St. John Paul II. / Credit: Adrian Tusar/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Nov 15, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

A new Vatican-set thriller based on a true story is currently in the works, according to Variety.

“Santo Subito!” will follow Father Joseph Murolo, an American priest asked by the Vatican to serve as the “devil’s advocate” in the investigation of Pope John Paul II’s life and his path to sainthood.

The film will take place after the pontiff’s death and follows Murolo, who “must make sure that nothing undermines the sanctification of Karol Wojtyla, the first non-Italian pope in 450 years,” the synopsis reads, as he interviews candidates and witnesses. The description goes on to say that the priest will navigate a “moral labyrinth” that will “put his own faith to the test.”

Murolo will be played by actor Mark Ruffalo, known for his role as Bruce Banner, or the Hulk, in “The Avengers” movies.

Filming is expected to begin on March 9, 2026, on location in Italy and Poland.

“The film offers a genuine behind-the-scenes investigation of the Vatican world, while also taking us into the deeper realm of faith and values,” a co-producer of the film, Nicolas Brigaud-Robert, said. “The script itself is a page-turner, and I can’t imagine any audience remaining indifferent to Father Murolo’s journey.” 

In the canonization process of the Catholic Church, the “advocatus diaboli,” or the devil’s advocate, was established to ensure rigorous scrutiny of a candidate’s life, virtues, and reported miracles. The role’s purpose was to consider all possible doubts and inconsistencies, and to present evidence that might challenge claims of holiness, so that only those truly worthy would be declared saints.

However, in 1983, Pope John Paul II reformed the process through the apostolic constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister, changing the role of the devil’s advocate, also known as the “promoter of faith.” The emphasis shifted from an adversarial model to one more focused on collecting and verifying evidence, with the Congregation for the Causes of Saints overseeing the process.

null / Credit: Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Nov 15, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Here is a roundup of recent pro-life- and abortion-related news:

Nearly 70 Planned Parenthood centers have closed nationwide in 2025

Nearly 70 Planned Parenthood centers have closed this year due to Medicaid and Title X funding cuts, according to a recent Planned Parenthood report.  

Planned Parenthood has closed 20 facilities since federal defunding earlier this year following a round of nearly 50 other closures. 

President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act prevented federal taxpayer dollars from being used to subsidize abortion providers for one year, meaning abortion providers don’t currently qualify for federal Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements.

Rather than giving up abortion offerings, abortion providers like Planned Parenthood are closing clinics across the country. 

Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, called the defunding “cruel.” 

“They are intentionally dismantling health care for patients most in need and pushing Planned Parenthood health centers further to the financial brink,” Johnson said in a Nov. 12 statement.

Community health centers, meanwhile, vastly outnumbered Planned Parenthood locations in the U.S., according to a report by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute.

There are “more than 8,800 community health centers that provide comprehensive care to vulnerable populations and offer women’s health services, in comparison to just 579 Planned Parenthood centers as of spring 2025,” a Charlotte Lozier Institute report reads.

Group to fund ultrasound machines in states where abortion is legal 

A leading Christian group is launching a program to place ultrasound machines in states where abortion is legal.

The Across State Lines program, launched by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), is meant to be “lifesaving” and “missional,” according to organizers.  

Across State Lines will work with Baptist state conventions to place the machines. 

Gary Hollingsworth, ERLC interim president, said Southern Baptists “stand firmly on the truth that God has created all people, from the moment of conception, in his image and endowed them with the right to life.”  

He said he hopes the ultrasounds will help mothers “see this truth.”

The Psalm 139 Project will fund the cost of ultrasound machines and training. 

Rachel Wiles, who directs the Psalm 139 Project, said the project is about “serving vulnerable women” with a “missional” attitude. 

“Southern Baptists are strongly pro-life and are missional people — whether ministering to others across an ocean or across the street,” Wiles said. 

“In the same way, we are asking those who live in more conservative states with pro-life laws to consider reaching across state lines with a missional mindset, ultimately saving preborn lives and supporting mothers who face unplanned pregnancies,” Wiles said.

