Should Religious Leaders Be Involved in Birthright Citizenship Decision?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is President Donald Trump’s executive order rescinding American citizenship to anyone born on American soil and the recent action by the Conference of Catholic Bishops inserting themselves into the Supreme Court decision. Could this be a case of a religion stepping over the line between Church and State?

Steve Cortes, president of the League of American Workers and advisor to CatholicVote, shared his thoughts about the bishops willingly inserting themselves into the decision. He wrote that they “have downgraded themselves from their historic leadership role as bishops to the subservient position of mere pawns.” He believes that they have allowed “themselves to be manipulated by leftists pushing secular humanist, globalist ideologies,” specifically on the birthright citizenship issue. 

The Conference of Catholic Bishops issued an “amicus” brief to the Supreme Court, which will soon rule on President Donald Trump’s executive order to rescind the long-debated precedent of American citizenship by birthright.

Does every birth occurring on U.S. soil mean automatic citizenship, even if the parents trespassed into America as illegal aliens?

Here is the crux of the bishops’ misbegotten argument:

“Birthright citizenship aligns with the Church’s teaching that humans were created as social beings and that political authority is morally bound to affirm and protect the inherent dignity of every human person in the community.”

Of course, the inherent logical flaw here contends that the human dignity of every person can only be ratified by virtue of conferring U.S. citizenship. Given this absurd line of thinking, the United States is then bound to grant American citizenship to every single human on the planet, since they all possess clear human dignity as sons and daughters of the eternal Creator.

Kelsey Reinhardt, president of CatholicVote, correctly deconstructs the actual philosophical danger with this clearly politicized tactic, masked within the language of pastoral teaching:

“That argument does not strengthen the Church’s moral witness – it weakens it. By tying dignity to civil status, the bishops inadvertently echo the logic of the abortion industry: rights exist because the state recognizes them.”

After all, legitimate civil authority is validated by God himself precisely because it intrinsically leads to human flourishing. Societies can only succeed – and only seek the will of God freely – when governed by the rule of law. As such, prudential judgment about identifying the qualifications for citizenship lies with civil authorities who must prioritize the common good of existing citizens before admitting newcomers, especially at a massive scale.

These principles have been taught by the Church for time immemorial and were perhaps best elucidated by St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica. Aquinas weighed the prerogatives of citizens against any arguments for indiscriminate openness. His Thomistic vision flowed form the timeless maxim that “charity begins at home.”

As such, Aquinas even argued that full citizenship for immigrants should not be granted until the second or third generation….

Moreover, looking at the realities of birthright citizenship today, in an era of global travel and trade, the bishops seem to willfully ignore some very unpleasant abuses of America’s generosity.

First, “birth tourism” has exploded. It is simply routine now for expectant mothers who live near the U.S. southern border to legally cross into America s visitors for the express purpose of having a U.S.-born child with full citizenship.

For the wealthy of the world, an entire industry now exists to purchase U.S. holidays that include giving birth.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported on Chinese moguls effectively “renting” American women and their wombs to have dozes of U.S.-citizen babies per father … a grave violation of Catholic teaching regarding family life and procreation.

So, clearly the bishops overstepped by inserting the authority of the Church into a partisan legal matter. Honest people and sincere Catholics can disagree on this important issue. But by framing it in such lofty moral terms, these men acted far more like activists than like shepherds of Christ’s flock.

Over time, such actions diminish the authority earned by the Catholic Church over the years as a pillar of American society.