Catholic News Agency reports on a dispute between the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regarding immigration enforcement. DHS official Nathaniel Madden invoked St. Augustine’s City of God to justify deportations, claiming a distinction between “the blameless poor” and those who “knowingly broken laws.” The USCCB’s November 12 statement opposed “indiscriminate mass deportation,” citing Matthew 25’s injunction to serve “the least of these.” Antipope Leo XIV subsequently endorsed the USCCB’s position, urging “humane treatment” of immigrants. The article uncritically presents both sides as operating within Catholic parameters while ignoring the theological bankruptcy of all parties involved.
Perverted Use of St. Augustine to Justify State Totalitarianism
Madden’s invocation of De Civitate Dei constitutes blasphemous manipulation of patristic theology. St. Augustine never conceived his dichotomy between the City of God and City of Man as license for civil authorities to override divine law. As the Doctor of Grace clarifies: “Without justice, what are kingdoms but great robberies?” (City of God IV.4). The DHS argument inverts Augustine’s warning—using his authority to sacralize state power while ignoring his insistence that earthly rulers must subordinate themselves to Christ the King.
This modernist distortion exemplifies the conciliar sect’s systematic gutting of Catholic political theology. Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas explicitly condemned the very separation of civil authority from Christ’s sovereignty that Madden presupposes: “Nations will be happy only when they accept the rule of Christ with willing hearts” (§19). By reducing immigration policy to technical “enforcement of federal laws”—as if mere human legislation could override the divine mandate to “welcome the stranger” (Leviticus 19:34)—DHS embraces the laicist heresy condemned in Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors: “The State, as being the origin and source of all rights, is endowed with a certain right not circumscribed by any limits” (Proposition 39).
USCCB’s Naturalism: Charity Stripped of Supernatural Purpose
The “bishops”’ statement proves equally godless in its reduction of Catholic social teaching to secular humanitarianism. Their appeal to “human dignity” devoid of conversion to the true Faith constitutes the heresy of Americanism condemned by Leo XIII in Testem Benevolentiae. Nowhere do these modernists mention that true charity requires bringing immigrants into communion with Christ’s Church—not merely ensuring comfortable detention conditions.
The document’s reference to Matthew 25 exposes their deliberate falsification of Scripture. Our Lord’s warning—”I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35)—concerns service to Him through His Mystical Body, not abstract “human dignity.” The 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 1350) mandated that Catholic charities prioritize the salvation of souls over material welfare. By omitting this supernatural dimension, the USCCB aligns itself with the modernist error condemned in Pius X’s Lamentabili Sane: “Revelation was merely man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God” (Proposition 20).
Antipope Leo XIV’s Apostate Utterances
Bergoglio’s successor continues the destruction of Catholic doctrine through his November 18 remarks. His claim that undocumented immigrants “are living good lives” directly contradicts the Church’s teaching that no one outside sanctifying grace lives a morally good life. The Council of Trent infallibly declared: “All sins committed without faith are mortal sins” (Session VI, Canon 19). By praising objectively sinful situations—presence obtained through lawbreaking—the antipope promotes the moral relativism Pius XII condemned in Humani Generis: “They presume to remake the very concept of truth itself… claiming that all things must be said to have the same truth” (§7).
His citation of Dilexi Te compounds the heresy. The document’s claim that “doctrinal rigor without mercy is empty talk” presumes a false dichotomy between truth and charity that Vatican I anathematized: “Faith and works are to be contradistinguished as though they could exist separately” (Session III, Canon 14). True mercy, as articulated by St. Augustine, requires bringing souls to repentance—not legitimizing their rebellion against divine and human law.
The Silent Scandal: Sacramental Starvation in Detention
Most damning is both parties’ neglect of the gravest violation occurring in detention centers: denial of sacraments to Catholic detainees. The article mentions Broadview Facility’s refusal to allow Holy Communion—a sacrilege demanding immediate condemnation. Yet the USCCB focuses on hygiene products and nutritionists rather than denouncing this spiritual murder. Pius XII’s Mediator Dei reminds us: “The Eucharist is the means appointed by Christ to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross… It is the medicine which restores health and strength to our souls” (§150).
This silence exposes the conciliar sect’s loss of supernatural faith. True shepherds would demand Mass availability regardless of “safety concerns”—as missionaries did in pagan empires and communist prisons. That neither DHS nor the “bishops” prioritize this proves their leadership belongs to the “synagogue of Satan” (Revelation 2:9).
Conclusion: Two Sides of the Same Modernist Coin
The DHS-USCCB conflict constitutes a devil’s dialectic. Both accept the liberal paradigm where state power operates autonomously from Christ’s reign. Madden’s positivist legalism and the “bishops”’ sentimental humanitarianism jointly reject Pius IX’s teaching that “the State must recognize the true religion” (Syllabus, Proposition 77). Until all nations submit to the Social Reign of Christ the King—proclaimed liturgically through Pius XI’s feast—such disputes will remain sterile clashes between errors.
As Our Lord warned: “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste” (Luke 11:17). This spectacle of a godless state and apostate “bishops” quarreling over immigration policy merely confirms that both institutions have severed themselves from the One True Church. The solution lies not in policy debates, but in restoring the immutable Catholic Faith that alone can order societies toward man’s supernatural end.
Source:
DHS official justifies immigration enforcement, cites St. Augustine’s ‘City of God’ (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 19.11.2025