America’s Catholics are facing a crisis of authority.

The social and economic realities of mass migration contradict the Vatican’s facile theologizing on open borders. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), in accord with Pope Francis’ globalist conceits, opposes President Donald Trump’s resolve to curtail illegal migration. Catholics are caught between fidelity to ecclesial leadership and obedience to the just laws of our own country.

Francis’ hostility to Trump is no secret. Damian Thompson, former editor of Britain’s Catholic Herald, wrote: “In 2016, Francis gave his blessing to the Hillary Clinton campaign’s Catholic front organizations, motivated not just by their shared obsession with anti-racism and climate change but contempt for Donald Trump.” That same year, Francis declared the president “not Christian” for building a border wall.

Resentful of Trump’s re-election, Francis is raising the stakes.

The pope’s first salvo against the new administration came in January with the appointment of Cardinal Robert McElroy as the archbishop of Washington, D.C. An ally of Francis, McElroy leads the left-wing of the American hierarchy on all contentious issues, from mainstreaming LGBT sexual habits to the perceived peril of climate change. He dislikes Trump and is an outspoken critic of his immigration policies.

On Feb. 10, the pope sent a letter to the USCCB tailored to spur defiance of administration efforts to enforce existing immigration laws. His letter gilds the fallacy that rigorous border control violates Catholic social doctrine. It was an unprecedented move against a sovereign state.

Elevating a Trump Critic

The next day, Feb. 11, Francis elevated Bishop Edward Weisenburger of Tucson, Arizona, to the Archdiocese of Detroit, the largest in Michigan. The appointment was a calculated slap at the president. Weisenburger shares the papal mania for untrammeled migration. A vehement critic of Trump during his first administration, he took promotion as an opportunity to restate an earlier suggestion that Catholics who actively support Trump’s border policies could risk ecclesial sanctions.

Weisenburger first voiced that threat in 2018 at the USCCB’s annual spring assembly. He warned Catholics involved in the detention of immigrants at the U.S. border that they might find themselves subject to “canonical penalties.” This is code for withholding the eucharist or, if needed, full excommunication. Such censures are rarely, if ever, raised outside the contexts of right-to-life matters, chiefly abortion.

As Bishop of Tucson during the Covid era, he had ordered priests in his diocese not to sign religious exemption letters for Catholics who conscientiously objected to taking the Covid vaccine. He claimed there was “a clear moral obligation to abide by mask mandates and social distancing” in addition to taking the jab for “the moral good of the community.”

Weisenburger’s diktat erases the distinction between moral imperatives (e.g., condemnation of sinful acts) and actions requiring prudential judgment. It subordinates the nuances of Catholic moral doctrine to the shifting ideological agendas of the hierarchy. Moral authority diminishes accordingly.

Reviving Anti-Catholicism

The insurrectionist tenor of Catholic Charities and the USCCB pits Catholics against each other. It also risks reviving the once-pervasive anti-Catholicism that infected the nation before John F. Kennedy’s 1960 election.

Paul Blanchard’s American Freedom and Catholic Power, published in 1949, was a widely read indictment of the Catholic Church as an institution incompatible with American democracy. Those were the years “Catholics need not apply” signs were posted by employers on doors and shop windows.

Will Herberg, distinguished sociologist of religion, reviewed the book in Commentary. He deplored the book’s “vulgar anti-Catholicism.” Nonetheless, he found disturbing “the Church’s tendency to confuse, or rather to equate, the spiritual interests of Christianity with the political and social, even economic, interests of the Vatican, the hierarchy, and the Church establishment.”

Skewed Concerns

The current pontificate brings Herberg’s unease up to date. Bishop Joseph Strickland, removed from his Texas diocese in 2023 for criticizing Francis, illustrates the substance of it. He responded on Substack to the pope’s February letter to the USCCB:

The Catholic Church in the United States receives significant government funding to assist migrants and refugees through Catholic Charities and other organizations. Stronger immigration enforcement means less funding for these programs which is undoubtedly a large factor in the Vatican’s stance.

On the other hand, abortion and gender ideology do not offer the same direct financial incentives for the Church to oppose them aggressively. … This would seem to explain why Pope Francis remained relatively quiet on President Biden’s policies while vocally opposing President Trump and Vice President Vance on immigration issues and policy.

The pope’s selective outrage is not lost on American Catholics.

Neither are the skewed concerns of the USCCB. Strickland has noted that “the USCCB used 90% of the collected federal funds for immigration resettlement and less than 1% for pro-life activities. Although claiming that abortion is their preeminent priority, the USCCB has never collected money for pro-life activities.”

The U.S. Catholic Church spent more than $5 billion on victim compensation and attorneys’ fees in cases of clerical sex abuse of minors between 2004 and 2023, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. With insurance companies meeting less than one-fifth of settlement expenses, bishops have been selling churches, reorganizing parishes, and filing for bankruptcies.

Catholic Charities is a vast, sprawling bureaucracy with overhead — salaries, pensions, and operating expenses. Bishoprics are burdened if those expenses are not met.

Put plainly, the American episcopate needs income. So-called refugee resettlement provides it, despite the reality that the majority of migrants entering illegally by force of numbers are neither fleeing persecution nor eligible for asylum.

They are, however, siphoning resources, including jobs, away from disadvantaged and working-class Americans. The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) reports that three-fourths of the employment growth since 2019 has gone to immigrants, both legal and illegal. The labor force participation rate for less-educated men born in the U.S. is at a historic low.

In other words, the episcopate is highly selective in its definition of charity.

Earlier this month, my own parish distributed a flyer circulated by Catholic Charities to archdiocesan churches. Written in English and in Spanish, “Know Your Rights In an Encounter With ICE” tutored illegal immigrants in the protocols of resisting law enforcement: “Remain silent and refuse to answer any questions from ICE agents” and “Do not respond to questions about your immigration status or where you were born.” The flyer included two hotlines for legal support, one in the New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs. Both are operated by Catholic Charities. In addition, the nonprofit organization hosted a Feb. 7 webinar on Zoom to assist illegal immigrants in impeding the administration’s executive orders.

In sum, Francis’ letter to the USCCB and his intemperate appointments are symptomatic of the liability this pontificate poses to the Catholic Church in America and to national security and cohesion.