Father Gerald E. Murray a Canon lawyer and pastor at St. Joseph’s in New York City wrote about the Pope and deportation in The Pope, the Border, and the Law, an article worth reading. He points out that the Pope’s letter to the Bishops about the “crisis” of mass migration in the United States is “clearly a rebuke” of Donald Trump’s plan. “Yet implicit in the pope’s criticism of Trump’s actions is a condemnation of the very existence of laws that regulate the consequences of illegal entry into a country. Any deportation, mass or otherwise, is now presumed to be a violation of the human dignity of people who simply seek a better life.”
Go to Jail for Four Years If You Enter the Vatican Illegally
Father Murray doesn’t agree with the Pope and pointed out that the Vatican has strict laws.
Every nation has laws governing entry, including the Vatican City State, which recently stiffened the penalties for illegal entry to include “fines ranging from 10,000 to 25,000 euros (about $10,200 to $25,700) and prison sentences ranging from one to four years.” The December 2024 Decree signed by Cardinal Fernando Vergez, President of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State, states:
[t]hese fines will apply especially to those who enter by means of violence, threats, or deception, bypassing border controls or security systems. . . .[T]he penalties can be increased if the crime is committed with firearms, corrosive substances, by a person in disguise, or by several people together. Likewise, if illegal access is made in a vehicle, the penalty can increase by up to two-thirds. . . .Anyone convicted of illegal entry will be banned from entering Vatican territory for a period of up to 15 years. If this sanction is breached, the offender may be punished with a prison sentence of one to five years.
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The arrest and deportation of those who enter a country illegally and thus have no valid claim to be allowed to remain there is simply the due enforcement of the law, whether by the United States or the Vatican City State.
The Pope seems to forget people breaking into Western countries are also dangerous oftentimes.
Infinite Dignity?
Fr. Murray suggested the Pope open the Vatican. He also delves into the so-called “infinite dignity of a human person.”
The Church has never taught that people have an infinite dignity that outweighs and renders void any legal restrictions on their movements. No one has a right to camp out in the Vatican Gardens or to demand a room in the Apostolic Palace; no one has a right to illegally enter the United States or any other nation. No migrant has a right to claim that his removal violates his dignity, which “surpasses” any laws regulating entry into the country.
Fr. Murray is expressing what most Catholics were taught and believe. Read more here.
The Jesuit Pope, currently ill but recovering, and we all wish him well, needs to retire. His views are steeped in Marxism.
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