ADDRESSING THE PLIGHT OF MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES WITH THE MIND AND HEART OF CHRIST
The following talk was given by the Most Reverend Kevin C. Rhoades, Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, at Holy Cross College (Notre Dame, IN) on February 18, 2026.
I wish to begin by thanking Dr. Marco Clark and Holy Cross College for the invitation to deliver this “Mind and Heart Lecture” this evening. The topic I have been asked to speak about concerns one of the greatest challenges our world faces today: the migrant and refugee crisis. It is a crisis of immense proportions. Every year in June, the United Nations issues a report with statistics on the numbers of refugees and displaced peoples around the world. This past June, the most recent reporting period, the U.N. reported that there are 117.3 displaced people in the world, of whom 42.5 million are refugees; 67.8 million people displaced within the borders of their own countries; and 8.42 million asylum seekers. I think it is important in addressing this topic to understand the definitions. I entitled this talk “Addressing the Plight of Migrants and Refugees with the Mind and Heart of Christ.” I am using the term “migrant” to refer to all three groups identified by the U.N.: refugees, asylum seekers, and also people displaced within their own countries. Not all migrants are refugees and asylum seekers. They are all people who are on the move, but there are key difference according to international law. Refugees are people forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. There are various reasons they are forced to flee: for example, to escape war, conflict, violence, persecution, or serious public disorder. They may have suffered human rights violations themselves, been injured in their flight, or seen family members or friends killed or attacked. Each has their own tragic story. I mentioned persecution – some are fleeing persecution because of their religion, their race, their ethnic identity, or their political views. They are migrating out of a well-founded fear of harm. As I mentioned, the U.N. estimates that there are 42.5 million refugees in the world today.
The internally displaced population are not fleeing their countries, but they have had to leave their homes for similar reasons yet remain within the borders of their home countries (an estimated 67.8 million people today).
The 8.4 million asylum seekers are people who have presented themselves at the border of another country to ask for asylum there.
I share these statistics to highlight the staggering dimensions of this crisis, but it is important that we not only look at the numbers. These are real people. Over 40% of refugees today are children under the age of 18. Over 60% of refugees are in family units. The sufferings of refugees are multi-faceted. Many have experienced trauma in their countries of origin, severe hardships, and dangerous journeys to safety. As Pope Francis highlighted many times during his papacy, many have lost their lives in dangerous land or sea crossings, for example, in boats crossing from north Africa across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. Many refugees live for years in overcrowded and unsanitary refugee camps where there are high risks of infectious diseases. Many refugees lack access to basic needs, including clean water, food, and adequate shelter. Pope Francis coined the phrase “globalization of indifference” to describe a widespread mentality where people are desensitized to the suffering of others, viewing the migrant crisis as someone else’s problem. As Christians, we must never treat the suffering of others as if it does not concern us. We need to remember how God will judge us at the end of our lives by recalling the parable of the last judgement in Matthew 25. We have a moral duty to care about the plight of migrants and refugees. I am proud that the Catholic Church has been at the forefront in the care of migrants and refugees, though our efforts have not been met without criticism or attack from those who hold ideologies that dismiss what we hold to be fundamental rights of every human person, beginning with the right to life and dignity, the fundamental principle of Catholic social teaching. I will speak later in this talk about the situation the Church faces in the United States today on this topic, but I think it is important that I first talk about the foundations of the Church’s approach to the migration crisis. We have a large body of teaching on the issue of migration with principles of social teaching founded in natural law and illumined by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We must look at this issue first and foremost from the perspective of God’s revelation transmitted to us in Scripture and Tradition, and not from the perspective of one’s political party or narrow ideologies.
Migration is a major theme in Sacred Scripture. There are numerous passages relevant to this issue, too many for me to cite them all. The most famous Old Testament story relevant to this issue is, of course, the Exodus. Moses led the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt, and for forty years they lived as migrants, with no homeland of their own. From this migrant experience, the people of God learned a deep appreciation for the plight of strangers and aliens, people they believed they were called to welcome and to whom they owed hospitality. Thus we hear God’s precepts about care of aliens and strangers throughout the Old Testament. In the book of Exodus, God says: “You shall not oppress an alien; you know how it feels to be an alien, since you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt” (Ex 23:9). In the book of Leviticus, similarly God commands: “You shall treat the stranger who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you. Have the same love for him as for yourself; for you too were once strangers in the land of Egypt” (Lev 19:33-34). Care for the stranger and justice for the alien are recurring themes in the Old Testament, reflections of the great commandment to love one’s neighbor.
