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religion
Pope Calls Trump's Mass Deportation Plan 'Major Crisis'
The pontiff also rejected Vice President JD Vance's attempt to use a Catholic tenet to serve the administration's anti-migrant agenda.
Feb 11, 2025
Pope Francis on Tuesday reaffirmed his condemnation of U.S. President Donald Trump's anti-migrant agenda and explicitly rebuked what critics have called Vice President JD Vance's misinterpretation of Catholic theology in an attempt to justify the Republican administration's mass deportation plan.
In a letter to U.S. bishops, the pontiff wrote: "I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations. The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.
What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.
The Pope acknowledged "the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival," but also asserted that "the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness."
The Pope continued:
This is not a minor issue: An authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized. The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all—as I have affirmed on numerous occasions—welcomes, protects, promotes, and integrates the most fragile, unprotected, and vulnerable. This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration. However, this development cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others. What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.
While not explicitly naming him, the Pope's letter refutes remarks by Vance, who last month invoked the medieval Catholic concept of ordo amoris—which posits a ranking of affection with the deity figures God and Jesus at the highest level, followed by self, family, friends, and others—to show that Christians should love citizens more than migrants.
"Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups," the missive states. "In other words: The human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings! The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation."
"The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the Good Samaritan... that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception," the pontiff said.
Imagine you're just some 30-something guy who converts to one of the world's major religions and in less than a decade its spiritual leader is rebuking you in front of the entire world That's how big a loser JD Vance is apnews.com/article/pope...
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— Will Bunch ( @willbunch.bsky.social) February 11, 2025 at 8:21 AM
"I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of goodwill, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters," the Pope added. "With charity and clarity we are all called to live in solidarity and fraternity, to build bridges that bring us ever closer together, to avoid walls of ignominy, and to learn to give our lives as Jesus Christ gave his for the salvation of all."
Pope Francis is a longtime champion of migrant rights. The 88-year-old Argentinian criticized Trump's so-called "zero-tolerance" immigration policies, including family separation and construction of a wall along portions of the Mexican border, during the Republican's first term in office.
"Builders of walls, be they made of razor wire or bricks, will end up becoming prisoners of the walls they build," the Pope said in 2019.
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'Incredibly Brave' Bishop Asks Trump to Halt Attacks on Immigrants, Trans People
"I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away," said the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde.
Jan 21, 2025
The inaugural interfaith service at the Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday proceeded with the usual prayers and music, but after delivering her sermon, the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde appeared to go off-script and made a direct appeal to President Donald Trump.
Recalling the Republican president's assertion on Monday that he was "saved by God" after a bullet hit his ear in an assassination attempt in July, Budde asked Trump, who was seated in the church, "in the name of our God... to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now."
"There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families," said Budde, "some who fear for their lives. And the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals."
"I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here," said Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C.
Budde's appeal followed Trump's signing of 26 executive orders in his first day in office, with dozens more expected in the first days of his second term. The president signed orders ending birthright citizenship—provoking legal challenges from immigrant rights groups and state attorneys general—and pausing refugee admissions, leading to devastation among people who had been waiting for asylum appointments at ports of entry. Official proclamations declared a national emergency at the southern border and asserted that the entry of migrants there is an "invasion."
Trump also took executive action to declare that the federal government recognizes only two sexes, male and female.
"May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love, and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people in this nation and the world," said Budde in her address to Trump.
The president kept his eyes on Budde for much of her speech, at one point looking annoyed and casting his eyes downward. Vice President JD Vance leaned over and spoke to his wife, Usha Vance, as Budde talked about undocumented immigrants, and raised his eyebrows when she said the majority of immigrants are not criminals.
Trump later told reporters that the service was "not too exciting."
"I didn't think it was a good service," he said. "They can do much better."
Democratic strategist Keith Edwards applauded Budde's decision to speak directly to the president, calling her "incredibly brave."
Budde "confronted Trump's fascism to his face," he said on the social media platform Bluesky.
