November 14, 2025 // National

Bishops Approve Pastoral Message on Immigration

OSV NEWS

BALTIMORE (OSV News) – The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a “special pastoral message on immigration” on Wednesday, November 12, voicing “our concern here for immigrants” at their annual fall plenary assembly in Baltimore.

The statement came as a growing number of bishops have acknowledged that some of the Trump administration’s immigration policies risk presenting the Church with both practical challenges in administering pastoral support and charitable endeavors, as well as religious liberty challenges.

Archbishop Richard G. Henning of Boston told OSV News in an interview that the feeling “we have to say something” on the subject of showing solidarity with immigrants has been “kind of bubbling up from the bishops.”

“Obviously, the beliefs of the Church have political consequences, but they’re not political in the usual sense of the word,” he said. “And so there was a real effort to make sure that this would be a pastoral address to our people rather than an attempt to lobby.”

Despite differences in age, geography, or other viewpoints, Archbishop Henning said, the U.S. bishops have almost universally heard from parishioners or pastors about “suffering the effects of this.”

“We’re pastors,” he said. “We care about the people we serve, and what we’re hearing from them is fear and suffering. So, it’s hard not to want to respond to that.”

The statement said, “As pastors, we the bishops of the United States are bound to our people by ties of communion and compassion in Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement,” it said. “We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care. We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status.

“We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools,” it continued. “We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones. Despite obstacles and prejudices, generations of immigrants have made enormous contributions to the well-being of our nation.

“We as Catholic bishops love our country and pray for its peace and prosperity. For this very reason, we feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity.”

The statement also refers to Catholic social teaching on immigration, which seeks to balance three interrelated principles: the right of persons to migrate in order to sustain themselves and their families; the right of a country to regulate its borders and immigration; and a nation’s duty to conduct that regulation with justice and mercy.

Catholic teaching “exhorts nations to recognize the fundamental dignity of all persons, including immigrants,” the statement said. “We bishops advocate for a meaningful reform of our nation’s immigration laws and procedures. Human dignity and national security are not in conflict.

“Both are possible if people of goodwill work together. We recognize that nations have a responsibility to regulate their borders and establish a just and orderly immigration system for the sake of the common good. Without such processes, immigrants face the risk of trafficking and other forms of exploitation. Safe and legal pathways serve as an antidote to such risks.”

The Church’s teaching, it noted, “rests on the foundational concern for the human person, as created in the image and likeness of God (Gn 1:27).”

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“The Church’s concern for neighbor and our concern here for immigrants is a response to the Lord’s command to love as He has loved us (John 13:34).”

USCCB Pastoral Message

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“As pastors, we look to sacred Scripture and the example of the Lord Himself, where we find the wisdom of God’s compassion,” it continued. “The priority of the Lord, as the Prophets remind us, is for those who are most vulnerable: the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the stranger (Zec 7:10). In the Lord Jesus, we see the One who became poor for our sake (2 Cor 8:9), we see the good Samaritan who lifts us from the dust (Lk 10:30-37), and we see the One who is found in the least of these (Mt 25).

“The Church’s concern for neighbor and our concern here for immigrants is a response to the Lord’s command to love as He has loved us (John 13:34),” it said.

The message was approved by the vast majority of voting bishops and was met with a standing ovation. Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, newly elected president of the USCCB, spoke in favor of the statement from the floor, saying, “I’m strongly in support of it for the good of our immigrant brothers and sisters,” adding that the statement sought “balance” in “protecting the rights of immigrants but also securing and calling upon our lawmakers and our administration to offer us a meaningful path of reform for our immigration system.”

According to a USCCB news release issued with the text of the statement, this “marked the first time” in 12 years the bishops’ conference “invoked this particularly urgent way of speaking as a body of bishops. The last one issued in 2013 was in response to the federal government’s contraceptive mandate.”

In a message published earlier this year in support of the work Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend does to help immigrants and refugees, Bishop Rhoades wrote: “Inspired by Catholic Social Teaching, Catholic Charities follows the Gospel imperative to serve the most vulnerable among us and in alignment with the truth that we are all created in the image of God. This does not mean that we support open borders and disregard the rule of law. While the Catholic Church recognizes and respects the right of every nation to regulate its borders for the common good, we must balance this with the rights of vulnerable migrants to access protection, and with the fundamental right of all to life and dignity as human persons; as well as the rights of parents and the family, the cradle of life and love, the first and most vital cell of society.”

He continued: “I am grateful for the countless contributions that our refugees and immigrants provide to our communities. During this time in our nation, I particularly ask the Catholic faithful to remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph – the Holy Family – who were compelled to leave their land and migrate to Egypt. Let us pray to the Holy Family for migrant families compelled to leave their homelands because of violence, extreme poverty, or persecution and are now exposed to grave danger. May the Lord protect them and may the Lord inspire our nation to exercise justice and compassion.”