BREAKING US Bishops" Conference Leadership Voice Grave Concerns Over Treatment of Migrants and Refugees at Assembly Press Conference - VIDEO

 November 2025 Plenary Assembly - November 11 Press Conference with Maura Moser, director of the Catholic Communications Campaign, USCCB President Archbishop Timothy Broglio, Bishop Kevin Carl Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend in Indiana, chair of the USCCB’s religious liberty committee, and Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, chairman of the USCCB’s migration committee.  

Transcript Interviewer: Maura Moser:  It's wonderful to be with you here in Baltimore once again. I want to start with a question on migration. Of course, we heard a message this morning, the bishop—bishop's message to the Holy Father, which emphasized the church's teaching on migrants and refugees and care of the poor. It's clearly that an issue that each bishop is addressing. I'd like to ask each of you to take a moment and tell us what are you hearing from your brother bishops.

Archbishop Broglio: I've certainly been hearing a great deal of concern about the situation. Especially the concern is really about the people themselves and the fear that they're experiencing, the uncertainty. Um, and this is preventing people from, you know, bringing their children to church or to school or or even to the emergency room. And so that's that's certainly a concern that that we all share. And we as pastors would like to alleviate that fear and assure them, the migrant, assure the people in the situation that  we are with them.

Bishop Rhoades: Yeah, I think there's a remarkable unity among all the bishops. This is an issue of human dignity and I think the so many of our people who are suffering that we really the gospel teaches us especially to be compassionate, reach out to the immigrants. And just concern about their well-being, the unity of families is so important to us, the religious liberty, the right to worship of those who are in detention. So I think the bishops have a lot of concerns surrounding the immigration situation that we have today. But it's all rooted in our a love of neighbor and respect for the dignity of the human person.

Bishop Seitz: For us, this issue is is not an abstract one. It's it's a personal one because we're pastors. We're pastors. We care about our people and we care particularly for those who are most vulnerable, those who are most in need. That's just what the church ought to do and what it does. It's what we are called to do in the gospel. I think you'll hear that from the bishops across the board. We all have people in our dioceses that are being swept up in this in this effort to go after people who are immigrants.

And I say that in a very broad sense because although the the what the government has been saying is we're after criminals, it's extended much more broadly than that. And so while we certainly agree that people who are some kind of threat to our community ought to be taken off of our streets or you know once they're convicted. The sweep has taken up so many others and has the risk of setting aside any kind of due process which is such a fundamental part of our our nation's basic approach that everyone has certain rights and those rights ought to be respected with a process that allows allows us to ascertain whether they indeed did commit some act that was a violation of our law and then the response needs to be proportional to the to that violation.

Interviewer: Thank you all. As you said, Bishop Seitz, you are pastors not politicians. But I do want to ask a political question. We just had elections in this country and usually at this November meeting the bishops discuss the foundational document for pol—public engagement on political issues, that's "Forming Consciousness for Faithful Citizenship."  I know that it's not on the the main agenda but I understand there was conversation in fraternal dialogue. Archbishop Broglio, could you tell us maybe what is happening with this document?

Archbishop Broglio: Well, I think the document is remains a fixture of our our statement as pastors regarding Catholic attitudes in in public life. Um, we're going to try and given that few people will sit down and and read a document of that length, we're going to try and make it into something that's a little more or make part of it into something that's a little more marketable or palatable for people to read in in small segments. So that's that's basically the way going forward and then obviously we'll respond to specific issues as they arise.

Interviewer: Very good. All right, at this time I think we're ready to take questions. 

Journalist: My microphone is working. And Archbishop, my question is on the political front. How strongly as a body of bishops are you going to come out and speak to the Trump administration's harsh immigration crackdown that's affecting many parishes and many dioceses?

Archbishop Broglio: Is your question directed to one of us or... Okay.

Bishop Seitz: Well, as you perhaps heard, we are going to be and are working on a statement that will come out of this meeting. It's in the works right now and we we certainly as as bishops we we want to speak from who we are and certainly we address issues of principle such as religious liberty, such as human dignity, and so on. And we'll try to stick to our our foundations, if you will, in any statement that we make, but we also want it to be something that's very clear and that is rooted in the gospel.

So I hope that when you see a statement it will address—it will speak from all of those points of view and and it will also I believe speak to immigrants, not simply to our government. You know, it will speak to immigrants expressing our concern and our desire to walk with them through this difficult time and their in their lives and the lives of their families.

Interviewer: I think Bishop Rhoades wanted to respond to that question as well.

