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With his criticism of U.S. Catholic bishops for supporting immigrants, Vice President JD Vance has reignited years of GOP attacks on the Catholic Church as both sides navigate an issue that has divided the nation and the faithful.
Catholic leaders expressed dismay after Vance, who is Catholic, questioned whether the church's substantial, decades-long work with migrants is driven by a desire for money.
"That's just scurrilous. It's very nasty," Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York City, who has given prayers at both of Donald Trump's inaugurals, said of Vance's comments on his SiriusXM Catholic Channel show Tuesday.
John Carr, who for two decades led the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' office on social justice efforts, said Vance's criticisms "showed an unprecedented lack of respect for the work of the Catholic community, lack of restraint in promoting false and outrageous claims that the Church does this for the money and promotes human trafficking, and a lack of knowledge of Catholic teaching and ministry with refugees."
"It seemed like an effort to intimidate instead of a call to seek the best way forward," said Carr, who founded the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University.
The back-and-forth represented a new skirmish in a verbal war that reaches back to Trump's first candidacy in 2016, when Pope Francis declared Trump "not Christian" for his proposal to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to deter migrants. Trump responded by saying such criticism was "disgraceful."
The day before the 2025 inauguration, Francis called Trump's plans for a mass deportation of immigrants "a disgrace" that will make "poor unfortunates who have nothing foot the bill for [global] imbalances."
The Catholic bishops' organization works with immigrants in different ways - mostly through Catholic Charities. It contracts with the federal government to resettle refugees who have been vetted by the U.S. government. It also - like many other aid groups and municipalities - receives public funds, including during the first Trump term, to help people at the border who need basic services such as shelter and food.
The newest chapter in the dispute came after Trump said immigration enforcement officials could now enter once-protected areas such as churches and schools to detain people. The bishops, in response, said allowing "non-emergency immigration enforcement [in those places] … would be contrary to the common good."
It noted the mere existence of the new policy had immigrants keeping children home from school and not attending religious services.
Asked about that statement Sunday on CBS, Vance said he was "heartbroken" by it. He added that the bishops need to "look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line?"
The bishops' group told The Washington Post that its federal government contracts and grants totaled $129 million in 2023, the last year for which figures were available, according to an annual audit by KPMG. The bishops spent $134 million that year on immigrant and refugee services, the audit said.
The Post asked a Vance spokesperson about his allegation that the bishops' motivation in their migrant work is financial, whether Vance had discussed the topic with any Catholic leaders, and what he envisions as a productive role for Catholic bishops and other faith leaders on immigration.
Vance spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk said, in a brief texted statement, that "Vice President Vance isn't interested in consulting The Washington Post about his Catholic faith."
The Post, she wrote, "doesn't have credibility on spiritual matters." Vance provided no evidence for his assertion that Catholic entities were helping "illegal immigrants." His communications staff later said Vance disagreed with the Biden administration's interpretation of the law, particularly when it came to an immigration program known as parole.
Leaders of major Catholic aid groups and bishops' staffers held meetings this week about how to understand and respond to the new administration. Some said an education campaign would begin in parishes to help rank-and-file Catholics understand church teaching on immigration, as well as the church's work with migrants and refugees. Others said they hoped Vance would soon meet with church leaders.
Appaswamy "Vino" Pajanor, chief executive of Catholic Charities-San Diego, said Vance's comments were "frustrating and dejecting."
"We are now made [out] as the bad people, and we are taking care of the people who will be left on the streets. As if we are enemies of the state," he said. "More education has to be passed on. There's a lot of misinformation."
While Republican officeholders have allied with the Catholic bishops when it comes to abortion and opposing transgender rights, conflict has stepped up in recent years about the church - and other faith groups - working with immigrants and refugees.
Catholic Charities has been criticized by some GOP lawmakers who said leaders of the nonprofit organization should have to testify before Congress for allegedly fueling illegal immigration. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) said in 2023 that Catholic groups who help migrants are evidence of "Satan controlling the church."
In Texas, Republicans in court papers accused a faith-based network of migrant shelters of creating "stash houses" sheltering the undocumented from authorities. Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) asked a judge to shut down the shelters and turn over all records to the state. That case remains on appeal.
Still, some in the church, including online influencers with large followings, have celebrated the Trump-Vance approach, a reflection of divisions among Catholics about how best to handle immigration and immigrants. That divide reflects a broader one about what should be the core of the Catholic mission: defending those whom the Bible calls "the least of these," or shoring up the church's standing as a conservative institution.
"The ‘we must help poor illegal immigrants' stance directly results in the increase of human suffering," Texas podcaster Kyle Seraphin wrote Saturday on the social media platform X. "Perhaps you aren't aware of what happens when a population lives in the shadow without the normal protections of America law enforcement. I'll help you: it results in rape, torture, extortion, enslavement, and murder."
Cream City Catholic, a blog for Milwaukee Catholics, on Sunday posted on X praise for the vice president and a photo of him in jeans holding a rifle.
"The Catholic Vance will give liberal bishops a challenge they aren't used to: a young, appealing, intelligent, articulate & muscular counterpoint to the effeminate (but fading) ecclesial zeitgeist of the '60s. He likely has a far better grasp of *real* Catholic social teaching," Cream City wrote.
In some parishes, those contrasting views were evident.
The Rev. Michael Bryant, a pastor-in-residence at Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian Church about a mile east of the U.S. Capitol, on Sunday said he saw Trump's new orders as violations of the Catholic faith. Bryant read to the parishioners the statement that Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde had delivered to Trump at a recent prayer service at Washington National Cathedral, begging him to "be merciful to the stranger, for we were once strangers in this land." Bryant said it was "disgraceful" that Trump was calling for mass arrests of immigrants while pardoning those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
"Pray for those being targeted in our nation who come from Venezuela, Central America and Haiti," among other places, Bryant told about 50 people.
"Lord hear our prayer," congregants responded. A handful left during his talk. Others cheered and clapped and thanked him after the service.
The parish's priest, Monsignor Charles Pope, closed the Mass by saying that honoring diversity "includes political diversity" and that some congregants may disagree with Bryant "for reasons of your own."
Pope later told The Post that he disagrees with Vance's assertion that the bishops' group is motivated by money in its work with migrants. He noted that Catholic teaching on migration defends the rights of migrants to escape unsafe conditions and the need to respect the laws and customs of the countries that take them in. Church teaching also says "prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able," to absorb migrants in need.
He also said Vance had been "baited" into levying criticism of the bishops because he was asked about their criticism of the new Trump policy allowing immigration raids in churches and schools.
"It wasn't his instinct to come out against the Catholic bishops," Pope said.
Dolan, the leader of the New York archdiocese, said he was "hurt" by Vance's "inaccurate" comments about the church.
"A guy who has struck me as a gentleman and a thoughtful man, and from whom I'm still expecting great things - I hope it was an uncharacteristic moment," the cardinal said.
Still, he added: "You think we make money caring for the immigrants? We're losing it hand over fist."
Many bishops and Catholic leaders who work on the topic declined to comment, reflecting the sensitivity of a clash that now includes not only the president and the pope, but also the nation's Catholic vice president. But bishops from across the ideological spectrum joined statements affirming the church's support for immigrants.
"Our parishes, schools, and ministries are here for you, offering spaces where you can find community and grow in faith," read a statement signed by eight bishops in Maryland.
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