The Catholic News Agency portal (November 19, 2025) reports on U.S. Department of Homeland Security official Nate Madden invoking St. Augustine’s City of God to justify immigration enforcement policies condemned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The bishops’ Nov. 12 statement opposes “indiscriminate mass deportation” by citing Matthew 25, while Madden counters that “illegal immigration is itself illegal” and distinguishes between “blameless poor” and “lawbreakers.” The report notes antipope Leo XIV’s November 18 call for “humane treatment” of immigrants and reference to his modernist exhortation Dilexi Te. This represents a complete inversion of Catholic social doctrine under the guise of theological discourse.
Theological Subversion of Augustine’s Dual Cities
Madden’s distortion of De Civitate Dei constitutes blasphemous manipulation of patristic authority. Augustine never envisioned the earthly city’s laws superseding the Church’s spiritual mission, writing: “The heavenly city… summons citizens from all nations… not rescinding or destroying earthly customs” (XIX.17). The DHS spokesman perverts this into state absolutism, ignoring Augustine’s condemnation of empires lacking justice: “Remota itaque iustitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia?” (Without justice, what are kingdoms but great robberies? – IV.4).
Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas (1925) demolishes this neo-pagan statism: “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony.” The USCCB’s feeble opposition remains complicit by accepting the modernist premise that immigration policy falls under pure state competence rather than regnum Christi.
Post-Conciliar Bishops’ Abdication of Magisterial Authority
The bishops’ statement exemplifies the conciliar sect’s theological bankruptcy. Their reduction of Matthew 25 to social activism ignores the sensus plenior – Christ’s identification with suffering members of His Mystical Body, not abstract “human dignity.” As Leo XIII taught in Rerum Novarum (1891), the state’s duty to regulate immigration stems from its subordinate role in upholding the common good under Christ the King, not autonomous positivist law.
The 216 bishops voting for this declaration prove their apostasy by:
- Failing to condemn the sacrilege of “pastoral care” administered by invalidly ordained conciliar clergy
- Omitting the primary duty of nations to preserve their Catholic identity (Pius IX, Quanta Cura §3)
- Equating “human dignity” with Enlightenment naturalism rather than imago Dei perfected through sanctifying grace
Antipope Leo XIV’s Modernist Poison
The report cites Bergoglio’s successor declaring that undocumented migrants “are living good lives” after decades of illegal residence. This directly contradicts Pius XII’s Exsul Familia (1952) requiring immigrants to “respect the laws and national customs” of host countries. The antipope’s exhortation Dilexi Te compounds heresy by suggesting “doctrinal rigor without mercy is empty talk” – a rejection of St. Paul’s command to “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim 4:2).
Sacramental Desecration in Detention Centers
The article’s concern about denied Communion exposes deeper apostasy. Since the Novus Ordo “Mass” lacks valid consecration (Pius XII, Sacramentum Ordinis), detainees risk material idolatry through counterfeit sacraments. True Catholic pastoral care would require:
- Validly ordained priests offering the Traditional Mass
- Catechesis on the Four Last Things rather than social justice platitudes
- Reparation for violations of God’s immigration laws through sin
Madden’s claim that “none of those laws are unjust” reveals the Americanist heresy condemned in Leo XIII’s Testem Benevolentiae (1899). No earthly law merits obedience when contradicting divine law, as Thomas Aquinas teaches: “Human law has the nature of law in so far as it partakes of right reason… derived from the eternal law. But in so far as it deviates from reason, it is called an unjust law, and has the nature, not of law, but of violence” (ST I-II Q93 A3).
The “humane” deportation policies praised here institutionalize the very injustice Augustine decried – earthly cities usurping the heavenly city’s primacy. Until nations recognize Christ’s social reign, such conflicts will only intensify the Church’s passion under modernist occupation.
Source:
DHS official justifies immigration enforcement with St. Augustine’s ‘City of God’ (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 19.11.2025