Pro-life group to invest $80 million in midterms 

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA) is investing $80 million in the 2026 midterm elections to preserve a pro-life majority in the U.S. House and Senate in battleground states.

SBA, along with Women Speak Out PAC, plans to reach 10.5 million voters through canvassing, advertising, mail, and early vote campaigns, prioritizing pro-life voters who do not vote consistently in midterm elections.

According to an SBA press release, campaigners will make 4.5 million home visits to voters in battleground states such as Iowa, Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina. 

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA, said pro-life voters “are the heart and soul of the Republican Party,” referring to a CNN poll that found that President Donald Trump would not have won the election if 1% to 2% of pro-life voters had stayed home.

“The party that once claimed the position of ‘safe, legal, and rare’ is now the party of abortion anytime, anywhere, paid for by the taxpayer,” Dannenfelser said in a statement. 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Leo XIV fulfilled a promise made by the late Pope Francis to return to Canada's Indigenous communities artifacts -- including an Inuit kayak, masks, moccasins and etchings -- that have been held by the Vatican for more than 100 years.

The pope gave 62 artifacts to the leaders of the Canadian bishops' conference Nov. 15, the Vatican and the bishops' conference said in a joint statement.

The bishops "will proceed, as soon as possible, to transfer these artifacts to the National Indigenous Organizations," which will ensure they are "reunited with their communities of origin," said a separate statement from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. 

Pope Leo "desires that this gift represent a concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity," the joint statement said. "This is an act of ecclesial sharing, with which the Successor of Peter entrusts to the Church in Canada these artifacts, which bear witness to the history of the encounter between faith and the cultures of the indigenous peoples."

The artifacts, which came from different First Nation, Métis and Inuit communities, "are part of the patrimony received on the occasion of the Vatican Missionary Exhibition of 1925, encouraged by Pope Pius XI during the Holy Year, to bear witness to the faith and cultural richness of peoples," the joint statement said.

"Sent to Rome by Catholic missionaries between 1923 and 1925," it said, "these artifacts were subsequently combined with those of the Lateran Ethnologic Missionary Museum, which then became the 'Anima Mundi' Ethnological Museum of the Vatican Museums." 

Members of Canada's Indigenous communities have been asking for years that the items be returned. In the spring of 2022, when community representatives visited the Vatican for meetings with Pope Francis before his trip to Canada, they visited the Vatican Museums and were given a private tour of the collection.

Pope Leo's decision to give the artifacts to the Canadian bishops instead of to the government or to an Indigenous organization "is a tangible sign of his desire to help Canada's Bishops walk alongside Indigenous Peoples in a spirit of reconciliation during the Jubilee Year of Hope and beyond,” said Bishop Pierre Goudreault, president of the Canadian bishops' conference.

In 2023, the Vatican did something similar, giving the Orthodox Church of Greece three marble fragments from the Parthenon in Athens; the church then gave the marbles to the government.

Speaking to reporters in April 2023, Pope Francis had said the Canadian artifacts would be returned.

"This is the Seventh Commandment: if you have stolen something, you must give it back," he said. What can be returned to its rightful owners should be, he added.

The return of the artifacts "is an important and a right step," Joyce Napier, the Canadian ambassador to the Holy See, told Catholic News Service.

The artifacts will go first to Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, she said. There, the Indigenous communities, their experts and elders will try to identify them and their provenance and determine where they should be kept.
 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Meeting an international cast of film directors and actors, Pope Leo XIV spoke about the power of cinema to help people "contemplate and understand life, to recount its greatness and fragility and to portray the longing for infinity." 

Sitting in the front row of the Vatican's frescoed Clementine Hall Nov. 15 were, among others: directors Gus Van Sant and Spike Lee and actors Monica Bellucci, Cate Blanchett, Viggo Mortensen and Sergio Castellitto, who played the traditionalist Cardinal Tedesco in the 2024 film "Conclave."

