Editorial: Catholic leaders remain shamefully silent while Trump and Vance lie about immigrants

Republican candidates Donald Trump and JD Vance have spread lies about immigrants in the United States as a cornerstone of their campaign. There is no other word that applies to the despicable and easily proven falsehoods they express.

The fallout from Trump’s hateful rhetoric and his promise to carry out a mass deportation will continue beyond November 5, regardless of who wins. The former president created a narrative and so successfully planted it in the public imagination that it will continue to force itself into every discussion of immigration long into the future.

It is a story that poses a deadly threat to the core of Catholic social teaching, an open dare for those whose faith finds Trump’s language and intent abhorrent.

So what should we, Catholics, do? We, for whom the core of our faith lies not in public piety or escapism from the world, but in compassion for the lost, the homeless, the abandoned, for those who seek refuge from state violence and poverty.

The shameful silence of our Catholic leaders has been more than deafening.

The falsehoods promoted by Trump and Vance have a special consequence for Catholics. Jesus’ powerful statements in our sacred texts about where the evidence of our faith lies are all rooted in the way we treat the stranger, the least among us, those considered outcasts, those who are hungry, clothed and need shelter. Our neighbor, as the story of the Good Samaritan makes clear, is the destitute and beaten traveler who languishes by the side of the road.

The texts form the basis of Catholic social teaching the encyclical Rerum Novarum proclaimed in 1891 by each successive papacy and especially today, with Pope Francis’ unyielding and persistent advocacy for migrants from around the world. first months of his pontificate.

The Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc., or CLINIC, an organization founded decades ago by the American bishopsnotes that Catholic teaching “recognizes a range of human rights for newcomers based on their God-given dignity that extends far beyond those recognized by individual nations or international bodies.”

Furthermore, the Church teaches ‘that civil authority derives its legitimacy from the protection and defense of human rights and the ‘common good of the entire human family’. In this context, serving newcomers constitutes an obligation for persons of faith, not an option.”

Yet our worthless religious leaders have concluded that they have another option: shamelessly sitting out this battle in silence and on the sidelines.

No version of the immigration lie is more instructive than Trump and Vance’s continued use of the smear that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating the neighbors’ dogs and cats and otherwise causing major disruption to life in that community.

The women behind the false accusations publicly admitted their mistake and expressed deep regret for the problems they caused the Haitian community. Officials at the local and state levels, including the Republican governor, have deemed the story and characterizations of Haitians legally residing in that community as completely false. Springfield is the little national story, an example of what happens when public leaders spend their political capital stoking hate.

The Republican nominees have chosen not to let a raging viral lie go to waste. Vance, confronted with the truth, engaged in a kind of linguistic alchemy.

“The American media completely ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes,” he said. according to an NPR report. “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

How noble. Only the suffering only increased for the targets of his slander. As a result, the city of Springfield faced numerous bomb threats and new levels of anxiety.

We know that the bishops have spoken out relentlessly and spent countless millions trying to change attitudes and laws on issues like abortion and contraception. There are lies in the area of ​​immigration their comments were minor and barely sufficient for the attacks on this vulnerable population group.

Why then the silence on this matter of life?

Immigration is not about the individual conscience wrestling with the question of whether it conflicts with the teachings of the Church. No, this is about a former president seeking a second term who would use the power of office and the tools of the state to impose inhumanity on millions of immigrants among us.

Will we be obliged to stand by and simply witness the vilification of others, many of whom now attend our churches? Will we be forced to witness unnecessary insults like “floating trash island in the middle of the ocean,” a reference to Puerto Rico during Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden? Is it our fate to stand by helplessly and accept the worst that can be said of – and the worst consequences for – the most vulnerable among us?

Silence.

Our bishops have yet to expose the lies and liars. They have failed to use the moral authority they possess to counter the slander. They have abandoned immigrants they so often and proudly claim as our own, leaving them vulnerable to the fickle political winds and the awesome power of the state.

Do they silently give permission?