When one looks at the New Testament, the Holy Family itself fleeing into Egypt becomes, in the words of Pope Pius XII, “the archetype of every refugee family” (“Exsul Familia”, 1952). Many Christian refugees and migrants through the centuries identify with, and receive hope and courage from, the example of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, forced to flee into Egypt.
Perhaps the most direct instruction for us comes from the words of Jesus in the parable of the Last Judgment: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” In welcoming the immigrant, as in feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, and clothing the naked, in doing these things to the least of our brothers and sisters, we are doing them to Jesus (Mt 25). In turning them away, we are turning away Jesus and are, in the end, condemned. For me personally, these words of Jesus are the most powerful motivation for the Church’s pastoral concern for migrants and refugees. Of course, there are other Scripture passages, like the parable of the Good Samaritan, that provide us with inspiration. There is no doubt from the teaching of Scripture that we have a Christian responsibility to “welcome the stranger among us.”
The Church has recognized and responded to this call to welcome and care for migrants throughout the centuries. Catholic teaching has a long history in defending the right to migrate. In his apostolic constitution Exsul Familia, Pope Pius XII (in 1952) affirmed that all persons have the right to conditions worthy of human life and, if these conditions are not present, the right to migrate. In this same document, Pius XII also recognized the right of the sovereign state to control its borders. But what happens when these two rights clash? Pius XII gives us a solution and I quote: “Since land everywhere offers the possibility of supporting a large number of people, the sovereignty of the State, although it must be respected, cannot be exaggerated to the point that access to this land is, for inadequate or unjustified reasons, denied to needy and decent people from other nations, provided of course, that the public welfare, considered very carefully, does not forbid this (EF #51). Pope John XXIII continued in this line of teaching. In his great encyclical, Pacem in Terris, he wrote about the right to migrate as well as the right not to migrate. I quote: “Every human being has the right to freedom of movement and of residence within the confines of his own country; and when there are just reasons for it, the right to emigrate to other countries and take up residence there” (#25).
Pope Saint John Paul II often reiterated this basic teaching. In an address to the New World Congress on the Pastoral Care of Immigrants in1985, he wrote: “Every human being has the right to freedom of movement and of residence within the confines of his own country. When there are just reasons in favor of it, he must be permitted to migrate to other countries and to take up residence there. The fact that he is a citizen of a particular state does not deprive him of membership to the human family, nor of citizenship in the universal society, the common worldwide fellowship of men.”
Here I would like to highlight a basic truth of our faith that is sometimes ignored or rejected in the contemporary political debates on migration. It is expressed in the principle of Catholic social doctrine called the “universal destination of goods,” which means that “all the goods of the earth belong to all people.” The teaching of the Church is clear. Here is what the Catechism says: “In the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind to take care of them, master them by labor, and enjoy their fruits. The goods of creation are destined for the whole human race.” Now some people disregard or ignore this fundamental principle and consider it to be global socialism. But anyone who knows Church teaching knows that the Church affirms the right to private property.
From the beginning of modern Catholic social tradition, Pope Leo XIII and all subsequent popes have defended the right to private property and repudiated socialist ideologies that abolish private property or promote class struggle. We believe that owning private property is a natural right, necessary for human dignity, but it is not an absolute or unconditional right since it requires that it be balanced with the obligation to serve the common good, upholding the principle of the universal destination of goods, that all human beings deserve to share in the goods of creation. This teaching is rooted in Scripture and Tradition. The Church consistently argues that a just society must balance private property rights with the universal destination of goods and the common good.