In a video released a few days before the meeting, Pope Leo said his four favorite films were: "It's a Wonderful Life," the 1946 film directed by Frank Capra; "The Sound of Music," the 1965 film by Robert Wise; "Ordinary People," the 1980 film directed by Robert Redford; and "Life Is Beautiful," Roberto Benigni's 1997 film.

Pope Leo asked the directors and actors to "defend slowness when it serves a purpose, silence when it speaks and difference when evocative."

"Beauty is not just a means of escape," he told them; "it is above all an invocation." 

"When cinema is authentic, it does not merely console, but challenges," he said. "It articulates the questions that dwell within us, and sometimes, even provokes tears that we did not know we needed to express."

Pope Leo acknowledged the challenges facing cinema with the closing of theaters and the increasing release of films directly to streaming services.

The theaters, like all public cultural spaces, are important to a community, he said.

But even more, the pope said, "entering a cinema is like crossing a threshold. In the darkness and silence, vision becomes sharper, the heart opens up and the mind becomes receptive to things not yet imagined." 

At a time where people are almost constantly in front of screens, he said, cinema offers more. "It is a sensory journey in which light pierces the darkness and words meet silence. As the plot unfolds, our mind is educated, our imagination broadens and even pain can find new meaning."

People need "witnesses of hope, beauty and truth," Pope Leo said, telling the directors and actors that they can be those witnesses.

"Good cinema and those who create and star in it have the power to recover the authenticity of imagery in order to safeguard and promote human dignity," he said.

Being authentic, the pope said, means not being afraid "to confront the world's wounds. Violence, poverty, exile, loneliness, addiction and forgotten wars are issues that need to be acknowledged and narrated."

"Good cinema does not exploit pain," Pope Leo said. "It recognizes and explores it."

"Giving voice to the complex, contradictory and sometimes dark feelings that dwell in the human heart is an act of love," he told them. "Art must not shy away from the mystery of frailty; it must engage with it and know how to remain before it."

Coming to the Vatican during the Jubilee of hope, he said, the directors and actors join millions of pilgrims who have made the journey over the past year.

"Your journey is not measured in kilometers but in images, words, emotions, shared memories and collective desires," the pope told them. "You navigate this pilgrimage into the mystery of human experience with a penetrating gaze that is capable of recognizing beauty even in the depths of pain, and of discerning hope in the tragedy of violence and war."

The pope prayed that their work would "never lose its capacity to amaze and even continue to offer us a glimpse, however small, of the mystery of God."

Pope Leo meets cinema greats

Pope Leo met an international group of film actors and directors, including Spike Lee and Gus Van Sant at the Vatican Nov. 15, telling them their art can offer hope, reveal truth, and confront the world’s wounds with authenticity.

Ernest Board (1877-1934), “Albertus Magnus Teaches in the Streets of Paris.” / Credit: Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 4.0

National Catholic Register, Nov 15, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

St. Albert the Great, the teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas, was an assiduous Dominican whose accomplishments and gifts to the Church are difficult to exaggerate.

New outpatient clinic for people in need in St. Peter’s Square. / Credit: Vatican Media

ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 14, 2025 / 16:50 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Nov. 14 visited a new outpatient clinic in the Vatican, built beneath the colonnade of St. Peter’s Square, in the lead-up to the ninth World Day of the Poor, which will be celebrated on Sunday, Nov. 16.

The new health center aims to strengthen assistance and increase health care services for those in need, according to a statement from the Office of the Papal Almoner, also known as the Dicastery for the Service of Charity. 

The center was made possible through the collaboration of the Health and Hygiene Directorate of the Governorate of Vatican City State and features two new medical consultation rooms equipped with state-of-the-art instruments and a new radiology service.

This equipment, including a cutting-edge X-ray machine, will allow for the rapid and accurate diagnosis of pneumonia, bone fractures, tumors, degenerative diseases, kidney stones, and intestinal obstructions — conditions often overlooked by those living in poverty.

“Early diagnosis of these conditions will make it possible to start appropriate treatments in a timely manner, contributing to improving the quality of life of those who have nothing,” the statement reads.

