When I studied at university in Durham, there was a visiting Dominican friar finishing his PhD. The more traditionally inclined among the Catholics who studied in that ancient cathedral city had a habit of turning to him for counsel on manifold matters. One such piece of mentorship this affable, stolid, clear-thinking and orthodox priest gave me has rung in my ears and remained relevant ever since.
His words may be invaluable to Catholics in the wake of Pope Leo XIV’s enthusiastic emphasis on welcoming migrants – something which can seem tone-deaf to pious Catholics in Europe, who feel under siege and see their communities blighted by crime and terror, and which has had quiet correction from Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller.
My Dominican friar expounded that although we as Catholics are constrained by objective moral measures, there is still a remit within which a natural variance and difference of political opinion amongst us will be found.
He explained: think of a politician – this politician must attempt to serve the common good of the people who are entrusted directly to his care. That this must be his intention and aim is objective; he would risk falling into sin if it were otherwise. However, how this applies is a matter of prudential judgement.
One politician – a pious and good man and an informed economist – might believe a 17 per cent income tax rate is optimal for the prosperity of the country. Another might see the sorry state of the nation’s infrastructure crippling it, with the army severely underfunded as an enemy nation’s invasion appears to loom – so they opt to raise the income tax to 35 per cent.
This is not to say there is no truth, but that the results of different courses of action are not always visible and that, here, the decision-making process becomes most important. Morals are objective. But morals which apply to contingent circumstances are matters of prudence. Good and pious intention, with sincere if imperfect efforts to act according to the truth, matter most.
The Church is infallible; the Magisterium is infallible. The Pope may, under defined and narrow circumstances, also teach infallibly. But the Pope is not himself the Magisterium. His political advice is qualitatively different from his doctrinal instruction. Catholics owe him respect and docility as an authority, but not unthinking assent to his temporal recommendations – particularly when it comes to an issue like migration.
Pope Leo’s apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te has drawn attention for its stirring call to remember “the cry of the poor” and for its chapter on migrants, in which he recalls that “the Church has always recognised in migrants a living presence of the Lord who, on the day of judgement, will say: ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me’”. The Pope urges Catholics to “welcome, protect, promote and integrate” those who cross borders.
These passages are perfectly in continuity with the Church’s long-standing concern for those uprooted and dispossessed. They remind us that every migrant, like every soul, bears the image of Christ. All quite true. But what is not emphasised is that so do our neighbours at home. A fetishisation of the “other” cannot lead to the neglect – even endangerment – of those whom we are already charged to protect.
Pope Leo’s prudential judgement leads him to think it more important to emphasise at this time care for the migrant – lest they be mistreated – and this is a legitimate concern. However, the judgements of other faithful Catholics, particularly those in the nations of Europe who have suffered greatly from the fallout of mass migration, perceive this as less primary in terms of what ought to be emphasised given the present climate.
Pope Leo does recognise the legitimacy of this other point of view. “There is a certain tendency,” he observed in a recent reflection, “not to appreciate enough, at various levels, models and values developed over centuries that mark our cultural identity, sometimes even presuming to erase their historical and human relevance. Let us not disdain what our forefathers lived through, and what they passed down to us.”
Here Leo acknowledges the moral tension of our age: that the Christian duty of charity must coexist with the moral duty of stewardship. To cherish one’s inheritance, to defend one’s community and its spiritual integrity, is not contrary to charity. It is a vital expression of it. Eating your meals and preserving the beautiful gift of your body is not decadence – if you starve yourself you will be no use to anyone.
No, Catholics don’t have to be pro-mass migration: Cardinal Müller was right to refute Pope Leo