When Pope Leo XIII repudiated socialism, he also criticized the greed of unrestrained or unfettered capitalism, as have the Popes who came after him. The Church recognizes the right to private property as necessary for human dignity but also teaches that it is not an absolute or unconditional right. We are stewards of the goods of the earth, not absolute masters, and are morally obliged to ensure that our goods benefit those in need, including migrants and refugees. The Catechism says: “The right to private property… does not do away with the original gift of the earth to the whole of mankind. The universal destination of goods remains primordial, even if the promotion of the common good requires respect for the right to private property and its exercise” (CCC 2403). The Catechism then quotes these words from the Second Vatican Council: “In his use of things man should regard the external goods he legitimately owns not merely as exclusive to himself but common to others also, in the sense that they can benefit others as well as himself” (GS 69,1). This teaching of the Council was not new – it goes back to the Fathers of the Church and to great Doctors of the Church like Saint Thomas Aquinas. The Catechism goes on to say that “the ownership of any property makes its holder a steward of Providence, with the task of making it fruitful and communicating its benefits to others, first of all his family” (CCC 2404). Here it is also important to make mention of the Church’s preferential option for the poor. The Church’s love and care for the poor is a part of her constant tradition (CCC 2444). As disciples of Jesus, we cannot be indifferent to the poor, to migrants and refugees, or to anyone living in misery. Human misery elicited the compassion of Christ and needs to elicit our compassion.
With this overview of Church teaching, let us look at how it can be applied in the current migration crisis. I will first speak about the right not to migrate, a fundamental and natural right that is too often overlooked. The Church teaches that people have a right to find safety, economic opportunity, and dignity in their own homeland, rather than being forced to leave due to poverty, violence, war, persecution, or natural disasters. They flee out of fear or desperation. The Church has stressed that the root causes of forced migration need to be addressed so that people can remain with their families in their own countries and cultures. The responsibility to protect the right not to migrate falls first upon their country of origin and its political leaders. Some do not or are unable to fulfill this responsibility either by their own fault (e.g. corruption) or because they don’t have the resources needed to protect their own people. So the responsibility extends to the international community. It is a responsibility that should be shared on the part of all countries, to serve the common good that transcends national borders. This includes help in economic development, efforts at peace-making, efforts to protect the environment, and help when there are natural disasters.
The Catholic Church strenuously advocates for addressing the root causes of migration. For example, this is a principal part of the mission of Catholic Relief Services. I have served these past ten years as a member of the CRS Board of Directors for two terms and now beginning my second term on the CRS Foundation Board. I have learned a lot, especially through my CRS visits to Ethiopia, Haiti, Gaza, Palestine, and El Salvador, as well as my two visits to Nigeria apart from CRS. CRS works in over 100 countries on relief and development, with programs that support vulnerable populations and help millions of people so that they can remain in their homelands. Besides providing shelter, food, water, and cash assistance in rapid response to emergency situations like natural disasters and conflicts, CRS focuses on long-term development, helping people to have a livelihood that secures the necessities of life, to live with dignity and support themselves and their families. For example, I’ve visited several CRS sites where poor farmers are assisted to build sustainable agricultural enterprises. In Ethiopia, I visited some of the more than 200 CRS food distribution services which allowed people to remain home and not have to migrate during a famine. CRS also helps with water security, ensuring access to safe, clean water for communities. How could people remain and not migrate without such access? CRS has also been a leading agency in combating diseases like HIV/Aids, malaria, and Ebola as well as in providing other health and social services to improve maternal and child nutrition and child protection services in poor countries. I visited Gaza before the recent war and saw a country already very damaged by prior conflicts. I saw the homes built by CRS to house displaced persons from previous conflicts and also a CRS microfinancing project that taught women savings and lending services among themselves as a group. And I visited youth programs in El Salvador and Haiti, including one for incarcerated young people, teaching them how to resolve conflicts peacefully. The list goes on.
CRS, the official international humanitarian agency of the Church in the United States, is a primary vehicle for realizing the right of people not to migrate by addressing the root causes of migration through peacebuilding, alleviation of poverty, and serving integral human development through education, clean water, and health care in needy countries. Sadly, last year, our government’s severe cuts to USAID (the United States Agency for International Development) eliminated nearly 50% of CRS’ budget, forcing staff layoffs and the ending of many programs, projects, and services that have been serving poor and vulnerable people throughout the world. CRS was the largest non-governmental recipient of USAID funding. Perhaps needless to say, but this has jeopardized food security, health services, and other humanitarian help for millions of poor people. Despite the loss of federal funding, CRS, though now smaller, continues its important life-saving mission through other funding and increasing private donations from the Catholic faithful and others who support our mission. I wish to encourage your extra generosity during this season of Lent in CRS Rice Bowl.