At the Office of the Papal Almoner’s other outpatient clinic, more than 2,000 health care services are offered completely free of charge each month thanks to the work of 120 volunteers, including doctors, nurses, and health care technicians.

Thanks to the two clinics located beneath Bernini’s colonnade, general and specialized medical consultations, dental visits, blood tests, and X-rays will continue to be available to the poor. In addition, removable dentures, eyeglasses, and hearing aids will be donated.

Finally, the necessary medications will be delivered directly to the poor person, always completely free of charge. Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity and papal almoner, emphasized that in these places dignity is restored to the poor, “in whom we see not a homeless person or a poor person, but the face of Jesus.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Residents carrying their belongings, wade through a flooded street in Mandaue City, Cebu province on Nov. 4, 2025, after Typhoon Kalmaegi hit overnight. / Credit: Alan Tangcawan/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 14, 2025 / 16:13 pm (CNA).

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) revealed emergency relief efforts in the Philippines began before Typhoon Kalmaegi made landfall, thanks to a new law the humanitarian workers championed. 

“Together with the Tagbilaran City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office and other local leaders, we worked on getting families evacuated and helped organize some community briefings,” said Jonas Tetangco, CRS Philippines country representative. 

“All of the work we were able to do before Typhoon Kalmaegi hit is in part due to recently-passed legislation,” he said. “RA 12287 is the world’s first national legislation that enables work to be done prior to a dangerous natural disaster. We are proud to have contributed to the legislation and thankful for the work it allows us to do, including help communities prepare for these kinds of events and minimize their impact.”

CRS also distributed shelter vouchers worth about $100 to nearly 500 families in Tagbilaran City. “These vouchers allowed families to buy materials to protect and reinforce their homes from the rain and strong winds,” he said.

After the typhoon swept through the Philippines earlier this week, CRS teams “traveled to the hardest-hit areas” and began working in tandem with Caritas Philippines “to evaluate the most urgent needs,” according to Tetangco.

Regarding conditions on the ground, Tetangco told CNA: “We’ve received several reports of roads and bridges that are still damaged and impassable. Local governments are managing evacuation centers, passing out food and water to families, trying to restore roadways, and working on getting power and phone lines back up and running.”

“Families here still need food, clean drinking water, hygiene kits, and emergency shelter materials like tarps and blankets,” he said, adding: “Families across the Philippines need prayers right now. The country has experienced several typhoons and destructive earthquakes.”

Pope Leo XIV receives cloistered Augustinian nuns at the Vatican on Nov. 13, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 14, 2025 / 15:43 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV praised the “silent and hidden love” of cloistered nuns who, he said, are free from the slavery of society’s focus on outward appearances.

Focusing on the contemplative dimension of the Augustinian nuns, Pope Leo recalled that their founder, St. Augustine, reflected in his book “Confessions” on the joy granted “to those who serve the Lord out of pure love.”

In his address, delivered from the Paul VI Audience Hall on Nov. 13, the pope offered his reflection during an audience at the Vatican with participants in the Ordinary Federal Assembly of the Federation of Augustinian Monasteries of Italy.

He invited the nuns to embrace “the cloistered life with enthusiasm,” which, he assured them, will give them “peace and consolation, and to those who knock on the doors of your monasteries, a message of hope more eloquent than a thousand words.”

The pope then emphasized the witness of charity of the cloistered Augustinian nuns and counseled them, in order to spread the fragrance of God throughout the world,” to strive to “to love one another with sincere affection, as sisters, and to carry in your hearts, in secret, every man and woman in this world, to present them to the Father in your prayers.”

“In a society so focused on outward appearances, where people sometimes do not hesitate to violate the respect of others and their feelings in pursuit of a spotlight and applause, may your example of silent and hidden love help others to rediscover the value of daily and discreet charity, focused on the substance of loving one another and free from the slavery of appearances,” he said.

At the end of his address, the pope emphasized the communal nature of the federation with the “form of association” promoted by Venerable Pius XII and reaffirmed by Pope Francis to foster fraternity among monasteries with the same charism.

