Catholic priest: Nobody has the right to violate another country’s immigration laws

(LifeSiteNews) — There has been huge pushback after the few times I have addressed the important topic of immigration from the pulpit. I recall giving a sermon on illegal immigration in early 2019 at a parish in the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut. After one of the Masses, a Novus Ordo in Spanish, a woman screamed at me in the vestibule as I was seeing off parishioners. Her insults were flying in Spanish and I was providentially keeping my composure.

This exchange led the pastor at the time to ask me not to give any more sermons for a “few weeks.” To the local bishop’s credit, he told me that pastors did not have that authority. The pastor ended up going out of town over a weekend a few weeks after the incident and told me I could preach if the content was not controversial. I would submit that the whole of the Gospel is controversial!

But as it turned out, the woman in question (in her 50s) was divorced and living outside of the sacrament of holy matrimony with a Mexican national (in his 50s) who was also divorced – and here in the United States illegally. Furthermore, her live-in “boyfriend” was not a practicing Catholic and did not attend Church anywhere. It has been my experience that those who eschew U.S. immigration laws are also willing to ignore ecclesial laws. They neither observe civil nor religious laws; theirs is a subjective morality of their own preferences.

One of the biggest problems in Western society is the lack of our participation in the Sunday precept. When people do not hear the morality and theology of sermons from the pulpit, they begin to make up their own personalized and convenient religion. We also live in a world where people do not have many discussions with well-formed consciences within their circle of acquaintances. The fact is that many isolate themselves more and more away from social interactions and counsel. Those living south of the border (in the words of many of my friends living there) tend to view any government as responsible for all the economic shortfalls they may experience.

My sermon that day in 2019 was based on my own experience of living, as a U.S. citizen, in three different countries on three different continents. Can anyone reading this imagine me, as a Catholic priest, walking across any border illegally? My bishop would proverbially have my head! I recall standing in a line in New York trying to straighten out my visa problems with Ecuador. In front of me was a Venezuelan national who was trying to renew his visa. Since there are so many Venezuelans illegally in Ecuador, I asked the man if he had ever entered Ecuador illegally. His eyes widened and he exclaimed, “I am a Catholic. I would never disobey the immigration laws of Ecuador!”

I lived in Switzerland for two years, separated by 10 (1980 and 1990). I am one-eighth Swiss and applied for Swiss citizenship but was denied. Talk about strict immigration laws! In the year 2000 I lived in Mexico City for four months, hoping the cardinal-archbishop of Mexico City would give me faculties and an assignment. Had I stayed two more months, I would have had to leave and re-enter Mexico to comply with their 180-day visa immigration rule for U.S. citizens. Talk to any illegal alien in the U.S. and they know not to cross the border and risk deportation or a denied entry.

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From 2011 to 2018 I was the pastor of a large parish in the Archdiocese of Guayaquil, Ecuador. Every two years I had to renew my clergy visa. On the fourth renewal my bishop agreed to assign me back to the Diocese of Bridgeport. I had only had the visa open for a few months when I returned to the U.S. After I left, the Ecuadorian National Assembly passed a law retroactively banning anyone from entering their country for two years if they left Ecuador on an open visa. In 2019 I was told I was banned for two years because my visa was open when I left back for the U.S., even though I left in 2018 when that was not against the law! Just about any country you could name has stricter immigration laws than we in the U.S. have had over several of the most recent decades.

St. Thomas Aquinas writes in his Summa Theologiae (I-II, Q. 105, a. 3) that man’s relationship with foreigners is either peaceful or hostile. He says that not all immigrants are equal. Every nation has a right to decide which immigrants are peaceful or beneficial to the common good. As a matter of self-defense, the state may reject those criminal elements, traitors, enemies, and those deemed harmful or hostile to its citizens. St. Thomas acknowledges that others will want to visit or stay in a given land for some time. Such foreigners must be treated with charity, respect, and courtesy. There had been a nearly worldwide traditional practice of only admitting one as a citizen after two or three generations. St. Thomas expresses a concern that newly-settled foreigners would not quickly have the best grasp of the common good and culture of their host citizens. It jars me to see so many foreign flags at soccer games on our home soil from people who claim they want U.S. citizenship. If the U.S. were playing the Swiss or German teams, I wouldn’t dream of taking a Swiss or a German flag in a display of opposition to the U.S. (I am one-eighth Swiss and half German.)

The United States has her own immigration laws on the books. If anyone thinks our laws are unjust or unfair, the proper channel is to get the current laws changed. In no way may anyone disregard our current immigration laws. Too many times illegal immigration advocates act as though they have the right to ignore our laws. Currently the U.S. allows a little less than 1 million legal immigrants to become citizens each year. That is a huge quantity. It is also a positive compliment to our country that so many want to come here. Ours is the most sought-after passport in the world. In the fiscal year of 2023, 1.2 million foreign nationals got green cards and became permanent residents. The problem is that so many more than 1 million per year want to come to the U.S. People immigrate from all over the globe. It is not fair for people to cross our southern and northern borders and effectively jump their turn in line. Everyone should wait their turn, get their papers in order, and do things in a lawful way.

Furthermore, illegal immigration puts a heavy strain on our hospitals and social services, so much so that many low-income U.S. citizens have their services curtailed or must wait in long queues behind those who should not be here. Our hospitals and social outreach, especially along the southern border, have been overrun for decades. The question begging for an answer is why are those in favor of illegal immigration not holding foreign governments responsible for their own people?

In parting, let us not forget a few things from a Catholic perspective. Just laws on legal immigration may never be broken from a moral perspective. No one has a right to violate the boundaries established by a foreign sovereign nation. The Christian ethos has always observed both personal and national land rights. Men of good faith obey just laws domestically and abroad. The content of our character reveals to others what we do in their presence, even when no one is looking. We are all sojourners here on earth and have a right to live freely in the land of our birth, or of our citizenship gained through the proper channels. Only in heaven will there be a lack of borders and a copious amount of room to enjoy the Triune God in the beatific vision.