At a recent town hall in Detroit, Vice President JD Vance faced a question that went to the heart of the Catholic faith he says guides him: How can he reconcile the treatment of families by Immigration and Customs Enforcement with the Gospel?
Sister Nancy Sylvester of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, described her group’s work at the southern border and the trauma children endure when they come home to find their parents gone. Then she asked Vance how he could justify ICE officers’ conduct “in terms of the kind of values we want to live by.”
Vance praised ICE agents as patriots. He offered only a passing acknowledgment that officers who “screw up” should be investigated and prosecuted, without grappling with the Americans killed by ICE agents or the detainees who have died in ICE custody.
The town hall drew more attention for the way in which Vance stumbled over questions about Trump’s corruption and the deaths of service members in the war in Iran. But his answer to Sister Sylvester was especially revealing: When the administration’s actions collide with the Catholic teachings he frequently invokes, Vance is willing to set those teachings aside.
As a former seminarian, I found the gap between her question and his answer deeply troubling.
As an American and as a former seminarian, I found the gap between her question and his answer deeply troubling.
First of all, Vance has frequently centered his Catholic faith throughout his political career. Just this year, he published his second memoir, “Communion,” detailing his conversion to Catholicism and how it informs his worldview. And yet earlier this year, when Trump was inexplicably feuding with the first American pope, the vice president had the gall to say that “it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality,” and “let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.”
That’s despite this administration repeatedly presenting matters of faith and matters of government as irrevocably entwined. Just months earlier, Vance lamented the Supreme Court upholding the separation of church and state, saying at a Turning Point USA event, “I think it was a terrible mistake, and we’re still paying for the consequences of it today.”
For all its bluster about protecting religious freedom, this administration has actually targeted faithful servants like Sister Sylvester. The haste of this White House to extrajudicially purge the country of undocumented immigrants has put it in direct confrontation with people of faith.
Which brings to mind another book Vance should have spent a bit more time with. In Matthew 25, Jesus says that on Judgment Day, those who welcomed the stranger will be welcomed into the kingdom of God. He identifies Himself with people who need food, shelter, care and companionship. Our response to their vulnerability becomes a measure of our response to Him.
Last year in Chicago, Catholic groups sued the administration for the right to minister to detainees at a Broadview ICE facility. In New Jersey, elderly Catholic nuns have organized protests outside of Delaney Hall against the deaths of ICE detainees. Nuns have also been protesting in Vance’s home state of Ohio, as Haitian immigrants repeatedly dehumanized by this White House see their legal status ripped away.
These protests are so widespread because the Catholic Church is unequivocal in its teachings about hospitality for the immigrant, charity for the poor and embrace of the stranger.
Trump’s immigration actions have put the administration in direct conflict with people of faith who take these teachings seriously. In some cases, it has even suppressed their ability to worship.
Human dignity does not depend on citizenship. A person’s immigration status can determine whether that person has a legal right to remain in this country. It cannot determine whether that person deserves to be treated with compassion.
Compassion is not separate from Catholic teaching; it is a demand of it. Church leaders have made that clear in response to the raids.
Last year, the Diocese of San Bernardino lifted the obligation to attend mass after immigration agents carried out detentions on two of its properties, noting that Trump’s thugs were “seizing brothers and sisters indiscriminately, without respect for their right to due process and their dignity as children of God.”
Just months later, U.S. Catholic bishops blasted the Trump White House after its raids completely upended church life, “destabilizing the life of the particular immigrant, but whole families, businesses, the life of children, whole communities, neighborhoods.”
Just a matter of months ago, immigration agents arrested a Nigerian nun in McAllen, Texas, as she was walking to Mass in her habit. They took her rosary and detained and imprisoned her.
Vance’s response to Sister Sylvester was especially galling when he added the comment about an obligation to prosecute agents who abuse their position.
The Trump administration didn’t just refuse to pursue federal charges against agents who killed Americans like Renee Good and Alex Pretti. They actively rejected calls to do so, betraying the small-government principles of conservatism for 30 pieces of silver to say that masked federal agents can kill Americans with no recourse.
And once again, the administration’s actions defied the ways Vance said his faith informed his worldview. Months before Vance found himself defending the extrajudicial killing of Americans in the streets by their own government, he said, “You can’t just have compassion for the criminal. You also have to have justice, too. Which is why I think that a properly rooted Christian moral order is such an important part of the future of our country.”
There is an uncomfortable demand here for anyone in politics. The person whose suffering complicates your preferred policy remains a person to whom you owe a moral duty. Winning an election does not relieve you of it. Neither does inheriting a broken immigration system.
Catholic teaching recognizes the legitimate responsibilities of government. Paragraph 2241 of the Catechism allows nations to regulate immigration for the common good and recognizes immigrants’ obligations to obey the laws of their receiving country. It also obliges prosperous nations, within their capacity, to welcome people seeking safety and a livelihood unavailable at home. Those responsibilities belong together.
The same teaching requires public authorities to respect fundamental human rights and administer justice humanely, with particular concern for families and the disadvantaged. A government’s authority to enforce the law therefore carries moral limits on how it does so.
There is no reconciliation between the Trump administration’s wanton targeting of immigrants and thousands of years of Catholic teachings. Vance knows this. Vance’s conscience is his own. But his exercise of public power is subject to public scrutiny. As a fellow Catholic, I expect him to explain how the policies he supports honor the dignity his church teaches that every person possesses. Perhaps then he may be able to answer Sister Sylvester’s question.
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