Life comes at you fast. 

Last week I wrote a piece at The Stream asking U.S. Catholic bishops and the priests at their command to treat illegal immigrants like the actual, adult, and full human beings they are by calling on them to repent. That’s the Church’s first job, full stop. We’re here to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the central tenet of which is that each of us is a sinner who needs to repent and reform his life. Violating just, duly enacted laws is sinful, especially when it concerns a grave matter such as citizenship.   

On July 20, Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski held a very public protest outside the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention facility, accompanied by a few dozen Knights of Columbus on motorcycles. They recited the rosary and called attention to the fact that Florida officials had not yet allowed the Archdiocese to send in chaplains to serve the immigrants. Last week, Florida came to an agreement with the Church, and chaplains can now go into Alligator Alcatraz and celebrate Mass. That’s a win for all involved. 

The statement from Archbishop Wenski didn’t mention whether the chaplains would be hearing confessions. That got me to thinking: Would any of the priests who ministered to these illegals point out that breaking our immigration laws is immoral? The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that governments must regulate immigration, and that migrants are obliged to obey local laws.  

Thus, any priest who heard a detainee’s confession ought to inquire as to whether that migrant has broken any of a long list of laws—for example, those that forbid: entering our country illegally; working here off the books and outside labor laws without paying taxes; making false persecution claims (i.e., lying) to gain asylum; skipping court dates to adjudicate such claims; and committing identity theft via Social Security fraud.  

For sincere Catholics to gain absolution, the sinner must show penitence and a firm purpose of amendment. Sinners must at least mean to stop committing the sin and, if possible, make reparation. For illegal immigrants, that would mean returning to their home countries. And the burden of that journey has never been easier as ICE has never been more happy to help. 

The only sound justification for priests and bishops refusing to rebuke illegal immigrants for committing these sins would be if U.S. immigration laws were intrinsically unjust, if illegals were akin to fugitive slaves escaping the unjust condition of servitude, or Jews escaping Nazi persecution. Bishops making such a ludicrous, insupportable claim deserve to be mocked. 

I underestimated the willingness of some of our shepherds to engage in such nonsense. Breitbart reports that one Bishop Mark Brennan of Wheeling-Charleston (West Virginia) composed a letter to local Catholics that said ICE officers:  

cannot escape personal responsibility for an unjust action with the excuse that it was ordered by their superiors. …That defense was not allowed during the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals at the end of World War II. The judges held that a soldier, guard or official, who authorized or engaged in gross violations of human rights, was personally responsible for his acts. … 

The Fugitive Slave Act, passed by Congress as part of the Compromise of 1850—an attempt to calm the tensions between slave states and free states—required not only local police but ordinary citizens to assist federal marshals in returning escaped slaves to their Southern masters or face heavy fines and jail time. 

Brennan’s statement may be the most reckless, but as Archbishop Wenski admits, “The bishops of the United States have been unanimous, really, in their support of immigrants and immigration reform.”  

Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso has compared support of deportations to support for legal abortion. Statement after statement from the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops make the claim that support for what amounts to open borders is mandatory to a “holistic” pro-life stance. Indeed, in response to an expose about Planned Parenthood’s participation in selling fetal body parts for profit, Cardinal Blaise Cupich of Chicago could not condemn it without making the comparison to immigration law in The Chicago Tribune: 

While commerce in the remains of defenseless children is particularly repulsive, we should be no less appalled by the indifference toward the thousands of people who die daily for lack of decent medical care; who are denied rights by a broken immigration system and by racism; who suffer in hunger, joblessness and want; who pay the price of violence in gun-saturated neighborhoods; or who are executed by the state in the name of justice. [emphasis added] 

Such “Seamless Garment” blather cripples the genuine movement to end the mass destruction of unborn babies for sexual convenience and gives cover to pro-abortion Democratic politicians with Irish or Italian last names. That’s why past Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago invented this rhetorical dodge—to help his friends Mario Cuomo, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, and Nancy Pelosi.  

Still, the language used by Bishop Brennan is a new low, and even more dangerous. It undermines the legitimacy of our government and equates ICE officers not with legally protected (if morally bankrupt) abortionists, but with antebellum slavecatchers and Nazi officers. It compares the enforcement of America’s democratically enacted, just immigration laws (which are even too lax, in my opinion) to the recapture of hapless slaves and the mass murder of ethnic minorities.  

With violent rhetoric and organized street riots menacing ICE officers, to the point that these public servants feel compelled to mask their faces to protect themselves and their families, such talk is profoundly irresponsible. According to Fox News on July 15: 

DHS announced Tuesday that its ICE officials have faced an 830% increase in assaults between Jan. 21, 2025 and July 14, 2025, compared to the same period in 2024. The timeframe recorded begins on the day after President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office. … 

Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., DHS said, shared an ICE employee’s business card with a violent group of people this week, placing a target on the employee’s back and prompting the mob to attack him…. 

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said: “ICE law enforcement are succeeding to remove terrorists, murderers, pedophiles and the most depraved among us from America’s communities, even as crazed rhetoric from gutter politicians are inspiring a massive increase in assaults against them.” 

This is crazed rhetoric from the heirs of the apostles, and they ought to be ashamed.