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'Even When Things Look Dark, Way Down, in the Human Heart—There’s a Light'
A reflection on a 'Christmas Song'—our family's favorite—and one that speaks solemnly and soulfully to the deep drive that fuels our common dreams.
Dec 24, 2024
It’s true I have a favorite Christmas song, but as it turns out, it’s not one that many people know—at least I assume most people don’t know it.
Funny enough, the title is simply “Christmas Song,” and it was performed—at least the version I know—by songwriter Greg Brown during a live show back in 2001.
Though an atheist, my fondness for Christmas—perhaps like it is for many—is wrapped in the nostalgia of the holiday of my upbringing as well as the ongoing joys I find during this “season of giving.” Like religious celebrations across many faiths, Christmas has the ability to open the human heart and reminds us (if we let it) of that spirit that enriches us and challenges us to understand what it means to share, not material gifts, but time and warmth with one another.
In Brown’s song—which I encourage you to listen to here or below—the story of Jesus is subtly inverted.
Rather than a story of miraculous birth—”It was the night before Christmas,” the song begins, “but nobody was really noticing that”—it is a story about the routine of birth (“something women do” and that “men kinda, sorta, a little bit… help”) in which the only miracle is the gift of life that we’ve all been granted.
Just getting born is such an amazing thing
You'd think we'd all just be nice forever after—
Just to get to be a part of it.
You'd think that anybody that ever held a little baby in their arms
Would be so careful not to ever do any damage
To another human being—or to the creation
Of which we are so obviously a part.
The song presents a story of Jesus that escapes Christianity, which is perhaps why I find it so lovely and piercing, and opens the door to thinking about the hidden promise of a holiday that too often asks us “what we want” as opposed to reflecting on the joys of what we’ve been given.
Sometimes when I get distraught
About our world and what we're doing to it
I remind myself that little children like that are being born every day.
The story in the song is not about a boy who grew up to “found any big religions, with shiny churches,” but rather a story “about a world so much better than this one.” In this story, the unnamed boy “was just a child full of love, who went around and talked about love.”
And so it follows that the lesson of such a child is not that he was exemplary (though perhaps he was), but that we too often fail to recognize the potent and profound goodness of so many people among us, past and present—not children of God, but examples of humility and decency.
Sometimes when I get distraught
About our world and what we're doing to it
I remind myself that little children like that are being born every day.
They may not make a lot of big news
But in their life, they’re kind;
They take care of people;
They don’t blow things all out of proportion.
They spread the news that this life,
So mysterious and hard, is a wonderful enterprise
That should be cherished.
And Brown, led all along by the slow strum of guitar, speaks sorrowfully but clearly as he tells his listener:
So Christmas, if it’s anything at all,
It’s every day. It’s every night.
And even when things look dark, way down…
In the human heart,
That we all share...
There’s a light.
And, only to the song’s credit, it makes me think that’s true. I don’t call it religion, but that idea has shaped my understanding of what the promise of human goodness really is. We know it exists, not because we read about it or were told to believe in it—but because we’ve seen it. We’ve witnessed it.
So Christmas, if it’s anything at all, it’s every day. It’s every night.
Even amidst all the horror and violence and injustice, we know in our life, the good people—young and old and those neither young nor old—and they don’t ask us to believe, but show us the way.
When I listen to this song—as I often will at this time of year—it does something solemn to my heart, the hearts of my family, and those we share it with.
Since I first heard it, the song has always been to me a magnificent expression, though that was not its intent, of what Common Dreams seeks to represent—a world full of people who embody that spirit of loving one another and defending the common good while challenging “the political leadership of the day,” as the song puts it.
We don’t often use that kind of language, but that’s what this project we call Common Dreams is about: love. The news we report and the opinions and analysis we share are all grounded in a deep love for people, community, life of all kinds, and the planet that sustains us all.
I know very well how dark it feels right now for so many. We are right to be frightened and angry and frustrated. And at the same time, we must remember that the light “we all share, in the human heart” is the beginning of our path forward. We are going to have to fight like hell, but that fight will be built on love and solidarity or nothing at all.
With endless gratitude for all you do in the world, dear reader, and the example you set for the rest of us.
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