I would now like to return to the topic of the right to migrate. I have already reviewed Church teaching regarding this right in light of the core principles of the life and dignity of the human person and the universal destination of goods. The human person has the right to live in a way befitting his/her dignity as created in the image and likeness of God, an inalienable right to life and the activities needed to sustain and develop that life. When one’s life and dignity is threatened in one’s homeland, one has the right to migrate elsewhere where they can live humanly. So we have a moral responsibility to recognize, uphold, and defend this right, for example, the right of asylum. Such a right can never be denied when someone’s life or wellbeing and that of one’s family is seriously threatened in one’s homeland.
We have a duty to be in solidarity with migrants and refugees. Solidarity is another core principle of Catholic social doctrine. It refers to a fundamental social virtue directed to the common good. It is connected to both justice and charity. One of my favorite descriptions of the principle of solidarity as a moral virtue comes from Pope Saint John Paul II who wrote that solidarity is not a “feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good, that is to say, to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all totally responsible for all” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis 38). That includes, obviously, our migrant brothers and sisters. The Church’s solidarity with migrants and refugees is a wonderful witness to the Gospel in our world today. Here in our diocese and elsewhere, it has been beautiful for me to see migrants and refugees recognized and accepted as brothers and sisters. But such solidarity has its critics. There have been those who have tried to shut down our humanitarian services for migrants and refugees, falsely accusing the Church of facilitating illegal immigration. Perhaps this gets to the crux of the political polarization surrounding immigration in our nation today, though this is not the focus of this talk. It is important at least to mention the issue of the right of people to migrate in relation to the right of a nation to secure its borders.
The right to migrate is not an absolute right. The Church recognizes the right of nations to control entry of migrants and to protect their borders. This is important for a nation’s security, preventing the entry of criminals or terrorists, for example. In the Special Message of the U.S. Bishops this past November, we affirmed the responsibility of nations “to regulate their borders and establish a just and orderly immigration system for the sake of the common good.” We say that “without such processes, immigrants face the risk of trafficking and other forms of exploitation. Safe and legal pathways serve as an antidote to such risks.” At the same time, we must recognize our moral responsibility to welcome migrants and refugees to the greatest extent possible. Here’s what the Catechism says about this: “The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him” (CCC 2241). So, in our advocacy for immigration reform in our nation, we call our financially blessed nation to be generous in welcoming migrants and refugees, providing more and better legal pathways for them. It is particularly important that our policies prioritize family reunification. The Church teaches that “the family, a natural society, exists prior to the State or any other community, and possesses inherent rights which are inalienable” (Charter for the Rights of the Family, 1983). That is why, in our call for comprehensive immigration reform, we advocate for changes that increase the number of family visas available and to reduce family reunification waiting times. The current system harms family unity and can lead to family breakdown and, in some cases, to illegal immigration. This presumes, of course, the careful screening of applicants.
We can and should be concerned about the national common good, but also the universal common good. I remember Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States back in 2008. He called on Americans “to continue to welcome the immigrants who join your ranks today, to share their joys and hopes, to support them in their sorrows and trials, and to help them flourish in their new home. This, indeed, is what your fellow countrymen have done for generations. From the beginning, they have opened their doors to the tired, the poor, the ‘huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’ These are the people whom America has made her own.”
Our nation, until recently, has had a longstanding commitment to the right of those fleeing dangerous situations in their homelands to seek asylum. Under international law, they have a right to seek protection. The US Bishops advocate for a fair, humane, and efficient asylum process since we believe that people seeking a safe haven should have their cases heard. However, this is very difficult since there are approximately 3.4 to 3.5 million asylum cases awaiting a hearing or final decision in the United States. This is a terrible backlog. Approximately 2.3 million of these are in immigration courts. They are “defensive” cases, typically filed by individuals already in removal or deportation proceedings. Over 1.1 million are “affirmative” asylum cases, meaning they are filed by people who are not in removal proceedings. They are under the U.S. Citizenship and Refugee Services jurisdiction within the Department of Homeland Security. As of last month, USCIS has placed an adjudicative hold on its pending cases to allow for expanded vetting. Many asylum seekers have waited for over four years for a hearing. Top countries for asylum seekers include Afghanistan, China, Venezuela, El Salvador, and India.
