“You stand with me, and I stand with you,” Pope Leo told El Paso’s Bishop Mark Seitz, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on migration, when he met him and a U.S. delegation in the Vatican on Oct. 8.
“The church cannot remain silent” about the situation of migrants in the United States, Pope Leo said. According to Bishop Seitz, the pope made clear that he wants the Catholic bishops and the church in the United States “to be united” on this crucially important issue, which is “a matter of human dignity.”
“Pope Leo said he would really like the [U.S.] bishops to speak together on this issue,” Bishop Seitz told America in a one-to-one interview immediately after the papal audience. “I am still processing what he said,” the bishop added, clearly encouraged and affirmed by the meeting with the pope.
Leo’s words reflect what he said in an interview with his biographer Elise Ann Allen in July, when she asked him if, as an American, he had a better shot at engaging with President Trump than his predecessor had. At that time, Leo said, “I think that it would be much more appropriate for the leadership in the church within the United States to engage him, quite seriously.”
Bishop Seitz told the pope, “We’ve been working in the [migration] committee to organize the response of the church in the United States,” adding that the committee was working on a statement that would, he hopes, be approved at the next U.S.C.C.B. assembly in November.
Moreover, he said, he is “working and collaborating” with the Episcopal Secretariat of Central America and Panama in response to the situation of immigrants.
This was the third time that Bishop Seitz and the pope have met. Their first encounter was last year, when then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, invited the El Paso bishop to speak to the new bishops from around the world “about the ministry of bishops to immigrants.” They met briefly for a second time last Saturday, he said, at the papal audience for the Jubilee for Missions and Migrants, “and he remembered me,” the bishop said.
The delegation of migrant advocates and representatives of immigrant communities shared a video message with the pope as well as letters and testimonies gathered by the Hope Border Institute from individuals across the country at risk of deportation and their family members.
Bishop Seitz told America, “We handed him a box with letters from immigrants, to share with him from the mouths of immigrants, describing their situation and experience and saying what they would ask Pope Leo to do on behalf of immigrants.”
“They know that the Holy Father is limited in what he can accomplish to improve their situation in terms of the actions of the government,” he said, “but they did express how very important it is to them to know that the church is with them, to know that he is praying for them, supporting them. They asked, too, that he would encourage their bishops and priests to be close to them at this time.”
The meeting came amid a wave of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids across American cities. The raids have targeted workplaces, private homes and public areas, leading to large-scale detentions and a widespread climate of fear within immigrant communities.
“The Holy Father did express his concern for the situation of immigrants in the United States. He is quite aware of the way they are being treated right now, so he expressed his unity with them and with all of those who are suffering difficulties in the United States,” Bishop Seitz said.
“I thanked him for the words that he has been speaking on behalf of immigrants, and I told him that that’s tremendously important for all of us,” he added.
Bishop Seitz on Trump’s ‘mass deportation’ effort
Asked how he views the situation in the United States regarding migrants today, Bishop Seitz responded: “Every day [is] more concerning, more difficult. It’s a situation that reminds me of the actions of an authoritarian state that uses a particular group as a scapegoat in order to continue their agenda of consolidating authority.”
He noted that billions of dollars are being spent to build detention centres. “We have one in El Paso that will be the largest in the United States,” he said. “It was opened before they were finished building it. Well over 1,000 people are being held in the camp in El Paso that has opened now, and they are working to have around 5,000 in it by the end of December, but, ultimately, they say it will hold 10,000. And this is just one camp.”
The El Paso bishop said:
They’re putting people into very difficult situations. These are prison camps, and the treatment that these people are being given shouldn’t even be given to prisoners…. The majority of people in those camps have not committed any felony or crime, but they are being kept under lights 24 hours a day. They are being kept in conditions that are very cold, without any warm clothing. They are not being fed adequately—these are the reports we are receiving right now.
Bishop Seitz said: “We see the government is gearing up for a mass deportation effort. They are working in the courts to get authorization to do what they want to do. They lose some battles, but they are winning others. The money is coming, approved by Congress in what the president calls ‘the big, beautiful bill.’”
Asked what he would like Pope Leo to do given this current situation regarding migrants, Bishop Seitz said he didn’t “expect the pope to be a political actor, to respond to every decision that comes out of the U.S. government.” Rather, he hoped that by reiterating “the church’s teaching about the dignity of the human person,” Leo could help the U.S. church speak with greater unity and authority on the issue.
“We know that the Holy Father will be a tremendous asset to us against those who would try to divide the church in this type of situation,” Bishop Seitz said.
When asked what he wants the U.S. bishops’ conference to do, the bishop said:
I would be delighted if we could emerge from our November meeting with an approved statement expressing our love of our immigrant peoples and our respect for their dignity, and calling on the U.S. government to share that respect for those who have come in and have been quietly working and serving people who fled here to protect and preserve their families against threats from governments and extra-governmental actors against their lives. To recognize again that we are a country that has been built by immigrants and still depends upon them, and that we need to express those principles that were expressed by our founders: that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, and those are always to be respected, and due process always to be respected. We need to be reassured of that in the United States today.
When asked if he feels threatened by the actions of the U.S. government, the bishop responded forthrightly: “Oh, absolutely! Yes. We know that when the leadership of our government disagrees with the position that anyone takes, that person…can be vilified and exposed to actors who would use violence against us.”
But, he added, “I have to say that up to this point, the government, the leadership, has not directly attacked the church in a consistent kind of way. We have some things that were said against the clergy by, for instance, the border czar, [Thomas] Homan, a Catholic, and by our vice president [JD Vance, also a Catholic]. We’re concerned that if we continue as a church to speak against these measures that the time will come when the government will focus its wrath on those who speak out.”
On the other hand, Bishop Seitz said that in their meeting with Pope Leo this morning, “We felt loved and supported in our ministry. He was very affirming of the work we are doing to help those who are suffering this terror—[Leo] used the word ‘terror!’ So, what more on earth could we ask than the vicar of Christ affirming the service that we are offering? And I think that gives us a great deal of encouragement in a very difficult time.”
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