Asked if he backed a US Conference of Catholic Bishops statement from last week expressing sadness over “the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care. We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status. We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools. We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones,” Pope Leo XVI was pretty unequivocal in remarks to reporters on Tuesday.
Calling it “a very important statement. I would invite especially all Catholics, but people of goodwill, to listen carefully to what they said. No one has said that the United States should have open border. I think every country has a right to determine who and how and when people enter,” Leo said, adding “We have to look for ways of treating people humanely, treating people with the dignity that they have. If people are in the United States illegally, there are ways to treat that. There are courts. There’s a system of justice,” but it has “a lot of problems” that need be addressed.