Luis Torres, Ph.D.
Posted November 27, 2025
On November 12, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a letter, commonly referred to as their “You Are Not Alone” declaration, strongly supporting immigrants in the U.S., on a nearly unanimous vote of 216 votes in favor, 5 against, with 3 abstentions. They spoke against the “vilification of immigrants” abounding in the U.S. and defended the immigrants’ right to be treated with “the fundamental dignity of all persons.”
The introduction to the letter states, “As the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) gathered for their Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore, the bishops issued a Special Message addressing their concern for the evolving situation impacting immigrants in the United States. It marked the first time in twelve years the USCCB invoked this particularly urgent way of speaking as a body of bishops.”
As the Bishops’ have stated in their “You Are Not Alone” letter, is that Christian and Catholic theology is religious, not political.
One might wonder, how can it be that Catholic Bishops can welcome and commune with immigrants, documented or not, in their churches? The answer, as the Bishops’ have stated in their “You Are Not Alone” letter, is that Christian and Catholic theology is religious, not political. As the Bishops themselves stated, “Catholic teaching exhorts nations to recognize the fundamental dignity of all persons, including immigrants. We bishops advocate for a meaningful reform of our nation’s immigration laws and procedures. Human dignity and national security are not in conflict. Both are possible if people of good will work together.”
Despite that I am not academically qualified to teach theology (I am a professor otherwise), Catholic immigrants, theologically, are as much a part of the U.S. Catholic Church as any local parishioner, and vice-versa—those of us in the U.S. are as much a part of their Catholic Church from wherever they lived previously. According to “Catholic Answers,” “The Greek roots of the term ‘Catholic’ mean ‘according to (kata-) the whole (holos),’ or more colloquially, ‘universal.’” Therefore, it is a universal church, not demarcated by political or social or geographic boundaries.
Further, the word “church” in the Catholic tradition has many parts to its definition, but suffice it here to say a church is a gathering of people, “from the Greek word ‘ekklesia,’ which means literally those who are called out of the world. In that meaning, for Church in the New Testament, ‘ekklesia’ means that the church is people.” (“Called out of the world” refers to, for example, the social world around us) (The True Meaning of the Word “Church” | Catholic Answers Podcasts). The word “church” does not literally refer to a building, however grand and beautiful, but rather, to the people, universal, who inhabit the building for a specific purpose. For example, when Saint Paul gathered together a small group of interested residents of Phillipi, in Greece, he preached to Lydia and her family and friends, thereby creating the first Christian church in Europe, without lifting one brick on another. (I realize there are sacred spaces in churches, a commentary beyond the scope of this article.)
With such considerations of etymology and meaning, the significance of the Bishops’ “You Are Not Alone” letter about immigrants becomes exceedingly clear. The Bishops, all American Catholics, and immigrants, are members of the whole, universal gathering of people, albeit geographically situated in the United States. Reciprocally, when I or any other person from the U.S. goes to Greece, or Rome, or Mexico, or Ethiopia, we are members of the same church, situated in those political entities of nations, to be treated with the “fundamental dignity of all persons,” as the Bishops’ letter assures us. The grandest church in Christendom, Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, is as much mine as any Catholic church in Denver is an immigrant’s, who arrived yesterday.
While the “You Are Not Alone” letter does not identify the racial or ethnic or national background of any immigrants—a statement that would have gone against their guiding principle—the current situation clearly reflects Latino immigration. As the letter states, “Despite obstacles and prejudices, generations of immigrants have made enormous contributions to the well-being of our nation.” These contributions continue apace, as is stated in the USCCB’s standard web page, “Migration: Immigration,” in its introduction, “Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration”:
The Catholic Church in the United States is an immigrant church with a long history of embracing diverse newcomers and providing assistance and pastoral care to immigrants, migrants, refugees, and people on the move. Our Church has responded to Christ’s call for us to “welcome the stranger among us,” for in this encounter with the immigrant, the migrant, and the refugee in our midst, we encounter Christ.
Statistics from the highly regarded research center about Latinos, the Pew Charitable Trust, provides information about the status of immigrants in the Catholic Church, including their article, “10 facts about U.S. Catholics,” dated March 4, 2025 (Justin Nortey, Patricia Tevington, and Gregory A. Smith). As the article states, “The share of U.S. Catholics who are Hispanic is rising. Currently, the Catholic population is 54% White, 36% Hispanic, 4% Asian and 2% Black. An additional 2% identify with another race.” (Hispanics account for 19% of the total U.S. population.) The percentage growth since 2007 is dramatic for Hispanics, as they were at 29% of the U.S. Catholic population then, vs. 36% in 2025, while the White percentage has fallen from 64% in 2007 to 54% today. Therefore, in terms of percentages, Hispanics and Whites have up to now followed slightly opposite trajectories in representation among Catholics.
For immigrants, (not disaggregated by nationality), “More than four-in ten U.S. Catholics are immigrants (29%) or the children of immigrants (14%). But some racial and ethnic groups have much higher shares of first- and second-generation immigrants…. Among Hispanic Catholics, 58% were born outside the U.S., and 22% were born in the U.S. to at least one immigrant parent. By contrast, 83% of White Catholics are from families who have been in the U.S. for three generations or longer.”
The heart of the Bishops’ “You Are Not Alone” statement is in the eight quotations from the Bible they have included as context for their statements of belief in supporting the immigrants’ “God-given human dignity.” The letter offers eight Biblical quotations, each from a separate book, from Genesis 1:27, to the second letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians. Each quotation, or reference, speaks to the dignity of each person, as they stated, “The Church’s teaching rests on the foundational concern for the human person, as created in the image and likeness of God” (Genesis 1:27). From Zechariah 7:10 they state, “The priority of the Lord, as the Prophets remind us, is for those who are most vulnerable: the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the stranger.” From the Gospel According to Saint Luke (10:30—37), “we see the Good Samaritan who lifts us from the dust,” amplifying the need to not just love our neighbors as ourselves, but to treat and assist them as ourselves.
For this writer, an additional Biblical passage, paralleling the Bishops’ “You Are Not Alone” statement of support for immigrants, could be the Flight Into Egypt passage, following the Nativity, for Saint Joseph, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Jesus Christ as an infant. When the wise men departed from their visit to the Christ Child, “the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt,[g] and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” 14 Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. (Gospel According to Saint Matthew, ch. 2).
While this interpretation might seem untenable, it is in one way a narrative of immigration, from one country into another, to escape persecution, violence, and brutality. We do not know from the Bible how Saint Joseph, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Jesus Christ Himself were regarded in Egypt, but they were doubtless treated well enough, since “When Herod had died, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.’ He rose, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel.” In whichever country they find themselves, as the Bishops say, immigrants must not be alone.
Luis Torres, PhD, retired, served as Deputy Provost for Metropolitan State University of Denver for Academic and Student Affairs and professor of Chicana/o Studies. Torres is a noted advocate for equity in education, policy and community efforts. Torres is also a member of The Weekly Issue/El Semanario Advisory Board.
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