USCCB Misrepresents Church’s Immigration Teachings — Again | The American Spectator

America’s Catholic bishops are at it again: undermining the nation’s sovereignty and security for the sake of a misinterpretation of the Catholic Church’s teachings on immigration. In a ten-page public comment, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) not to bar illegal aliens from receiving public health benefits. In 1998, HHS interpreted a 1996 public health benefits law to include illegal aliens. President Donald Trump and his administration rescinded that interpretation, and the USCCB is now asking HHS to rescind that rescindment.

“Our concerns with the revised interpretation stem from the Catholic Church’s fundamental commitments to upholding the God-given dignity of every person, promoting the well-being of families, and furthering the common good,” the USCCB wrote. “Inherent in each of these priorities is the recognition that immigrants — regardless of legal status — possess a dignity equal to that of citizens.”

It is, of course, true, that the Church recognizes the inherent dignity of all persons and that illegal immigrants are just as much sons and daughters of God as are the most law-abiding of citizens. However, with its public comment, the USCCB is continuing a troubling trend of misinterpreting the Catholic Church’s teachings on immigration. (I’ve written on this subject numerous times: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.) The Church demands that nations treat immigrants — chiefly refugees — with respect. The Church also demands that immigrants respect the laws of the nation they are entering — something large numbers of illegal aliens have clearly not done, violating the first American law that they have encountered. Nowhere does the Church demand that nations provide public health benefits and all manner of resources to alien lawbreakers.

While aging bishops prattle on about spending other people’s money on illegal aliens, they fail to properly apply the Church’s ancient teachings on law and order. In City of God, Doctor of the Church St. Augustine wrote that a nation must uphold and enforce its just laws or else it becomes nothing but a “band of robbers.” Another Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, expanded on Augustine’s arguments, noting the importance of laws and their enforcement for maintaining order and temporal peace.

Both Augustine and Aquinas recognized and laid great emphasis upon the respect due to immigrants — again, chiefly refugees — but argued that this obligation must be balanced by a nation’s responsibility to foster and protect the common good. Of course, “immigration” in the eras of Augustine and Aquinas was far different from what it is now: Augustine lived during the waning days of the Roman Empire, while Aquinas lived during the Middle Ages. There was no “third world,” there were no international Satanist gangs like MS-13 or Tren de Aragua, and the cultural differences between nations during the lives of Augustine and Aquinas were less sharp.

Today, those entering the U.S. illegally are not “sojourners” seeking safe passage across the country to a destination beyond its borders, nor are they typically fleeing war with the intention of returning home and rebuilding in a few years. They are criminals, flagrantly violating America’s laws in order to feed off of the native population’s work and wealth. Many, as the past several years have demonstrated, are murderers, rapists, child abusers, and drug traffickers. In short, the necessity of enforcing the nation’s laws, preserving the common good, and protecting the nation’s people is far greater than in ages past.

Yet the USCCB would seemingly have the U.S. incentivize illegal immigration, rewarding lawbreakers with public health benefits paid for by American taxpayers, many of whom can ill afford it. After all, it isn’t really the USCCB’s money funding these public health benefits for illegal aliens. But the USCCB does cut quite a hefty paycheck from illegal immigration. With millions and even billions of dollars on the line, there must be a hell of a temptation to ignore or diminish some of the Church’s age-old teachings and only present those which prove most profitable to the bishops.

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