Briana, a 1-year-old migrant girl from Peru, is carried by her father, Jordan, as they search for an entry point into the United States past a razor wire-laden fence along the bank of the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas, March 26, 2024. OSV NEWS PHOTO/ADREES LATIF, REUTERS
Justice, charity, and treating others as Jesus would
My Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
For several months I have wanted to address in my monthly letter the debate of many years about immigrants and refugees in the United States. It is a controversial subject, and I do not want to simply add to the controversy.
And yet, the time has come that I must appeal to the citizens of our nation to come to some minimal but very important consensus. I feel that this debate would be best articulated by those more knowledgeable than me about international relations.
But when I learn of stories of arrests and deportations of our neighbors and our fellow churchgoers without any due process of law, I am ashamed of our nation. When I hear of spouses and children in effect abandoned because of these deportations I ask, “Isn’t there a better way, a more humane way?” When I hear government officials laugh about detention camps surrounded by alligators I am saddened and want to protest, “That’s not my country, that’s not what America is known for.”
The people in our country who may have entered the country illegally or who may have entered properly but overstayed their permitted time are human beings. They are the children of God, created in the image and likeness of God and for this reason alone they are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect. There are no exceptions to the right to be treated as a fellow human being.
This is the teaching of the Catholic Church, expressed by all the popes of the last half century, about the rights of peoples to migrate, most especially those who might be escaping oppression or dire poverty. The late Pope Francis frequently pleaded with world leaders, especially of more affluent nations, to recognize that the demands of justice and charity place expectations upon them to advocate for those with legitimate claims to migrate.
This, of course, elicits the protests of those who recognize the legitimate rights of nations to protect and secure their border. The right to migrate does not demand that nations may not defend themselves against dangerous criminals, and to that debate I would note that there can be reasonable paths to accommodate all of these proper concerns.
But this also demands an acknowledgement that the vast majority of immigrants and refugees in our midst are decent people, who pose no threat to anyone, and are fleeing injustices in their homelands. Just as importantly, they are contributing to the general welfare of our nation.
At this time, we see that our country is engaged in a massive effort to detain and deport large numbers of people. Again, we can respectfully disagree about the desirability of this unfolding story. But now we are seeing raids upon people by armed and masked agents of our government who refuse to offer identification. This evokes comparisons to countries that would not even pretend to afford people liberty and justice.
The United States of America, our country, despite some historical failures, is better than this.
What is the consensus we might hope for when there are so many differing opinions?
Several years ago there was a fad that found millions of people wearing simple bracelets with the letters WWJD, “What Would Jesus Do?” We might say that this is a too-simple moral code. But might we also say that this is as simple as the golden rule that comes from the Gospel: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Can any of us really believe that Jesus would treat others with contempt and laugh at their plight and celebrate their mistreatment? As a nation we are better than this and as Christians we are called to great compassion. We should hope and plead that all people can be treated with common decency.
What would Jesus do? Can we do the same?
Yours in Christ,
Most Reverend William F. Medley
Diocese of Owensboro
Originally printed in the September 2025 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.
