CSJP Leadership Team Statement on the Rights of Migrants and Refugees
We, the Leadership Team of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, reaffirm our 2016 Congregation Statement, Welcome Immigrants and Refugees. Our Congregation "had its origin in the founder's response to the social concerns and needs of the time." (Constitution 4) At our founding, we were a congregation of immigrants, serving immigrants, knowing their pain and suffering. Throughout our history, we have stood in solidarity with recent arrivals to our countries, helping them find safe and stable housing, providing job and skills training, and offering pastoral care in the face of undignified treatment.
With the changes of government that have taken place in both the US and the UK, we have witnessed not only increasingly alarming rhetoric against asylum seekers, immigrants, and refugees, but also the disturbing violent action that is playing out in the streets and in public policy. We continue to urge our governments to follow international law and protocols guaranteeing the rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
We join Pope Leo XIV and our brother Bishops in denouncing the inhumane and unjust treatment of our immigrant brothers and sisters. We call for an end to harmful rhetoric meant to instill fear and create division. In an era where we see mass deportation and the erosion of due process, we recall the words of Pope John Paul II who named arbitrary imprisonment and deportation as intrinsically evil acts “offensive to human dignity.” (Veritatis Splendor, 80).
On November 12, 2025, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a special pastoral message regarding immigration. We share the concerns expressed by the Bishops regarding the climate of fear and anxiety created by harsh immigration enforcement, increased profiling, inhumane conditions in detention centers, arbitrary revocation of immigration status, and indiscriminate mass deportation.
We also welcome the message that Bishop Paul McAleenan, Lead Bishop for Migrants and Refugees of the Catholic Church, England and Wales, offered for the annual World Day of Migrants and Refugees. “Hostility and prejudice towards migrants and refugees, whatever its source-whether it is spoken or indicated in another way—must not make us lose hope or harden our hearts. It is our obligation to try and understand why migrants appear among us; our duty is to care for those who seek refuge in our country.”
We are troubled by the UK government’s proposal to reverse many of the protections guaranteed to people who seek asylum. In a country whose residents are raising alarm because of increasing inequity, immigrants and asylum seekers should not be made the scapegoats and receive unjust treatment as a result.
We urge the Bishops, as models and teachers of the Catholic faith, to use their authority, standing, and connections to act on behalf of migrants. The teaching of Jesus Christ demands that we act on behalf of our suffering neighbor. We encourage the Bishops to join religious congregations, Catholic welcome centers, legal clinics and individuals in the advocating for human rights and concrete actions on behalf of migrants that bring the light of Catholic Social Teaching to this moral moment.
“The Church,” writes Pope Leo in Dilexi Te, “like a mother, accompanies those who are walking. Where the world sees threats, she sees children; where walls are built, she builds bridges. She knows that her proclamation of the Gospel is credible only when it is translated into gestures of closeness and welcome. And she knows that in every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself who knocks at the door of the community (73).”
Congregation Leadership Team
Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace
November 19, 2025