Catholic social teaching calls us to respect the dignity of all

The Gospel of Matthew (2:13-23) presents a frightening story of Jesus during his infancy when he and his parents, Mary and Joseph, are forced into becoming migrants and refugees.

Due to an executive order issued by King Herod to massacre all children under the age of two, Mary and Joseph needed to flee to Egypt and remain in exile or risk having their son killed.

Why would a king be so fearful of little children? Afterall, he had inherited enormous wealth from his father Herod the Great, a man who amassed large tracts of land and developed spectacular projects like palaces and a fortress in the Judean desert.

In today’s language he might be called a real estate developer.

On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump issued numerous actions connected to immigration, including an executive order—“Protecting the American People Against Invasion”—that established a framework for mass deportations.

Supporting this order, the President also declared a national emergency at the southern border of the United States. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been directed to significantly expand the detention infrastructure.

This expansion initiates the move toward mass arrests and detainment. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency under DHS, can now enter churches, schools, hospitals and courthouses to make arrests.

A report published in 2018 by the Center for American Progress contends, however, that detention and separation of families does not deter patterns of migration entering the United States.

Bishop Mark Seitz (El Paso), chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Migration, quickly responded on January 22, 2025, by stating that the “Catholic Church is committed to defending the sanctity of every human life and the God-given dignity of each person, regardless of nationality and immigration status.”

The dignity of each human person is a central tenet of Catholic social teaching. In addition, Bishop Seitz also stated that using “sweeping generalizations of denigrate any group, such as describing all undocumented immigrants as ‘criminals’ or ‘invaders,’ to deprive them of protection under the law, is an affront to God, who has created each of us in his own image.”

The Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggeman, once said that when pastors are working on sermons, they should read the holy scriptures with the newspaper beside them.

In other words, the Bible speaks to what is going on now. Our current narrative needs to be joined with the larger biblical narrative.

We must read Matthew’s exile narrative, therefore, within the context of what is happening with these recent executive orders. Mary, Joseph and Jesus were displaced and rendered vulnerable by an executive order. They were without protection. Near the end of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus states that when we welcome strangers by clothing and feeding them, or when we visit those who have been detained in a prison, it is as if we are doing these things for Jesus himself.

I encourage students, staff and faculty to write to congress or local representatives to express outrage at this dehumanizing treatment of peoples.