of Liberation.
We must stand side by side with migrants. We have many examples to follow: women religious, like Norma Pimentel, M.J., the executive director of Catholic Charities in the Rio Grande Valley, Tex., who serves recent arrivals; Annunciation House, a Catholic nonprofit serving migrants and asylum seekers; and Bishop Mark Seitz, who captured national attention for simply walking across a border bridge with a young Honduran girl seeking refuge.
We do not need to live in the borderlands to accompany migrants and refugees. Undocumented immigrants live throughout the United States. We must stand with them and follow the command Jesus gives his disciples in the Gospel of John: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another” (13:34). It is by our love, Jesus says, that people will know we are his disciples.
Deportation is not love. It is antithetical to the Gospel—effectively the opposite of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Deportation is finding the stripped and beaten traveler on the side of the road, loading him up on a Border Patrol bus and dumping him on the other side of the border.
We are the body of Christ. We must not stand by quietly while our members are deported.
