Conscience, Authority, and Prudential Disagreement: How I Remain a Faithful Catholic While Supporting Immigration Enforcement and Deportation Policy
Christopher M. Forte
Independent Catholic Writer and Researcher
San Diego, California
Abstract
Immigration enforcement has become a contested subject within contemporary American Catholic discourse, especially regarding deportation policy, the legitimacy of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and immigration policies associated with the Trump administration. This paper argues that a lay Catholic may remain fully faithful to the Catholic Church while disagreeing with bishops and even papal statements on immigration policy insofar as such statements involve prudential judgments rather than definitive moral teaching. Writing from a first-person Catholic perspective, I examine the distinction between doctrine and prudential application, the formation of conscience, the state’s authority under natural law, and the moral boundaries of immigration enforcement. Drawing from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Vatican II, the USCCB pastoral letter Strangers No Longer, and papal encyclicals such as Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate and Francis’ Fratelli Tutti, I argue that support for deportation is not intrinsically anti-Catholic. I further engage the ecclesiological reflections of Avery Dulles, the political theology of John Courtney Murray, and Joseph Ratzinger’s account of the limits and authority of the Magisterium. I conclude that lay Catholics may legitimately dissent from prudential policy recommendations while maintaining ecclesial fidelity, provided they assent to Catholic moral principles and avoid the distortions of contempt, ideology, and ultramontanism.
Keywords
Catholic social teaching; immigration; deportation; ICE; conscience; Magisterium; prudence; ultramontanism; natural law; Vatican II; Aquinas; common good; Murray; Ratzinger; Dulles.
1. Introduction: A Contemporary Catholic Problem
I write as a Catholic who believes that the Catholic Church is the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ, preserved by apostolic succession, and guided by the Holy Spirit through the bishops in communion with the successor of St. Peter. My Catholicism is not a vague spirituality, nor a cultural affiliation. It is a theological submission to the Church’s sacramental life, doctrinal continuity, and apostolic authority.
At the same time, I write as an American citizen who supports strong immigration enforcement. I am pro-ICE, and I support the deportation of illegal immigrants. I hold these positions not because I deny the dignity of migrants, but because I believe that the integrity of law, national sovereignty, and the common good require coherent border enforcement.
The contemporary tension arises because many bishops, episcopal conferences, and papal statements appear to treat deportation and enforcement as intrinsically immoral or as presumptively incompatible with the Gospel. This creates a dilemma for Catholics who simultaneously affirm the Church’s authority and believe strict enforcement is necessary for justice and national stability. The result is a moral and ecclesial conflict: one can feel forced to choose between fidelity to the hierarchy and fidelity to one’s prudential civic judgment.
The core claim of this paper is that this dilemma is false. Catholic tradition provides a conceptual framework that allows me to remain fully Catholic while disagreeing with bishops and popes on immigration policy—provided the disagreement concerns prudential application rather than binding doctrine, and provided it is expressed with reverence and formed conscience.
2. Literature Review: Immigration in Catholic Social Teaching
The Catholic moral tradition addresses immigration through the broader categories of human dignity, the common good, solidarity, subsidiarity, and the rights and duties of political communities. Contemporary Catholic sources include the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Vatican II, papal encyclicals, and episcopal pastoral letters.
The Catechism provides the most concise synthesis. It affirms a moral obligation of hospitality while also recognizing legitimate restriction:
“The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner… Political authorities, for the sake of the common good… may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions.”¹
This dual statement is fundamental: it affirms both welcome and regulation, preventing Catholic immigration ethics from collapsing into either nationalist exclusion or borderless idealism.
In the American context, the USCCB pastoral letter Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope (2003) has shaped Catholic discourse substantially. The bishops affirm national sovereignty but condemn violations of basic rights:
“The Church recognizes the right of sovereign nations to control their territories but rejects such efforts as incompatible with the Gospel when they involve the denial of basic human rights.”²
Importantly, they also acknowledge that migration rights are conditioned:
“The right to migrate… is not absolute.”³
Papal encyclicals have intensified the moral tone of immigration discussion. Benedict XVI describes migration as “epoch-making,” requiring international cooperation and integral development.⁴ Francis, in Fratelli Tutti, offers a powerful critique of xenophobia and cultural indifference.⁵ Yet neither encyclical functions as a technical immigration manual. Both operate primarily at the level of moral anthropology and social conscience.
Thus, the literature consistently points to a structural reality: Catholic teaching supplies binding moral principles, but it does not automatically dictate one enforcement policy. This distinction becomes central in evaluating claims of episcopal authority over immigration policy.
