In MAGA West Virginia, a Catholic Bishop Takes on Trump’s Immigration Crackdown
Echoing Pope Leo's concerns on immigration, the West Virginia bishop says ICE agents must defy unjust orders, invoking the Nazi-era defense rejected at Nuremberg.
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In a public letter released July 31, from deep-red West Virginia — a state Donald Trump carried by a landslide — Bishop Mark E. Brennan of Wheeling denounced the “harsh measures” targeting immigrants and urged his flock to “affirm the humanity of all immigrants, regardless of legal status”.
He decried the “wholesale assault” of aggressive enforcement actions — violent raids, quotas, even new detention camps like Florida’s notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Everglades.
Many local Trump supporters told the bishop they expected border security, “not this wholesale assault on the majority of immigrants, who work hard, are raising their families, and live peacefully in our communities.”.
Brennan’s statement shines the gospel light on these injustices. He reminds West Virginians that the Holy Family themselves fled as refugees — Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus escaping Herod’s violence.
The bishop writes, “Our Church looks at the person, not his or her legal status,” because “a person is more important than legal status.”
Even criminals in prison are fed and clothed, he notes, so “how can a civilized nation treat peaceful immigrant neighbors with less mercy?”
Brennan vows that his diocese will continue to aid immigrant families, for “we Catholics must welcome the stranger and feed and clothe him.”
This is Catholic social teaching in action, upholding the God-given dignity of migrants over partisan agendas.
Crucially, Bishop Brennan issues a call to conscience for those carrying out these policies.
He exhorts everyone — including ICE agents and officials — to “pray for the courage to do the right thing”.
Citing Catholic tradition, Brennan declares that “an unjust law does not bind in conscience.”
He invokes the heroic example of Americans who defied the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 rather than enforce evil laws.
No one can escape personal moral responsibility by saying “I was just following orders,” the bishop warns — that defense was rejected at Nuremberg. If an enforcement action is immoral, Brennan insists, refuse it: God is the final judge of our actions.
This is the Church’s historic teaching on civil disobedience to unjust laws, spoken with urgent clarity.
Brennan’s bold stand in West Virginia echoes Pope Leo’s own early actions as pontiff. It’s widely believed that Leo — then Cardinal Robert Prevost — helped ghostwrite Pope Francis’s January 2025 letter to U.S. bishops that lambasted Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
In that letter, Francis (with Leo’s voice behind him) lamented “mass deportations that have torn apart families,” declaring with moral clarity:
“No policy can stand if it does not uphold human dignity. No law is just if it turns its back on the vulnerable.”
Those words could be Brennan’s own. Both pope and bishop proclaim that any law divorced from compassion is no law at all — it is an offense against the “infinite and transcendent” dignity of the person.
Leo XIV has left no doubt where he stands.
Even before his election, as a Chicago-born cardinal, he publicly repudiated attempts to baptize anti-immigrant sentiment.
When Vice President JD Vance argued that Americans should care for compatriots before immigrants, Cardinal Prevost pointed to the Gospel’s broader love.
He shared a National Catholic Reporter column titled “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others” — a direct refutation of rhetoric that pits “us” against “them.”
As pope, Leo has continued this line, even granting an unusual early audience to U.S. border-state bishops, signaling his intent to confront the deportation apparatus and support Church leaders defending their flock from unjust immigration tactics.
In Bishop Brennan, we see the moral test of this moment brought to the frontlines. Here is a Catholic bishop in one of Trump’s strongest strongholds, yet he fearlessly preaches Christ’s message: welcoming the stranger is not optional — it is the measure of our faithfulness.
Brennan’s letter is a clarion call to Catholics to remember that patriotism can never excuse cruelty. The Gospel demands we see immigrants not as invaders, but as brothers and sisters — flesh and bone families seeking life, just as our own ancestors did.
His challenge to West Virginia and to America is the same challenge Leo is sounding from Rome: Will we stand with the vulnerable, or turn our backs?
In this urgent moral hour, Bishop Brennan and Pope Leo are united in reminding the faithful that “whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me.”
The cries of children torn from parents, of the refugee at our doorstep, are nothing less than the cry of Christ.
No law or order can override that sacred truth.
As Brennan implores, let us pray — and act — with the courage to do the right thing, following our conscience and our faith, even if it means defying unjust commands. In welcoming the stranger, we welcome Christ himself, and affirm the very soul of our nation.
Thank you for reading!
I can only continue to do this work with your generosity. If you find value in my it, please become a paid subscriber today.
Subscriptions start at just $6.67/month, and include full access to:
My ongoing series on Faith and the Democratic Party
The multi-part deep dive into Pope Leo’s life and formation
The latest installments:
Part IV explores Pope Leo’s 20-year friendship with Pope Francis.
Part V profiles his closest cardinal confidant, Luis Antonio Tagle.
Part VI examines how his thirty years in Peru will affect his pontificate.
Thank you again for your continued support!
I really would love to share this with my Parish. I was saddened by those that follow the current President at my Parish. I don’t understand. Let me see if I can share it. And what backlash I get. 😌
Any church that talks politics NEEDS to be TAXED. Millions of TAX FREE dollars are hauled in every week. The public gets nothing in return.