Dear U.S. bishops: Here’s how to help JD Vance understand church teaching on migrants
Migrants
walk along a railroad track in Sayula de Aleman, Mexico, Aug. 22, 2024,
during their journey toward the U.S. border. (OSV News photo/Angel
Hernandez, Reuters)In the circles in which I move, the literary and the academic, people feel free to confront me with sentences that begin, “How can you still be a Catholic when....” These words often precede “Hello.” During an election year, there is an intense outbreak of these encounters, like a seasonal allergy. Luckily, I have crafted a response that guarantees me at least a few seconds of cease-fire:
“What about the nuns?”
I make the point that Catholic women religious provide services to the underserved with a commitment that is unparalleled by any other group. I pivot swiftly to Simone Campell, S.S.S., and the “Nuns on the Bus,” about which far too many people are ignorant. I give them a thumbnail history. In 2012, Sister Campbell and a group of other women religious went on the first-ever Nuns on the Bus tour to advocate for “an economy that includes everyone.” They focused on opposing Representative Paul Ryan’s proposed federal budget, which slashed critical supports for our most vulnerable community members, threatened Medicare and offered huge tax breaks to the wealthy.
One of their strategies was to contact Catholic lawmakers who had been reluctant to vote for the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) because the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had opposed it, believing that it would lead to federal funds being used to pay for elective abortions. The sisters convinced a critical number of lawmakers that there were other Catholic voices, whom they represented, advocating for a program that would benefit the vast majority of Americans.
Both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Joe Biden credited the sisters for the passage of Obamacare.
In 2013, their focus was on immigration reform; in 2014, they sought to counteract the influence of big money on our elections. In 2016, they addressed the growing gap between the rich and the poor. This year, the sisters are including people from other faith traditions and community leaders whose ideals and praxis join importantly with their own, asserting that this year the stakes are higher than ever.
The sisters and their partners emphasize conversation rather than confrontation. In the words ofMūmbi Kīgūtha, C.P.P.S., president of Friends in Solidarity and one of the sisters joining the bus tour:
The Bible tells us that when one part of the whole suffers, we all suffer. We need not choose to remain in suffering, because we have agency. We have the power to transcend circumstances. I witnessed that reality when I rode the bus in 2018 and encountered people, together in their communities, doing the good work of building a more just and equitable world.
Immigration and Catholic morality
Every four years, the slow burn of my irritation with the Catholic hierarchy rages into a full-blown forest fire, when I perceive them to be acting in ways that will inhibit the work of which Sister Kīgūtha speaks. This year, the catalyst has been the silence of the bishops in relation to JD Vance and his positions on immigration.
It is increasingly clear that Donald Trump considers his positions on immigration among the strongest weapons in his arsenal. His vice-presidential candidate, Mr. Vance, has been his eager co-attack dog. Not only did he spread the toxic rumor that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, are eating dogs and cats, he has now refused to back down even though he knows it isn’t true. And he has added the false charge that the Haitian community is responsible for an increase in H.I.V. and tuberculosis.
Mr. Vance became a Catholic in 2019. When he wrote about his conversion in The Lamp in 2020, he insisted that one of the most important elements of Catholicism for him was its intellectual coherence, which earned it an authority that could be submitted to with a full mind and heart. The voice of this authority is the pope and the bishops. But Mr. Vance has no problem flying in the face of the hierarchy’s authority in matters of immigration.
The Catholic Church has consistently stressed its commitment to the rights of immigrants. Pope Francis is only the latest in a series of pontiffs, beginning with Pius XII and including St. John XXIII, St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, to insist that migrants be treated with dignity and respect. On June 4 of this year, Bishop Mark J. Seitz, speaking as the head of the Committee on Migration of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, responded to President Biden’s policy curtailing the potential for asylum:
When vulnerable families seeking safety and the means for a dignified life are labeled “invaders” or “illegals,” terms that mask their humanity, we have strayed from the path of righteousness, succumbed to our fear of the “other,” and forsaken the values upon which our nation was founded.
Clearly the bishops are comfortable speaking out against Mr. Biden. They have not been hesitant to rebuke him and Ms. Pelosi for their pro-choice positions, some of them going so far as to say they would deny them Communion. And while some bishops have spoken out in defense of the Haitian immigrant community in Ohio, they have not specifically and directly called out Mr. Vance, as a Catholic, for his immoral and unjust rhetoric.
The gap between their response to him and their treatment of Mr. Biden and Ms. Pelosi can well be understood as stemming from their laser-like focus on abortion, which, if not a direct support of Mr. Trump, is certainly a blow against Kamala Harris—which some might call a distinction without a difference.
Donald Trump flouts most of the values contained in the document that the bishops put in every pew during election years: “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.” The document offers 47 criteria by which faithful Catholics should make their voting decisions. By my count, Kamala Harris’s positions align with the church 39 times; Donald Trump’s align 14 times.
Further, in the document’s introduction, abortion is called “the pre-eminent priority,” which says to many Catholics that they don’t really need to pay attention to any of the other criteria. It gives the lie to the idea that Catholics are not single-issue voters.
Conscience and repentance
When Pope Francis was asked recently about the U.S. presidential election, he said that he would not tell people how to vote. When asked whether it would be morally admissible to vote for someone who favored abortion, he said: “One must vote. One must choose the lesser evil. Which is the lesser evil? That lady or that gentleman? I don’t know. Each person must think and decide according to his or her own conscience.”
Most of the responses to his statement cited in the U.S. media have been negative, critical of his harsh words on abortion, which are not consonant with the views of most Americans, even most American Catholics. But many reporters have overlooked (his enemies haven’t) that, while not softening his anti-abortion stance, Pope Francis said both abortion and anti-immigration are anti-life.
The pope’s words may be an encouragement for Catholics to listen to the voice of their conscience and cast a vote for Kamala Harris. At the same time, these words could embolden the bishops to speak out against Mr. Vance, whose spiritual welfare, as well as that of the immigrants whom he endangers, is their charge. They could use their bully pulpit and their extensive media access to issue a public rebuke to Mr. Vance, as they did to Mr. Biden and Ms. Pelosi.
I am not suggesting that JD Vance or anyone else should be threatened with the denial of Communion. But the bishops could take action drawing on some of the most ancient traditions of Catholicism, to which Mr. Vance claims to be devoted.
If I were writing speculative fiction, I would create this scenario: The bishops require that JD Vance perform an act of public repentance. They demand that he make a pilgrimage to Springfield and ask forgiveness of the Haitian community. And then I would conjure up this photo op: the bishops in full regalia, the Haitian community in their Sunday best, JD Vance on his knees. In my speculative fiction, there is general agreement that sackcloth and ashes are a good look for him.
Mary Gordon is the author of numerous novels, memoirs and literary criticism. Her most recent novel, Payback, was published by Pantheon in September 2020.
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