3. Theological Framework: Authority, Assent, and the Formation of Conscience
3.1. The Magisterium and the Question of Binding Authority
Catholic theology recognizes that the Church’s teaching authority is real, apostolic, and divinely instituted. The Catechism defines papal infallibility precisely:
“The Roman Pontiff… enjoys this infallibility… when… he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals.”⁶
This definition is intentionally narrow. It implies that much of what popes and bishops say—especially about contemporary politics—does not constitute definitive teaching.
The Catechism further states that ordinary teaching requires “religious assent,”⁷ but this assent is not identical in weight to the assent of faith given to dogma. The tradition has long recognized gradations of authority. Joseph Ratzinger repeatedly emphasized this point in his theological writings: the Magisterium’s authority is real, but it is ordered toward guarding revelation and moral truth, not toward becoming a substitute political technocracy. In other words, the Magisterium is authoritative, but it is not omniscient in empirical matters.
This is essential for immigration debates. If episcopal policy recommendations are treated as binding in the same way as dogma, Catholicism becomes unstable and incoherent. It would mean that Catholic fidelity depends on agreement with political analysis, not on assent to revealed truth.
3.2. Avery Dulles and the Limits of Ecclesial Teaching Claims
Avery Dulles’ ecclesiology provides a useful lens here. Dulles famously articulated different “models of the Church,” highlighting that the Church is not reducible to one institutional function. The Church is sacrament, community, herald, servant, and mystical communion. While the institutional model is essential, it is not exhaustive. This helps clarify why episcopal statements, especially political statements, must be interpreted within the broader nature of the Church.
Dulles also warned that confusion about authority can lead to distortions: either authoritarianism, where every ecclesiastical statement is treated as binding, or congregationalism, where the hierarchy is treated as irrelevant. A properly Catholic approach must reject both extremes.
Thus, when bishops speak on immigration, I must listen carefully and reverently, but I must also interpret their statements within the proper scope of their authority. Not all pastoral recommendations carry doctrinal weight.
3.3. Conscience: The Immediate Norm of Moral Action
Vatican II describes conscience as man’s inner sanctuary:
“His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary.”⁸
The Catechism defines conscience as “a judgment of reason,”⁹ and insists it must be formed:
“Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened.”¹⁰
This means I cannot dismiss bishops lightly. Their teaching is a primary source for forming conscience. Yet conscience remains my responsibility. The Church does not ask me to abandon reason.
A properly formed conscience must consider moral principles, but also empirical reality. Immigration enforcement involves practical questions of law, crime, exploitation, housing, and institutional capacity. These are not purely theological issues; they are political realities requiring prudence.
Therefore, I may accept the Church’s moral principles while disagreeing with specific episcopal applications if I believe their analysis of facts or consequences is flawed.
4. Political Theology Analysis: Enforcement, Deportation, and the Common Good
4.1. The State’s Duty Under the Common Good
Catholic tradition affirms the legitimacy of political authority. The Catechism states:
“Authority is exercised legitimately only when it seeks the common good.”¹¹
The common good includes public order, legal coherence, safety, economic stability, and the protection of citizens. A government that refuses to enforce its laws undermines justice.
Therefore, immigration enforcement is not inherently immoral. If immigration laws exist, enforcement mechanisms are logically required. To condemn enforcement in principle is to condemn the idea of law itself.
4.2. The Catechism’s Immigration Framework: Welcome and Regulation
The Catechism explicitly recognizes the legitimacy of regulating immigration:
“Political authorities… may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions.”¹²
This sentence alone refutes the claim that Catholicism requires open borders. It also suggests that deportation, as a legal consequence of violating immigration law, is not intrinsically unjust.
The moral issue is not deportation as such, but deportation conducted unjustly—through cruelty, racism, exploitation, or disproportionate harm.
4.3. Strangers No Longer and the Problem of Policy Absolutism
Strangers No Longer is often cited as if it mandates a particular political platform. Yet it explicitly affirms sovereignty:
“The Church recognizes the right of sovereign nations to control their territories…”¹³
And it admits migration is not absolute:
“The right to migrate… is not absolute.”¹⁴
Thus, even the bishops’ major immigration letter supports the idea that enforcement is legitimate. Where I disagree is with certain episcopal rhetoric that appears to treat enforcement as presumptively immoral or as a failure of Catholic compassion.
This is a prudential disagreement, not doctrinal dissent.
