Washington, D.C.’s newly minted archbishop, Cardinal Robert McElroy, made his first public appearance since his installment at a conference on immigration policy Monday, offering a “spiritual and moral” reflection on the “American situation at this moment.”

Appealing to the teachings of Pope Francis as articulated in his recent letter to the American bishops and his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti, Cardinal McElroy centered his remarks on the parable of the good Samaritan. 

“We’ve got to remember the call of Jesus is constant, to always be attentive to the needs and the suffering that lie around us, to perceive it, and then to act,” he said, comparing the plight of migrants to the robbers’ victim in the parable of the good Samaritan. 

Following the Holy Father’s reflection on the same parable, McElroy asserted that “each of us victimizes others consciously in a variety of different ways” and that “when we place our own interests and well-being ahead of others and cause harm, we must be in touch with that side of ourselves with the darkness, which is the robber inside every one of us.” 

He continued: “That is one of the great calls of Christian conversion, to root out that darkness, to face it where it lies and to fight against it always.” 

The March 24 event, titled “Catholic Social Teaching and Work with Migrants and Refugees at a Time of Uncertainty,” was hosted in Washington, D.C., by Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) USA and the Center for Migration Studies of New York. 

Like numerous Catholic Charities organizations across the country, the Trump administration suspended aid to JRS USA’s refugee programs around the world, initiating a “total work stoppage” for the foreign aid programs at the beginning of last month. The State Department has since restored funding for two of JRS USA’s programs but has sought to terminate funding contracts for others. 

During his remarks, Cardinal McElroy sharply criticized the administration’s foreign aid suspension as “unconscionable through any prism of Catholic thought.”

“If we look at the figure of the robber at this moment,” he stated, “I think we must say to ourselves quite clearly and categorically, the suspension of the U.S. Agency for International Development monies for humanitarian relief is moral theft from the poorest and the most desperate men, women, and children in our world today.”

He further condemned the administration’s mass deportation efforts, which he said victimizes migrants as in the parable and “generates fear ... which uproots everybody’s understanding of the bonds which so many undocumented men, women, children, and families have formed in our society in the often decades that they have been here.” 

“The undocumented are the victims of this moment and of these policies,” he said. 

Cardinal McElroy further called for solidarity among Catholics and migrants, saying that “we must not only advocate but also act in support of them in every way possible.” The archbishop gave an example of mothers he knew several years ago in the Diocese of San Diego, who he said would text each other if they saw an ICE truck in front of their children’s school.

While the archbishop acknowledged border security and the exclusion of criminals as “legitimate,” he said “we must always also understand the many themes that are supporting the effort to undermine the rights and dignity of the undocumented come from the blackest parts of our history.”

Ultimately, he concluded that there are two pathways forward for the U.S. on immigration. The first pathway, supported he said by Catholic social teaching, “is to change our laws so that they have secure borders and dignity for the treatment of everyone at those borders and a generous asylum and refugee policy.”

“The other pathway is a crusade, which comes from the darkest parts of our American psyche and soul and history,” he continued. “These are the two choices we have. We as a nation will have to make one choice. The pathway of crusade and mass deportation cannot be followed in conscience by those who call themselves disciples of Jesus Christ.”