‘Fraternally Francis’: Does a papal ‘hot take’ on immigration help?

Has the pope penned a letter to make American Catholics rethink or simply harden their political priors?

Pope Francis waded yesterday more directly, and more pointedly, into the U.S. political debate than any of his predecessors ever have.

Pope Francis. Alamy stock image.

In a thousand-word “fraternal letter” to the American episcopate, the pope confronted head-on the “major crisis” of the Trump administration’s policy of mass deportation for illegal immigrants, and appeared to respond directly to a recent tweet from Vice President JD Vance about the ordo amoris and a hierarchy of who owes what to whom in American politics and policy.

The Feb. 11 papal letter may be the first instance in which a pontiff has so directly called out a senior American Catholic politician over a matter of policy, and it is almost certainly the first time a successor of Peter has jumped into the twitter wars.

But while Francis left no room for confusion on where he stands in the debate about immigration in America, it seems clear that his letter will be taken by some to represent bold leadership from the Church speaking into the public sphere, and by others as setting up himself — and by extension the Church — as a partisan player in political debate.

Pope Francis might believe that the Trump administration’s actions on immigration, and the Vice President’s invocation of Church teaching to rationalize them, are so serious as to merit an unusually direct response. But, while grabbing headlines and winning plaudits from supporters, the pope’s letter doesn’t appear to offer much depth to his arguments, and that leaves the letter serving more likely to provoke than to correct.

More broadly, Francis’ decision to become personally and selectively embroiled in American political matters, and in challenging a sitting senior Catholic politician, could end up playing into kind of narrative pushed by followers of dissident figures like Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, and end up inflaming partisanship, rather than rallying — and persuading — the faithful.

In short, whether the pope’s letter will be effective in shaping the attitudes of American Catholics or hardening their political priors is a critical question — and one that remains, sincerely, to be seen.

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In the weeks since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, the president’s administration has made the detention and arrest of undocumented immigrants a matter of first priority, setting arrest targets for law enforcement and pointedly marking a willingness to raid venues like churches and schools to make arrests.

At the same time, Trump’s Catholic vice president, JD Vance, has cited the ordo amoris in defence of administration policy, insisting that the first duty of the American government is to its own people, even if necessary to the exclusion of others.

The Veep also singled out the U.S. bishops for criticism over the work of the USCCB and local Catholic Charities with migrants — accusing the Church of padding its “bottom line” by taking government funds to do resettlement work with what the Veep called “illegal immigrants.”

As Pillar reporting has shown, the bishops’ conference actually runs an annual loss on its refugee and migrants programs — no matter the funding amounts and no matter the incumbent party in the White House.

The bishops have themselves pushed back, individually and as a conference, defending the works of Catholic Charities, while having to push through high numbers of lay-offs in the face of government funds being cut off by the administration.

Of course, as is often the case in contentious political debates, data and figures only count for so much when weighed against rhetoric and narrative — some reports indicate, for example, that immigration enforcement actions under the Trump administration are actually in line with the Obama era.

The immigration debate in the United States, as both Vance and Francis would likely acknowledge, is about attitudes as much as outcomes. And attitudes about the pope’s letter have been considerably — and perhaps predictably — varied among American Catholics.

The pope’s letter painted the immigration issue in the broadest of strokes, making little distinction between, for example, economic migrants and refugees, the circumstances that drive people to move, or the sliding scale of moral obligations of other societies and nations to welcome them.

While emphasizing the right of people to move for their own safety and even economic betterment, Francis did recognize the right of governments to form “policy that regulates orderly and legal migration.” But he did not offer the Catechism of the Catholic Church’s qualification that states’ obligations “to accept the foreigner” are limited “to the extent that they are able” to do so.

Instead the pope wrote somewhat nebulously that regulated and orderly immigration policy “cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others.”

It is not clear what exactly the pope meant by that statement — whether it was a condemnation of, for example, something as obviously wrong as racially charged immigration policies, or as basic as the notion of annual immigration limits of various kinds.

Absent that kind of clarity, there will likely be at least some who will insist that the pope has endorsed the idea that to be authentically Catholic is to be for effectively open borders, albeit with a qualified interest in registering whoever comes in.

Similarly, the pope appeared to offer a defense of the human rights and dignity of migrants so broadly drawn it could be interpreted as trumping any legal order or consideration.

Although the pope did, perhaps crucially, recognize “the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes” as distinct from considering the cases of those who “have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, [or] persecution,” it’s a distinction that may not be appreciated by everyone who cites other parts of the pope’s text in future debate.

“When we speak of ‘infinite and transcendent dignity,’ we wish to emphasize that the most decisive value possessed by the human person surpasses and sustains every other juridical consideration that can be made to regulate life in society,” wrote the pope. “Thus, all the Christian faithful and people of good will are called upon to consider the legitimacy of norms and public policies in the light of the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights, not vice versa.”

The Trump administration has announced plans to arrest and detain immigration offenders in ways that seem to violate the right to due process, and to house detainees in locations like Guantanamo Bay — actions which have reasonably and necessarily provoked insistent and alarmed criticism from U.S. bishops and Catholic organizations.