4.4. Benedict XVI and Integral Development
Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate provides a more analytically balanced framework than many political polemics. Benedict calls migration “epoch-making” and emphasizes both the dignity of migrants and the structural realities that drive migration.¹⁵ His perspective implies that migration is not merely an emotional moral issue, but a global economic and political phenomenon requiring prudence and international responsibility.
This supports my argument that immigration policy cannot be reduced to simplistic binaries such as “compassion vs. cruelty.” Prudence is necessary.
4.5. Pope Francis and the Formation of Moral Imagination
Francis in Fratelli Tutti condemns xenophobia and warns against indifference to migrants.¹⁶ I take this seriously, because Catholic political reasoning is not merely about policy outcomes but about moral formation. Francis’ critique challenges me to examine whether my enforcement instincts are hardened into contempt.
However, Francis’ teaching is best interpreted as a moral exhortation about human fraternity rather than a binding technical blueprint for deportation policy. It forms conscience, but it does not automatically dictate enforcement strategy.
5. Obedience vs. Ultramontanism
A major distortion in contemporary Catholic discourse is the confusion between obedience and ultramontanism.
Obedience is a virtue. Ultramontanism, as popularly practiced, is an exaggerated view that treats every papal remark as binding dogma. This distortion is not required by Catholic theology.
The Catechism’s definition of infallibility is narrow and conditional.⁶ If Catholics treat every papal statement on politics as binding, Catholicism becomes unstable and vulnerable to ideological manipulation. The pope becomes a political oracle rather than the guardian of the deposit of faith.
Joseph Ratzinger’s theological method is relevant here: he consistently emphasized that papal authority exists to preserve apostolic faith, not to replace prudential political reasoning. The pope is not a technocrat. His role is theological and pastoral.
Thus, I can respect papal authority without surrendering prudential judgment. This is not Protestant rebellion; it is Catholic intellectual discipline.
6. Addressing the Claim: “If the Pope Says It, It Must Be Binding”
The common claim that “if the pope says it, it must be binding” is theologically incorrect.
The Catechism states that the pope is infallible only when he teaches definitively on faith and morals.⁶ Most papal immigration remarks do not meet that standard.
Furthermore, the Catechism distinguishes religious assent from the assent of faith.⁷ This implies gradation.
Therefore, I am not obligated to treat every papal political opinion as binding doctrine. I must listen respectfully and consider seriously, but prudential disagreement remains possible.
7. Responding to the Accusation: “You’re Rejecting the Church if You Support Deportations”
The accusation that supporting deportation is equivalent to rejecting the Church is both theologically careless and pastorally harmful.
First, Catholic doctrine does not condemn deportation as intrinsically immoral. The Catechism explicitly affirms the state’s authority to regulate immigration.¹²
Second, Strangers No Longer affirms sovereignty.¹³
Third, the bishops admit migration rights are not absolute.¹⁴
Thus, the accusation rests on a false premise: that deportation is inherently anti-Christian. The real moral question is how deportation is executed—whether it is humane, just, proportionate, and ordered toward the common good.
Supporting deportation is not rejecting Catholicism. Rejecting Catholicism would mean rejecting apostolic authority, denying doctrine, or despising sacramental life. I do none of these. I remain Catholic precisely because I refuse to make political ideology my highest authority.
8. Natural Law, Borders, and the Moral Structure of Political Community
Catholic moral reasoning is grounded in natural law. Human beings are social by nature and flourish in political communities. Borders are not arbitrary lines of hatred; they are expressions of political community.
Aquinas defines law as:
“an ordinance of reason for the common good.”¹⁷
This implies that law exists to secure communal flourishing. Immigration law is part of this structure. Without the ability to regulate borders, a nation loses the capacity to govern itself and thus loses the capacity to pursue the common good.
Natural law does not permit cruelty or dehumanization. But it does permit sovereignty, because sovereignty is a precondition for political responsibility.
9. Aquinas on Justice and the Limits of Human Law
Aquinas defines justice as:
“a habit whereby a man renders to each one his due.”¹⁸
Justice concerns what is owed. Migrants are owed humane treatment. Citizens are owed stability and safety. Lawful immigrants are owed fairness. Society is owed legal coherence.
Aquinas also explains that human law is framed for imperfect persons:
“Human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue.”¹⁹
Thus, law must address disorder and vice. Immigration policy must account for trafficking, exploitation, and crime.
Finally, Aquinas notes that human law does not forbid every vice, but only those threatening society:
“Human law does not prohibit all vices… but only the more grievous vices… without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained.”²⁰
If illegal immigration becomes mass-scale and destabilizing, enforcement may be necessary to maintain society.
