VATICAN CITY (CNS) ─ Many immigrants in the United States today are living with the same fear people experienced under the "tyrannical" communist governments of the past, said Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas.
"We have made people who have fled for their lives now live in even greater fear" than they faced in their homelands, the bishop said the day before he met Pope Leo XIV and shared with him letters from immigrants across the United States.
Pope Leo had tears in his eyes reading some of the letters, Bishop Seitz said after meeting the pope Oct. 8.
"He was very affirming of the work that we are doing in the United States, especially our work directly with immigrants," the bishop said, and he asked the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to continue speaking "strongly on this issue."
"The church, through our Holy Father, the vicar of Christ, is very personally concerned about these matters," Bishop Seitz said.
Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute in El Paso, who joined Bishop Seitz for the private papal audience, posted on X that Pope Leo told them, "The church cannot stay silent before injustice. You stand with me. And I stand with you."
Bishop Seitz had celebrated Mass Oct. 7 for members of the National Catholic Council for Hispanic Ministry's "Pilgrimage of Hope" to Rome and the Vatican.
Members of the pilgrimage met Pope Leo briefly that evening. Before blessing the pilgrims, the pope told them, "You have in your hands a very important task: to accompany those who are deeply in need of a sign that God never abandons us: the smallest, the poorest, the foreigner -- everyone."
"In the pastoral service you offer," he told them, "you are clearly this testimony, which is so important, perhaps especially in the United States, but also throughout the world."
Speaking to Catholic News Service and to the Reuters news agency Oct. 7, Bishop Seitz said he thinks that in many ways the fear being experienced by immigrants in the United States is compounded by the fact that "they had put all their hope in thinking that they had found safety at last."
And now, he said, with the immigration raids being carried out by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, "Where do they go?"
The government is saying, "We're going to send you back to Cuba; we're going to send you back to Venezuela; we're going to send you back to Afghanistan," he said.
"Does that mean that crossing the border, seeking refuge in the nation that is made up of immigrants is now a capital crime?" the bishop asked. For many migrants and refugees, danger "is what they are going back to."
The support of Pope Leo and all Catholics is crucial, Bishop Seitz said.
"It is just so important today -- in this time more than ever -- that the Latino presence in the United States be acknowledged, encouraged, loved, accompanied," he said. "You know, they feel so much rejection, so much hatred in the place that they came to seeking security and love."
"The Latino presence has enriched the United States, has strengthened the practice of the faith, has strengthened our family life by their witness," he said. "So, we should be thanking (them) rather than putting into question whether Latinos belong in the United States. And that's really what the question has become."
While the Trump administration says that it is targeting criminals, "that is not the reality. That's not what we are seeing," Bishop Seitz said. "The vast majority of those who are being detained today are not criminals by any reasonable definition of that word, but they are being treated worse than we ought to treat criminals, and it is just so sad to see our nation treating our brothers and sisters in this way -- sad, and you know, so wrong."
Bishop Seitz also spoke about Pope Leo's remark Sept. 30 about Catholics needing to be consistently pro-life. "Someone who says that I am against abortion, but I am in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants who are in the United States, I don't know if that's pro-life," the pope had said.
"The church is consistent in her teaching," the bishop said. "This is not something new. We have always drawn from our fundamental belief that we were created and loved by God. We were given a special dignity by God as made in his own image and likeness. And there are no exceptions to that."
Abortion is "a special concern for us based on that teaching, because it is the direct taking of an innocent human life," Bishop Seitz said. "But it is not as though we say, well, we are going to love one group, we are going to respect one group, and we are not going to respect others who share that same humanity. That would be ridiculous, irrational."