But in the broader national debate are also those who seem to view any enforcement action against illegal immigrants, even against known violent offenders, as unacceptable. Those actors may well take the pope’s weighing of universal “infinite dignity” against the “legitimacy of norms and public policies” as a mandate for civil disobedience on all matters of immigration enforcement.

It’s not clear that was the pope’s intention, argument, or desire, yet it may be the result.

If it is, it could prove a bitter irony if Francis’ call for respect for the human dignity of all is warped to give the impression of an “open borders pope” — which could end up feeding into the very “narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters” which Francis condemns.

Similarly, Francis’ invocation of the Good Samaritan in direct response to Vance’s invocation of the ordo amoris, seems, while emotionally resonant, too broadly drawn to be of much practical purpose in the debate he has chosen to enter.

While his call for “meditating constantly” on the “love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception,” is, no doubt, urgent and beneficial, many will likely wish the pope had offered a more guided meditation.

A good faith reading of Francis may expect he meant to stress the imperative to lend loving and self-sacrificial assistance to all in need, not only those of one’s own tribe. But it seems likely that if asked about the pope’s comments, Vance could counter — as he has argued already — that the moral of the story is to help first those immediately in front of you, before helping those far away.

A generous reading of the pope’s intervention might be that he was writing simply and strongly from the heart on a matter about which he feels strongly. But a more clinical assessment might be that his brief fraternal dispatch was closer to a papal hot take — long on broad strokes and short on either nuance or persuasive detail — than to a usefully substantive contribution to a heated and complicated debate.

Ironically, that is likely to be most disappointing to the most considered and least tribal critics of the Trump administration’s actions, who might otherwise have welcomed something more substantive from the pope.

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But if American Catholics, perhaps even including some bishops, might wish Francis had chosen to make a more intellectually rigorous intervention into the immigration debate, as many or more might have good reason to question if no papal letter at all might have been preferable to even the best possible version.

The pope opened his letter to the U.S. bishops by acknowledging the “delicate moments that [they] are living as Pastors,” and closed by offering recognition and encouragement for their “valuable efforts… as you work closely with migrants and refugees, proclaiming Jesus Christ and promoting fundamental human rights.”

And conference president Archbishop Timothy Broglio was effusive in grateful response, perhaps understandably so, given the often cool (not to say antipathetic) impression Francis is often reported to have of the conference.

But at least some of the bishops will likely be thanking the pope for his support out loud, while quietly asking why Francis felt the need to get involved in their domestic politics this time. And those who wish to discount any consideration of the pope’s views on immigration have already begun using that question as a cudgel.

It is certainly the Church’s right —including the pope’s — to speak into pressing debates of public policy, especially when they touch upon human rights and dignity. And many American Catholics would accept — indeed many frequently call for — Church leaders to bring needed public corrections to prominent Catholics whose politics give witness against Church teaching.

In that light, Francis’ corrective to a Catholic vice president’s views and the administration’s policies on immigration is not, on its own terms, either beyond the pale or necessarily unwelcome. But many may be wondering where the pope has been for the last four years.

It is hard to mount a credible case for papal intervention against a Catholic VP on a subject which is, at least generally, a matter for prudential application of Church teaching which wouldn’t be even more applicable to the case of a Catholic president stridently supporting policies against the Church’s position on an absolute moral issue.

Yet despite President Joe Biden frequently and explicitly campaigning on his Catholicism as a driver of his policy platforms, no papal corrective came for his full-throated defense of and federal funding for abortion. Francis remained usually silent on the matter while his most prominent American proxies instead telegraphed papal disapproval of bishops who did challenge the president.

As such, Francis’ intervention now is almost certain to be interpreted — at least in part and by some — as a sign of partisanship, that only Catholic politicians of certain stripes, be it called “right-wing,” “conservative,” “MAGA” or anything else, merit ecclesiastical rebuke.

And those who might benefit most from considering the pope’s admonitions may instead feel justified in discounting the pope’s views by framing them as a kind of selective partisanship.

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The perception of selective papal interest in American politics and Church teaching could end up hardening divisions in the Church in the U.S., rather than unifying them in the face of an urgent moral issue.

A section of American Catholicism has emerged in recent years, often attached to figures like the disgraced and excommunicated former nuncio, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, which aligns itself closely, stridently even, with populist political movements while at the same time challenging, or even rejecting, the authority of the bishops. Francis’ letter this week will almost certainly be twisted by such groups to insist that American Catholics should have more faith in political leaders than the Church.

Alongside this remains the more established issue of so-called progressive Catholic movements and groups, which similarly advocate for Catholics to break with the Church on political issues and matters of teaching, like abortion, human sexuality, and the nature of biological sex.

As a result, and in line with American society more broadly, political partisanship has become a more deeply entrenched pastoral reality in many parts of the Church in America — presenting a real challenge for local pastors and bishops alike.

The U.S. bishops are soon to begin the process of updating their document “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” meant to help Catholics navigate the American democratic process with faith and in the light of Church teaching.

Key among the concerns for Church leaders at all levels of American pastoral life is how to frame and present the Church’s teaching, in full, in a way which does not appear to be either a partisan endorsement or functionally silent on concrete political issues.

As that situation develops, Francis’ fraternal letter will undoubtedly be raised as a key text to reference. Whether it proves a point of unity or acrimony for American Catholics, though, is another matter.