A few days ago, I analyzed two major statements by the US Catholic bishops on the recent escalation in immigration enforcement actions by the Trump administration: one by Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Military Services, the current President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), speaking on behalf of all the bishops, and the other by Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles. I also highlighted the actions of Bishop Michael Pham of San Diego, who, along with several priests and other faith leaders, accompanied immigrants to their court hearings at the federal courthouse.
Since then, yet another bishop has issued a statement condemning these recent raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other law enforcement agencies. Bishop Alberto Rojas of San Bernardino, California gave an impassioned statement after several individuals were detained at two Catholic parishes in the communities of Highland and Montclair. Rojas uses some blunt language, even more so than Broglio and Gomez. For example, he states, “Authorities are now seizing brothers and sisters indiscriminately, without respect for their right to due process and their dignity as children of God.” He adds that this situation “is not of the Gospel of Jesus Christ – which guides us in all that we do.”
Last week, in the first of two articles on how the Church could encourage those who participate in immigration enforcement to undertake an examination of conscience, I considered several of the groups most involved in enforcement. In his statement, Rojas focuses on “political leaders and decision-makers” and calls on them to “reconsider and cease these tactics immediately, in favor of an approach that respects human rights and human dignity and builds toward a more lasting, comprehensive reform of our immigration system.” Of course, Rojas is right that political leaders in Washington, DC have the most power to systematically change immigration enforcement policy, but it’s still unfortunate that Bishop Rojas doesn’t also call on law enforcement officers, in the name of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to adopt different tactics, to the extent possible, or even to refuse to participate in lawless tactics.
Finally, Bishop Rojas places the Church firmly in solidarity with immigrant communities: “I say once again to our immigrant communities who are bearing the trauma and injustice of these tactics that your Church walks with you and supports you. We join you in carrying this very difficult cross.” This is a significant pastoral decision to stand on the side of the vulnerable.
In the second article on an examination of conscience for immigration enforcement, I included wearing masks, dressing in plainclothes, and refusing to identify themselves as practices that were presumptively immoral for law enforcement officers engaged in immigration enforcement actions. By “presumptively immoral” I meant practices or policies that, although not absolutely forbidden, are likely unethical in most cases.
In a recent article for America, my friend Tobias Winright, a professor of moral theology at St. Patrick’s Pontifical University in Maynooth, Ireland, looks in more detail at the issue of law enforcement officers wearing masks. Winright himself is a former law enforcement officer and has previously written and presented on ethics in policing. Interestingly, he notes that, “Curiously, none of the dozens of books in my office on law enforcement ethics address the wearing of masks by officers, probably because the practice was rare until recently.”
Although considering both sides of the question, Winright argues that the use of masks makes it easier for law enforcement officers to act with impunity and also makes it easier for criminals to pose as law enforcement. He also adds that the use of masks is only part of a much larger and worrying trend toward the militarization of the police.
In the first of last week’s two articles on conscience, I shone a spotlight on the case of Erez Reuveni, the US Department of Justice attorney who refused to lie and admitted in court that the US government had erred in deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador; this commitment to the truth led Reuveni to be fired by Attorney General Pam Bondi. I put Reuveni forward as an example of standing up for one’s conscience.
Coincidentally, the day after that article was published, the New York Times reported that Reuveni has gone much further. Reuveni has filed a whistleblower complaint letter to Congress regarding conduct at the Department of Justice, particularly that of Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove. Reuveni claims that Bove told DOJ officials to ignore court orders on two other immigration-related cases, one involving Venezuelan immigrants being deported to El Salvador, and another involving another group of immigrants seeking to prevent the government from deporting them to third party countries. In other words, Bove had instructed the officials to lawlessly ignore the courts’ rulings that the administration’s actions were unlawful.
This new whistleblower report certainly raises the stakes of Reuveni’s conscientious objection. The report is also noteworthy because Bove has been nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as a judge on a federal appeals court, and in fact he appeared before Congress for a hearing the day after the report was released.
Admittedly, this story has little to do with the Catholic Church or theology, but it does continue to highlight the power of conscience.

In February, I noted that the Italian activist Luca Casarini, a friend of the late Pope Francis and a delegate at the Synod on Synodality, and Fr. Mattia Ferrari, an Italian priest who was also friends with Francis, among several others, had been victims of the spyware app Graphite, produced by the Israeli company Paragon. The spyware allows its user to access the data on a victim’s phone, including encrypted messages, and it was passed on to its victims through the messaging app WhatsApp. Casarini, along with Giuseppe Caccia, who was also a victim of the Graphite spyware, are the co-founders of Mediterranea Saving Humans, an organization that saves migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa who become stranded at sea on their way to Europe.
Casarini and Caccia had been critical of the immigration policy of Italy’s right-wing government headed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and the other Italian victims of the spyware attack had also been critics of the government, but in February it was still unknown who was responsible for installing the spyware. Earlier this month, however, an Italian parliamentary committee determined that Italian intelligence agencies had indeed been responsible for installing the spyware on the phones of the members of Mediterranea Saving Humans, although other victims had not been targeted by the Italian government, leaving those cases a mystery. Interestingly, the committee also concluded that the targeting of Casarini and Cacchia’s phones was lawful as part of an investigation into whether the group was facilitating illegal immigration.
As I noted in February, both Casarini and Fr. Ferrari were friends with Pope Francis, and it was Ferrari who first introduced Casarini to the late pontiff. It’s at least possible that in their spying, the Italian government uncovered messages to the pope or data related to him or other Vatican officials. Perhaps more importantly, though, the case highlights the distance between Meloni’s government and the Catholic Church on immigration, despite the friendship Francis and Meloni had managed to strike up—indeed, Meloni was the only political figure allowed to visit Francis while he was in the hospital earlier this year. The case also raises striking parallels with cases in the United States of Catholic organizations (including the USCCB itself) being investigated for “facilitating” undocumented immigration.
To end on a happier note, many readers are no doubt aware that the Vatican recently undertook the much-needed redesign of its web site. The update felicitously came soon after the election of Pope Leo XIV, although the redesign was already in the works before Leo’s election.
Even more interesting, however, is the fact that not only is Leo the first Peruvian pope, but, as Kielce Gusse reports at the National Catholic Reporter, the designer of the new site’s layout, Juan Carlos Ytō, is also a native Peruvian. As Gusse reports, Ytō had participated in a training program hosted by the Dicastery for Communication four years ago and began working on various projects at the Vatican. Four days after Francis’s death, he was tasked with the site redesign.
But the redesign of the Vatican web site is important because in this information age, the site is one of the primary ways the faithful have access to the teachings of Pope Leo and his predecessors, as well as other important Vatican documents.
I have lots in store for the weeks ahead, and I’ll continue to analyze what’s going on in the Church and the world, as well, so stay tuned!