November 11, 2025 // National

Bishops to Pope: We Will Stand with Migrants

OSV NEWS

BALTIMORE (OSV News) – In a message to Pope Leo XIV at the start of their fall plenary assembly in Baltimore, the U.S. bishops told the pope on Tuesday, November 11, that they “will continue to stand with migrants and defend everyone’s right to worship free from intimidation.”

“As shepherds in the United States, we face a growing worldview that is so often at odds with the Gospel mandate to love thy neighbor,” they wrote. “In cities across the United States, our migrant brothers and sisters, many of whom are fellow Catholics, face a culture of fear, hesitant to leave their homes and even to attend church for fear of being randomly harassed or detained.

“Holy Father, please know that the bishops of the United States, united in our concern, will continue to stand with migrants and defend everyone’s right to worship free from intimidation,” the bishops wrote. “We support secure and orderly borders and law enforcement actions in response to dangerous criminal activity, but we cannot remain silent in this challenging hour while the right to worship and the right to due process are undermined.”

The bishops continued: “In our nation, as well as in our world, we face so many challenges in witnessing to the Gospel: the growing narrowness and selfishness of individualism, economic and social impoverishment, growing polarization, animosity, and political violence, the inability to engage in civil discourse, the lack of generosity to work with each other, and constant threats to the life and dignity of every human person, especially the poor, the elderly, and the unborn.

“Despite these challenges, we are encouraged by the Christian virtues of hope and charity,” the bishops wrote. “Where the world sees others as a problem or a burden, we must, and we will continue to show that each person is loved by God and therefore deserves to be respected, whether in the womb, a stranger, or homeless, hungry, in prison, or dying.”

The bishops continued: “As you know well, the United States is richly blessed with vibrant parishes, dedicated clergy and religious, and many faithful lay women and men who live in hope and charity. With them, on a person-to-person level, our dioceses and our parishes continue to help those in great need. Your Holiness, we humbly ask you to bless them and the whole Church in our country that we may be ever more faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus and credible witnesses to His kingdom.”

They concluded, “May the Holy Spirit inspire our assembly and the work that lies before it.”

The message was met with applause by the body of bishops.

Archbishop Coakley, Bishop Flores Elected President, Vice President of USCCB

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City and Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, were elected on November 11 as president and vice president, respectively, of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The 2025 elections were notable because they marked the first leadership change at the conference since Pope Leo XIV, the U.S.-born pontiff, began his pontificate in May.

Archbishop Coakley, 70, has led the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City since 2011. He was born to John and Mary Coakley in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1955, but the family moved to Kansas 10 years later. He began seminary studies for the Diocese of Wichita in 1978. He has been serving as the USCCB’s secretary.

Bishop Flores, 64, was born to Fernando Javier Flores and Lydia Dilley Flores in 1961 in Palacios, Texas.

Archbishop Coakley was elected president on the third round of voting, and Bishop Flores on the first round for the vice presidential election. He entered Holy Trinity Seminary, an institution associated with the University of Dallas, in 1981. He has led the Brownsville Diocese since 2010.

The new president and vice president succeed the current USCCB president and vice president, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services and Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, who will complete their terms at the end of the plenary assembly.

Bishops Celebrate Mass to ‘Beg the Holy Spirit to Inspire’ Fall Assembly

Arriving by motor coaches, more than 320 bishops from across the United States streamed into the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore on Monday, November 10, where they donned matching vestments to celebrate Mass on the first day of their annual fall plenary assembly.

“A very, very warm welcome to everyone this morning,” Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in his opening remarks. “This is a beautiful church, an ancient church. It is a historic church, but I think the most beautiful thing about this church is that it is a living, breathing community of mostly young adults who love the Lord.”

In his homily, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, USCCB president and archbishop of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, noted that at the beginning of their sessions, the bishops “beg the Holy Spirit to inspire” their deliberations and “renew their duty to be servants of truth.”

He spoke of the many distractions people face in the world today. He told of meeting a young airman at Fort Meade, the U.S. military base in Maryland, who asked him “how to be a saint” and where he could find the courage to live by his convictions of faith.

“I confess that I was moved by the sincerity of his question,” Archbishop Broglio said. “For me, it was a moment of hope. A young man … seeking ways to deepen his grasp on truth.”

The way forward tends to be self-indulgent, he said. The Gospel, he said, “does urge us to be demanding of ourselves” but asks us to “be eager to forgive the other when he or she asks for forgiveness. Help us listen.”

The priority in the house of prayer is the worship of God, he said, and “not the motivation of other gods.”