In the hours and days after Renee Good’s death, members of the Trump administration, without waiting for basic facts to be confirmed, spoke publicly in support of the ICE agent who shot the Minnesota mom three times in the face. But officials did more than mount a defense; they went on offense against the victim.
Good was a “domestic terrorist,” said Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem. “A deranged leftist” who was part of a left-wing network, according to Vice President J. D. Vance. Donald Trump called her “disrespectful” of law enforcement, suggesting that such a disposition justified her death. It didn’t take long for commentators to disparage her for being a lesbian or for being an AWFUL—an “affluent white female urban liberal.” These labels aren’t what Good is alleged to have done (or didn’t do, as the most objective video analysis seems to show). They’re about who she was. In an us-versus-them world, she was a “them,”—a member of an outgroup less deserving of rights, including the right to life.
But the Church insists that there’s no such thing as a “them.” There are no classes of people; every person is born with the same dignity and is deserving of respect and equal treatment. The dignity of the human person is often cited in reference to so-called “right-to-life issues,” such as abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty, but this principle of Catholic social teaching is foundational to all moral decision-making.
The God-given sacredness of every human life goes back to the teachings of Jesus and has been affirmed by modern popes from John Paul II to Francis. “Differences of color, religion, talent, place of birth or residence, and so many others, cannot be used to justify the privileges of some over the rights of others,” the late Pope Francis explained in his 2020 encyclical Fratelli tutti.
In his encyclical on the Gospel of Life, Evangelium vitae, John Paul II connects human dignity to the common good, another foundational principle of Catholic social teaching. “A society lacks solid foundations when, on the one hand, it asserts values such as the dignity of the person, justice and peace, but then, on the other hand, radically acts to the contrary by allowing or tolerating a variety of ways in which human life is devalued and violated, especially where it is weak or marginalized,” he writes. “Only respect for life can be the foundation and guarantee of the most precious and essential goods of society, such as democracy and peace.”
Over the course of his political career, Trump has shown that his entire worldview requires a division between an “us” and a “them.” His strategy of mass deportations is predicated on “othering” people based on race, ethnicity, and language. There are those who are loyal to him and those who are not, and he applies the law based on this distinction: January 6 rioters are pardoned, while anti-ICE protesters are blinded with chemical weapons. Trump also regularly mocks people who are different from him in some way, including those with disabilities, women, and transgender people.
Trump particularly dehumanizes migrants, as other authoritarians have done. Pope Francis, on the other hand, spent much of his papacy insisting on the human dignity of migrants. In his letter to U.S. bishops last February, he decried the Trump’s administration’s policy of mass deportations and predicted: “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.”
Now not only migrants but those who try to defend them are on Trump’s list of Americans no longer deserving of basic rights and human dignity. Masked agents have terrorized protesters, including clergy. The video evidence from Minnesota—the use of pepper spray and tear gas against protesters, agents smashing car windows and dragging innocent bystanders out of their cars—is chilling. Trump is now threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act, putting anyone he deems a target at risk.
Although Trump officials were quick to respond after the shooting, another group of leaders has been slower to speak out: U.S. bishops. St. Paul–Minneapolis archbishop Bernard Hebda released a statement the afternoon of the shooting, urging the country to “lower the temperature of rhetoric, stop fear-filled speculation and start seeing all people as created in the image and likeness of God.” The statement specifically noted that human dignity applies not only to “our immigrant sisters and brothers” but also to “our elected officials and those who are responsible for enforcing our laws.”
Trump and ICE agents do have God-given dignity, but they are also creating a violent environment in which people are being killed—four people so far, not to mention dozens who have died in detention. Some religious leaders have joined the massive protests in Minnesota and around the country. Hebda hasn’t said anything since his initial statement, and the U.S. bishops’ conference has been silent. (On the day of the shooting, the conference posted a statement about federal funding of abortion, likely in response to an earlier comment from Trump suggesting compromise on the issue.)
Five days after Good’s death, while Minnesotans were being violently dragged from their workplaces, cars, and schools by masked agents, the newly elected president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, met with Trump and Vance. It was the first time a bishops’ conference president has met with a U.S. president in nearly a decade.
The conference posted photos of a smiling Coakley and Trump shaking hands during their meeting, but a promised “read-out” of the meeting, which was closed to the press, has not been made public. We can guess what might have been discussed, however, as two days later Trump approved a regulatory change that will make it easier for religious leaders, such as foreign-born priests, to renew their work visas. The bishops’ conference praised the change as “truly significant.” This may indicate Coakley’s, or the conference’s, priorities—and the immigration process for foreign-born priests and sisters is important. But it also could be another example of too many bishops being overly deferential to Trump, a strategy that has for the most part not borne fruit for those who employ it.
The bishops’ conference was similarly cautious when it issued a rare “special message” on immigration at its November meeting. That message affirmed the “fundamental dignity of all persons, including immigrants” and noted that “[h]uman dignity and national security are not in conflict. Both are possible if people of good will work together.” All true, but as the Trump administration ramps up the dehumanization of its enemies and moves the country further into fascism, the times demand an even stronger defense of the human dignity of all life, including Renee Good’s.
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