Seeking Truth in Today's Troubled World

Your Holiness,

It is with both sorrow and necessity that I must take up my pen and write this letter, for a rebuke is never a thing to be lightly undertaken, especially when directed at the Bishop of Rome. However, when a shepherd of the flock distorts the nature of Christian love and misapplies Holy Scripture, it is not only permissible but obligatory to issue a correction.

Your recent statements regarding the United States’ immigration policies, particularly your critique of the moral responsibility of Christian leaders, warrant such correction—not because they champion compassion (a virtue indeed!), but because they fail to rightly order that virtue within the structure of justice and prudence as given to us by God’s divine law.

You invoke Exodus, declaring that God is “always close, incarnate, migrant, and refugee.” True, God has revealed Himself to the sojourner, the exile, and the dispossessed. But He has also revealed Himself in the form of the Righteous Judge, who establishes nations and their borders (Acts 17:26), and who commands earthly rulers to wield authority justly for the protection of their people (Romans 13:1-4). Israel itself, while commanded to care for the stranger within its gates, did not dissolve its identity nor discard the divine charge to be a distinct people (Exodus 19:5-6). If God’s commands to welcome the sojourner were absolute and unqualified, would Nehemiah have been righteous when he restored Jerusalem’s walls (Nehemiah 2:17)? Would Ezra have been faithful when he required Israel to maintain the integrity of its covenant community (Ezra 9-10)?

Yet, you rebuke those who call for an orderly and just immigration policy as though they deny the dignity of man. In doing so, you subtly suggest that any restriction, any enforcement of national borders, is tantamount to oppression. But did God condemn the nations for having boundaries? Or rather, did He not call them to uphold justice within their borders and to preserve order among their people? Your words, Your Holiness, imply a love that is formless, ungoverned by wisdom—a love that would dissolve the duties of a father to his household, a ruler to his nation, and a steward to his vineyard.

You chastise J.D. Vance for his appeal to the “ordo amoris”—that rightly ordered love which acknowledges our duties first to those nearest to us. Yet this principle is not some obscure medieval notion; it is written into the fabric of creation. “If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8). Christ Himself, in His incarnate ministry, ministered first to the lost sheep of Israel before commissioning His disciples to the nations (Matthew 15:24, Matthew 28:19). The Good Samaritan, whom you invoke, did not dissolve the Samaritan people into the Jewish nation; he showed mercy to the wounded man as an individual, within the framework of his ability and circumstance.

Your words suggest that to prioritize one’s countrymen is to exclude love for the foreigner. This is a false dichotomy. Christian charity is not a reckless, indiscriminate sentiment but a virtue governed by wisdom and discernment. Just as a man must first care for his family before he can care for his neighbor, a nation must first secure the well-being of its own before it can rightly extend aid beyond its borders. Otherwise, charity becomes mere indulgence, an abdication of duty rather than the fulfillment of it.

Furthermore, you decry the association of illegal migration with criminality, as though those who enter a country unlawfully are blameless. Scripture itself distinguishes between the sojourner who comes in peace and the foreigner who brings lawlessness. The Lord commanded Israel to welcome the stranger who abided by their laws (Leviticus 24:22) but also to resist those who sought to undermine their nation (Deuteronomy 28:43-44). Likewise, the New Testament upholds the duty of rulers to maintain order and punish wrongdoing (Romans 13:3-4). It is not cruel to enforce the law; rather, it is an act of justice, protecting both citizens and lawful migrants from the chaos that unchecked lawlessness brings.

The problem, Your Holiness, is not that you preach compassion—it is that you divorce it from justice. You speak of dignity and rights but neglect the responsibilities that accompany them. You exhort nations to embrace boundless inclusion but ignore the divine pattern of ordered love and duty. In this, you risk burdening the sheep with an impossible yoke—one that not even the law of Moses demanded of Israel.

If you would truly serve as the Vicar of Christ, then let your words align with the fullness of divine revelation. Let them reflect not only mercy but also wisdom, not only welcome but also order, not only love but also truth. Until then, I must solemnly but respectfully rebuke you, for to lead the faithful into confusion is no small offense before the Lord (Matthew 18:6).

May God grant you wisdom, that you may shepherd rightly.

In Christ,
A Faithful Brother in the Lord