Pope Leo XIV is being lobbied by Catholic bishops and nuns to endorse more migration flows, regardless of the vast civic and economic damage inflicted on citizens, Western societies, and the migrants’ home countries.
So far, the Pope is responding with generalities without detailed policy implications or direct opposition to Trump’s popular deportation of illegal migrants,
“In the communities of ancient Christian tradition, such as those of the West, the presence of many brothers and sisters from the world’s South should be welcomed as an opportunity, through an exchange that renews the face of the Church,” the Pope declared on October 5.
“Often [migrants] maintain their strength while seeking a better future, in spite of the obstacles that they encounter,” Leo said Oct. 2 in a meeting with Catholic migration advocates.
“You can read into [his comments] what you want when it comes to specifics of government policy, responded Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors lower levels of migration into Americans’ society.
The mistake that people — both in and outside the Catholic Church or any other church, — is that they imagine that the lessons of the Gospel and of the Fathers of the Church are somehow a 10-Point white paper on how we should run [immigration] policy. In fact they [provide] general rules about how to think about these questions, and different people will come to different conclusions.