10. Dignitatis Humanae and Prudential Judgment in Political Pluralism
Dignitatis Humanae teaches that human dignity requires immunity from coercion in religious matters:
“The human person has a right to religious freedom.”²¹
This document implicitly supports political pluralism. The Church teaches binding moral principles but recognizes that civil society includes diverse convictions and requires prudential governance.
The Council states:
“Truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth.”²²
This offers a template for Catholic political debate: bishops and popes persuade; they do not always legislate binding policy.
Thus, Vatican II provides a framework for distinguishing moral universals from prudential application.
11. Conclusion
I remain Catholic because I believe the Church is the Bride of Christ and the guardian of apostolic truth. I affirm the pope and bishops as successors of the Apostles. Yet Catholic tradition also recognizes the role of conscience, the necessity of prudence, and the legitimate autonomy of civil governance.
Immigration enforcement is not an area where Catholic doctrine mandates a single policy. The Catechism explicitly affirms both welcome and regulation. Strangers No Longer affirms sovereignty and admits that migration rights are not absolute. Benedict XVI emphasizes the complexity of migration, and Pope Francis insists on fraternity and the rejection of contempt.
Therefore, I believe I can remain fully Catholic while supporting ICE and deportation policies, provided my support is bounded by justice, humane restraint, and reverence toward ecclesiastical authority. My disagreement with bishops and popes is not rebellion. It is an exercise of prudential reasoning within the Catholic tradition—faithful to doctrine, respectful toward the hierarchy, and committed to the common good.
Footnotes
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Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1992), §2241.
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United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Conferencia del Episcopado Mexicano, Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope (Washington, DC: USCCB, 2003), §39.
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USCCB, Strangers No Longer, §34.
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Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate (Vatican City, 2009), §62.
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Francis, Fratelli Tutti (Vatican City, 2020), §§37–41.
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Catechism of the Catholic Church, §891.
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Catechism of the Catholic Church, §892.
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Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes (Vatican City, 1965), §16.
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Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1778.
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Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1783.
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Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1903.
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Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2241.
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USCCB, Strangers No Longer, §39.
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USCCB, Strangers No Longer, §34.
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Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, §62.
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Francis, Fratelli Tutti, §§37–41.
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Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I–II, q. 90, a. 4.
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Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II–II, q. 58, a. 1.
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Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I–II, q. 96, a. 2.
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Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I–II, q. 96, a. 2.
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Second Vatican Council, Dignitatis Humanae (Vatican City, 1965), §2.
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Dignitatis Humanae, §1.
Bibliography (Chicago Style)
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947.
Benedict XVI. Caritas in Veritate. Encyclical Letter. Vatican City, June 29, 2009.
Catechism of the Catholic Church. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1992.
Dulles, Avery. Models of the Church. New York: Doubleday, 1974.
Francis. Fratelli Tutti. Encyclical Letter. Vatican City, October 3, 2020.
Murray, John Courtney. We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1960.
Ratzinger, Joseph. Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996.
Second Vatican Council. Dignitatis Humanae. Declaration on Religious Freedom. Vatican City, December 7, 1965.
Second Vatican Council. Gaudium et Spes. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. Vatican City, December 7, 1965.
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Conferencia del Episcopado Mexicano. Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope. Pastoral Letter. Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, January 22, 2003.
Chris M. Forte is an independent writer, researcher, and cultural commentator based in downtown San Diego, California. Raised within both Lutheran and Catholic traditions, Forte’s work is shaped by a lifelong engagement with Scripture, theology, history, and the enduring question of how Christianity is grounded in both reason and revelation. His writing frequently focuses on Catholic apologetics, early Church history, the development of doctrine, and the continuity between Judaism, apostolic Christianity, and the Catholic Church.
Forte is also deeply invested in the preservation of Italian American heritage in California and the broader United States. As the descendant of Italian American families rooted in New York and later established in California, he explores the intersection of ethnic identity, Catholic culture, and community memory—particularly as expressed through Italian American devotional traditions, feast-day festivals, and national parish life.
Politically, Forte is a Republican and a supporter of President Donald J. Trump. He approaches contemporary debates through a lens shaped by Catholic moral theology, an emphasis on civic order and the common good, and a conviction that public life must remain accountable to truth, justice, and the dignity of the human person.
Alongside theological and historical writing, Forte is the creator of several long-term projects that blend scholarship, cultural commentary, and narrative storytelling. His work is informed by both academic research and personal experience, combining accessible prose with a strong emphasis on historical continuity, textual evidence, and fidelity to Catholic tradition.
He currently resides in San Diego, where he continues to write on Christianity, culture, and history while contributing to local heritage and community initiatives.
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