“It is a demanding challenge, but one we cannot shy away from, even at the cost of making difficult choices and sacrifices, and overcoming a certain temptation to ‘self-referentiality’ that can sometimes seep into our circles,” Leo XIV cautioned.

The pope thanked the Augustinian nuns for all they do and promised them his prayers and heartfelt blessing.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

U.S. Border czar Tom Homan defended the morality of the Trump administration’s enforcement policies. / Credit: “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo”/Screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 14, 2025 / 15:13 pm (CNA).

Border czar Tom Homan strongly opposed the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) “special message” on immigration, saying the statement would encourage people to make a dangerous trek to the United States.

Homan told EWTN News on Nov. 14 that the “Catholic Church is wrong. I’m sorry. I’m a lifelong Catholic. I’m saying it as not only a border czar. I’ll say it as a Catholic. I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic Church in my opinion.”

The bishops approved the message on immigration at the 2025 Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore on Nov. 12. “We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people,” the message said.

More than 95% of the American bishops voted to support the message. The bishops said in the message they “are bound to our people by ties of communion and compassion in Our Lord Jesus Christ” and “are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants.”

The bishops’ message cited Scripture such as Luke 10:30-37, referring to the good Samaritan who “lifts us from the dust,” and Matthew 25, in which “we see the One who is found in the least of these.” Floor debate on the measure included bishops’ discussion of “the One” referring to the face of Jesus Christ as seen in the migrant.

“The Church’s concern for neighbor and our concern here for immigrants is a response to the Lord’s command to love as he has loved us (John 13:34),” the statement said.

Homan said: “So according to [the bishops] the message we should send to the whole world is: ‘If you cross the border illegally, which is a crime, don’t worry about it. If you get … removed by a federal judge, that’s due process, don’t worry about it, because there shouldn’t be mass deportations.’” 

He added: “If that’s the message we send the whole world, people are still going to put themselves in harm’s way to come to the greatest nation on earth.” 

Homan said during the Biden administration that more than 4,000 people died making the journey and 250,000 Americans died from fentanyl. Homan said he wants the Catholic Church to understand that secure borders save lives. 

U.S. bishops acknowledged the need for secure borders in their special message, writing: “We recognize that nations have a responsibility to regulate their borders and establish a just and orderly immigration system for the sake of the common good.” 

Homan said: “We’re going to enforce the law, and by doing that, we’re saving a lot of lives. One of the reasons no one talks about why we have the most secure border in the history of this nation is because [of] exactly what ICE is doing.” 

“ICE has sent a message to the whole world: ‘Don’t give your life savings to come to [the] country, because you’re not gonna be released. You’re not going to cross [the] border illegally. You’re going to be prosecuted,’” Homan said.

President Donald Trump expanded use of deportations without a court hearing this year and ramped up federal law enforcement efforts to identify and arrest immigrants lacking legal status. The administration set a goal of 1 million deportations this year.

Besides criticizing the bishops’ opposition to indiscriminate mass deportation, Trump administration officials also have condemned an “activist judge” who issued a temporary restraining order mandating cleanliness and hygiene standards as well as adequate legal representation at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Illinois. Court records, advocacy groups, and detainees’ reports have included claims about the stench of sweat, urine, and feces at U.S. immigration facilities, worm-infested slop, and an insufficient supply of menstrual products.

‘Worst of the worst’

Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a Nov. 14 statement to CNA: “DHS is targeting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens — including murderers, rapists, gang members, pedophiles, and terrorists. 70% of illegal aliens ICE arrested across the country have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges just in the U.S. This statistic doesn’t account for those wanted for violent crimes in their home country or another country, INTERPOL notices, human rights abusers, gang members, terrorists, etc. The list goes on.”

McLaughlin said: “We are a nation of laws, and, as America’s largest law enforcement agency, DHS is committed to enforcing those laws, all of which are just. Lawbreakers should unquestionably be living in a ‘climate of fear and anxiety,’ that they will be caught and sent home.”

