Bishop: Excommunicate Catholics Involved In Immigration Policies

TUCSON, AZ — Catholics who implement the Trump administration’s hardline asylum rules that separate parents and their children could be kicked out of the church under a proposal floated by Tucson Bishop Edward Weisenburger at a gathering of U.S. Catholic bishops. The Justice Department defends the policy as a powerful deterrent to immigrant mothers from coming illegally to the United States.

Canonical penalties — which could include everything from withholding sacraments to excommunication — are given for offenses that are seen as more than simply sins, but as crimes according to canon law. These offenses can be absolved, and the penalties are intended as a wake-up call to the need for repentance and reconciliation with the church.

Weisenburger’s remarks came Wednesday at a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he and other church leaders gave some of their harshest criticism yet of President Trump and his administration’s immigration policies.

The Tucson bishop said separating children from their mothers at the border is “immoral” and called for a “prophetic statement” — especially for “those of us who are border bishops, on the possibility of canonical penalties for Catholics who are involved in this.”

“I also think, even though what I'm saying could be a little risky or dangerous, I think it's important to point out the canonical penalties are there in place to heal. First and foremost, to heal," Weisenberger said. "And therefore, for the salvation of these people's souls, maybe it's time for us to look at canonical penalties."

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The suggestion comes amid growing frustration by Catholic leaders over Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ June 11 ruling that immigration judges generally may not consider domestic abuse and gang violence as grounds for asylum in the United States. The ruling portends a perilous future for thousands of Central Americans fled their countries to escape those dangers, the bishops said.

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Pushing back against the criticism, Sessions quoted Scripture Thursday in a Fort Wayne, Indiana, speech on immigration. He said recent criticisms by the bishops and others are not "fair or logical," and said some were "contrary to the law."

“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” he said. “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.”

TRUMP'S BASE CONDEMNS POLICIES, TOO

Mainline Protestants, Jews and Muslims have all decried Trump’s immigration agenda, but now conservative faith leaders from the president’s evangelical base are registering their objections, too.

A coalition of religious and humanitarian organizations, including the National Association of Evangelicals and the Council for Christian Colleges and University, pleaded with the president in June 1 letter not to cut off paths for asylum for immigrants and refugees who are fleeing danger.

Motivated by what has been happening at the border, the Southern Baptist Convention, a conservative evangelical denomination and the nation’s largest Protestant church, said in a resolution passed Tuesday at its meeting in Dallas that immigration reform should maintain “the priority of family unity.”

Passed nearly unanimously, it called for both securing the nation’s borders and providing a legal pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. “We declare that any form of nativism, mistreatment, or exploitation is inconsistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ,” the resolution said.

Even the Rev. Franklin Graham, the son of famed evangelist the Rev. Bill Graham and an avowed Trump supporter and defender, sharply rebuked immigration policies that rip apart families.

“I think it’s disgraceful, it’s terrible to see families ripped apart and I don’t support that one bit,” Graham said in a Christian Broadcasting Network interview. However, he didn’t waiver in his support for Trump and blamed politicians over the past two or three decades for allowing “this to escalate to where it is today.”

'LOST OUR MORAL COMPASS AS A COUNTRY'

In Fort Lauderdale at the conference of bishops, San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy said that for America to reject asylum appeals is “a denial of our heritage.”

“For the whole of our history, the United States has been a refuge for people seeking protection from oppression,” he said. “If we are going to begin now to categorize domestic violence and rape as other than an oppression of people’s human dignity, then we have truly lost our moral compass as a country.”

He added: “This is simply the end of the United States being the haven to refugees in the world, the end of our great national tradition.”

In a statement released Wednesday, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the archbishop of Galveston-Houston, Texas, and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, called asylum “an instrument to preserve the right to life.”

The statement said:

“The Attorney General’s recent decision elicits deep concern because it potentially strips asylum from many women who lack adequate protection.
“These vulnerable women will now face return to the extreme dangers of domestic violence in their home country. This decision negates decades of precedents that have provided protection to women fleeing domestic violence. Unless overturned, the decision will erode the capacity of asylum to save lives, particularly in cases that involve asylum seekers who are persecuted by private actors.”

The cardinal urged U.S. courts and policymakers “to respect and enhance, not erode, the potential of our asylum system to preserve and protect the right to life.”

'GOVERNMENT ESSENTIALLY TORTURING PEOPLE'

The stories of families ripped apart are excruciatingly painful. An example came Tuesday in McAllen, Texas, where an undocumented immigrant from Honduras sai immigration authorities took her baby as she breastfed her at a detention center, where she’s awaiting deportation for illegally entering the country.

"The government is essentially torturing people by doing this," Natalia Cornelio, the woman’s attorney from the Texas Civil Rights Project, told CNN in an interview outside the federal courthouse in McAllen.

Miquel A. Nogueras, an assistant federal public defender for the Southern District of Texas in McAllen, told CNN that parents are told, “we’re going to separate your kids so they can bathe.”

“And that’s not true,” he said, adding: "It's really hard to look in the eye of a mother or father who would plead for you — help me get my child back.”

Since the zero-tolerance policy took effect in May, more than 1,300 children have been separated from their parents.

Lead image: U.S. Border Patrol agents take into custody a father and son from Honduras near the U.S.-Mexico border on Tuesday, June 12,near Mission, Texas. The asylum seekers were then sent to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing center for possible separation. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)