Bishop Rhoades: Yeah, I just wanted to say that on the political front, you know, for decades the US bishops have been advocating for comprehensive immigration reform. And with the stagnation, especially in Congress, with the polarization, you know, now is a time—I mean we're in a really a crisis situation. Um, although we can say we've been in a crisis for a while with the immigration issue, but to be able to cross the aisle... And I hope that the church can be an—you know, we don't take, we're not partisan, but we want both parties to work together. And you know there were times in the past few decades where that was taking place. There was at least dialogue. At least to return to that. We're talking about human lives being at stake and and really important principles of our country including not just human dignity and religious liberty. All these things intersect and so I'm just hopeful that we can move beyond the impasse.

Archbishop Broglio: I would just like to add that primarily we'll be addressing the people who find themselves in difficulty themselves and also are faithful. So it will be a message of solidarity with our brothers and sisters who find themselves in difficulty and who find themselves in fear, to let them know that they are not alone, that their pastors are are walking with them.

Interviewer: The next question goes to Mark Irons with EWTN. 

Journalist: Your Excellencies, we've heard some reports of detained migrants being denied access to communion. Can you talk about that? How concerning is that? And should detained migrants have access to the sacraments?

Bishop Rhoades: That's our committee on religious liberty. We had a meeting on Monday night and that was one of the agenda items. We're very concerned about that. Um, obviously to have access to our people who are in these detention facilities, to be able to offer pastoral and spiritual care and especially the grace of the sacraments. Now certainly we understand that our chaplains and our pastoral ministers, our priests go through the normal process, you know, of the proper protocols, but should have that access. That's an issue of religious liberty, the right to worship. One doesn't lose that right when one is detained, whether one is documented or undocumented. This this is a fundamental right of the human person. So we feel very strongly about this.

Archbishop Broglio: My own experience right now is you know because of the government shutdown, the religious liberty commission—and I'm on the advisory committee—hasn't been in operation because of the lack of funding. So there, we don't have that avenue presently. But hopefully that will that avenue will open again.  I think they I think they are aware just from the news of our concerns, but I'm hoping to have more direct contact on this. I will say that in context that I had just last week, there was an effort to explain some of the difficulties about access in terms of some of the facilities that weren't made for long-term detention, for one of a better word. There's not the same organization that there would be. And so that's that's obviously a concern that has to be addressed.

Interviewer: The next question goes to Father Reese with Religion News Service. A question for Archbishop Broglio or and the other bishops if you want to comment on it. The USCCB media office prior to the meeting indicated that some of the topics that would be discussed in executive session in included best practices for continuing instruction in Laudato Si', the ongoing implementation of the synod, and the apostolate of the laity. Now these were of course key programs of Pope Francis but that the reason that these were going to be in executive session was that the bishops wanted to freely and candidly discuss these topics. I guess my question is what was so controversial about these issues that they had to be treated in executive session.

Archbishop Broglio: Father Reese, good to see you again.  I'm not sure that that there there's that the issue is really that the confidentiality, it's—I mean that's part of it certainly, but it's also that there's a little more freedom to speak in executive session. And I would like to point out that we are the only bishop's conference in the world that generally our public sessions are public. Most bishop's conferences do not have public sessions. So we do like to have the ability to talk about some issues in an executive session.

Interviewer: We I think we have time for one more question. The last question goes to Kate Scanland with OSB News. Thanks, Jacob. Bishop Rhoades, I was hoping to get your thoughts on just this issue of religious liberty presented by ICE detainees receiving the sacraments. I know it's already come up. Um, but there was that report that the immigration committee did with World Relief showing that, you know, a huge majority of those vulnerable to deportation are either Catholics themselves or they have a family member who's Catholic. So, this is a really pivotal part of this. There's obviously this facility in Chicago that's become a flash point in all of this, but I'm wondering if you could just speak to how are you engaging, where are the bishops in in tangibly securing and protecting the rights of all ICE detainees to to be able to receive the sacraments if if they so need.

Bishop Rhoades: You know, it really is heartbreaking. Our focus in the committee on religious liberty was basically the the church's right to provide charitable services for immigrants. Um, and that was kind of our focus. We didn't really anticipate what we're facing now with the detention centers. So, but as soon as that became you know, something that we became aware of, that's moved to the top of the list for us. And I really—I mean it's heartbreaking when you think of the suffering really and they, especially those who who've been detained, separated from families, etc., those who haven't committed crimes, they need spiritual support at this time and they need the sacraments. So I think this is now at the top of of our concerns. So we're we're doing, you know, we'll move forward now. We just had the meeting on Monday evening about contacting our our representatives and certainly the administration.

Interviewer: All right. Well, thank you all, especially those of you our outgoing chair of the committee on migration, Bishop Seitz, and our outgoing president of the conference, Archbishop Broglio. Thank you, Bishop Rhoades, as well. Have a good afternoon. Thank you. Thank you very much.