In San Bernardino, California, Bishop Alberto Rojas granted a dispensation in July from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass for those within the diocese who fear deportation. The Diocese of Nashville, Tennessee, similarly indicated in May that “no Catholic is obligated to attend Mass on Sunday if doing so puts their safety at risk.”

Pope Leo XIV on Nov. 4 said: “Many people who’ve lived for years and years and years, never causing problems, have been deeply affected by what’s going on right now.” Leo invited authorities to allow pastoral workers to attend to the needs of detainees.

He reminded that “Jesus says very clearly … at the end of the world, we’re going to be asked … how did you receive the foreigner? Did you receive him and welcome him or not? And I think that there’s a deep reflection that needs to be made in terms of what’s happening.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported Homan said 40 million Americans died from fentanyl. (Published Nov. 17, 2025.)

Cardinal Timothy Dolan is among the New York prelates who condemn the deportations of migrants who are seeking refugee status in the United States and criticize the government’s actions to strip some asylum seekers of temporary protected status in a Nov. 14, 2025, statement. / Credit: U.S. Department of Justice/Screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 14, 2025 / 13:58 pm (CNA).

The Catholic bishops of New York issued a joint statement that condemns the deportations of migrants who are seeking refugee status in the United States.

“We do not support the sweeping revocation of the temporary protected status that was granted to many migrants who arrived in this country to escape the horrors occurring in their own, and who have justifiably relied upon the legal protections our government offered to them,” the statement said.

“Such persons should not be subject to the arbitrary cancellation of their legal status and threatened with a sudden return to the troubled and dangerous nations from which they fled,” the bishops added.

The Nov. 13 statement, titled “For You Too Were Once Aliens,” was published by the New York State Catholic Conference (NYSCC). Every bishop who leads a diocese in New York, including Cardinal Timothy Dolan, signed onto the statement.

It comes one day after the USCCB issued a unified statement to oppose “the indiscriminate mass deportation of people.” More than 95% of the voting bishops agreed with the special message, with 216 voting to approve it, five voting against it, and three abstaining.

The New York bishops wrote that “many … refugee migrants have come to New York,” some of whom have been granted refugee status, asylum status, or temporary protected status, while others are given no legal status.

“Some have arrived from war-torn countries like Ukraine and Afghanistan; others from Central or South America have fled poverty, authoritarian governments, and drug cartels that made life in their country of origin dangerous for themselves and their families,” they wrote.

“Most of these migrants — the majority, our neighbors — are good people who arrived on our shores seeking a better life,” they added.

Former President Joe Biden expanded the temporary protected status program by adding six countries, including Venezuela, Ukraine, and Afghanistan. President Donald Trump has worked to remove this designation from nine countries, including Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan.

Bishops invoke Mother Cabrini

The bishops invoked St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, commonly known as Mother Cabrini, in their statement. She immigrated from Italy to the United States and “established, with God’s grace, numerous charitable institutions and schools to serve those finding their way in a new land,” the bishops noted. 

The statement cited Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te, which says the Church “knows that in every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself who knocks at the door of the community.”

The bishops also cited the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which teaches that 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.” It adds: “Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.”

In the statement, the bishops acknowledged that “sadly, as in any group, some have exploited the system and committed serious crimes and other misdeeds” and wrote “those immigrants or refugees who commit crimes should face the appropriate criminal and civil penalties, including deportation.” 

“At the same time, general enforcement of the immigration laws must be carried out in a humane manner that does not target the hardworking and law-abiding; that does not permit the wanton and unnecessary separation of families; and that does not rely on campaigns of fear that cripple whole communities,” they wrote.

The bishops called on the intercession of Mother Cabrini, who is the patron saint of migrants, and asked Catholics to sign onto the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) “The Cabrini Pledge,” which calls for solidarity with migrants.

“We seek her intercession for the concerns we have mentioned,” they wrote. “By joining us in signing the pledge, you commit your prayers and energy for the welcome, protection, promotion, and integration of migrants.”