I now turn to refugees and the situation here in the United States. (Speak about our own Catholic Charities). The US Refugee Admissions Program was established by Congress back in 1980. This is formal process by which people are legally resettled in the US as refugees and is distinct from the asylum process. Those resettled through USRAP are first screened, vetted, and approved by the US government while outside the US. Last year, President Trump signed an executive order indefinitely suspending the USRAP, pending a review by DHS and the State Department to determine if the program serves the national interest. (Directly contrary to Catholic teaching which sees the care of refugees as a divine mandate, not based on national self-interest, but on the life and dignity of the human person, human solidarity, justice, and the universal common good). This suspension of refugee admissions includes the government’s suspension of our USCCB cooperative agreements to resettle refugees. (This has had a devastating effect on the Church’s work in refugee resettlement. Since World War II, the Catholic Church in the US has been a leading agent in refugee resettlement, even before the USRAP was established in 1980. Because of the indefinite suspension of the USRAP, the USCCB had to discontinue its formal participation in USRAP as a national resettlement agency. This doesn’t mean that the Church is walking away from helping refugees. We are looking for new ways to do so).
Subsequently, President Trump instructed the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security to allow for the resettlement of Afrikaners in South Africa whom he categorized as victims of unjust racial discrimination. They are technically classified as special immigrants, not refugees, but they are eligible for basically the same services as people granted refugee status. This past September, the president also signed an order allowing up to 7,500 refugees to be resettled in the United States this year. This is the lowest ceiling since the program began in 1980.
With 42.5 million refugees worldwide, it is hard to believe that our nation is willing to accept only 7,500 this year. The US used to be at the forefront of welcoming those fleeing war, violence, persecution, and oppression. We will continue to advocate for the many millions of refugees living in inhuman conditions around the world. We must not be indifferent to their plight. If we are, we are rejecting Jesus’ teaching in the parable of the Good Samaritan. We need international solidarity with refugees and put such solidarity into practice again here in our own country. Saint Paul teaches in his first letter to the Corinthians that in the Body of Christ, “if one member suffers, all suffer together.” There are many Christian refugees in the world because of being persecuted for their faith. How can we turn our backs on them? And, of course, the Church stands in solidarity with all refugees, not just Christian refugees, respecting in each of them the inalienable dignity of the human person created in the image of God. I’ll never forget the strong words of Saint John Paul II over 40 years ago calling the refugee crisis a “shameful wound of our time.” He saw it as a great challenge to human solidarity. Back then, there were about 17 million refugees in the world. Today there are, as I mentioned, over 40 million. Of course, Pope Benedict and Pope Francis also frequently spoke about this human tragedy. Pope Francis described the refugee situation as “a crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Second World War.” He often condemned the scandal of indifference in the world to the refugee crisis. Pope Leo XIV continues in this vein, saying that refugees must not be met with “the coldness of indifference or the stigma of discrimination” upon reaching new lands in pursuit of a better life.
I wish to mention briefly another group of people in our country that I don’t want to neglect, namely, those who have had Temporary Protected Status (TPS). They have had time-limited permission to live and work in the US and avoid potential deportation. They come from nations that have been deemed unsafe to return to because of war, natural disasters, or other crises, about 1 million people with TPS status in the US, the largest numbers coming from Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti. Granting this status has been a way for the US to show solidarity with people fleeing dangerous situations. Some have lived here for many years and some request permanent residence and eventually citizenship. Others return home when it is safe. The USCCB has advocated for this program, but is concerned about efforts of the current administration to end TPS for hundreds of thousands of TPS holders because conditions in their home countries continue to be dangerous for them, including for 330,000 Haitians. Just two weeks ago, a federal judge blocked the administration from deporting them, and the administration is appealing this decision. TPS has been terminated by the government for Venezuelans, Hondurans, and Nicaraguans, though many fear harm when they return to their home countries. The USCCB has advocated for Congress to provide a permanent legal solution for long-term TPS holders.
The challenges we face are daunting, yet we must not give up or succumb to hopelessness about the present situation of refugees and migrants in the world. We must continue to work hard advocating for their human rights, serving their needs through our charitable giving, and most of all, praying for them. Let us also pray for our elected leaders and urge them to seek some common ground even if there are disagreements about particular policies. It is our moral duty, a duty of justice, to protect the human rights of our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters. To be indifferent to them is to be indifferent to Jesus.