There is an apocryphal story about the life of St. Peter that claims to be the origin of his martyrdom. As the legend goes, St. Peter was walking away from the city of Rome, having just escaped the brutal punishment of crucifixion, when he noticed a figure in the distance. This slow-moving specter seemed to be carrying a wooden cross on his shoulders, and as St. Peter approached him, he realized that the figure was the Lord. Surprised, he asked Jesus, “Quo vadis, Domine?” which means “Where are you going, Lord?” Jesus responded, “Romam vado iterum crucifigi,” or “I am going to Rome to be crucified again.” Filled with shame for putting Our Lord up to such a task, St. Peter returned to Rome where he readily accepted the crown of martyrdom.

Regardless of whether this tale is true, we can all see a little bit of ourselves in St. Peter. He did not want to become a martyr, but he realized that he could give himself up if Our Lord was willing to sacrifice Himself again, even though His Crucifixion had paid the price of our sins forever. We do not want to willingly accept something that seems like an evil, even if it is ultimately good for us. In the United States, we seem unable to come to an agreement on whether immigration is a good. Within the current American political spectrum, there are proponents for restricting access to immigration entirely and proponents for allowing anyone to migrate to the country if they so desire. For both sides, to depart from their ideological position is an evil that they do not want to face. But the Catholic Church has always reminded us that we the faithful have a duty both to the rule of law and to the migrant, documented or otherwise. More firmly, we have a duty to the perennial teachings of the Church. We must recognize, then, that just as St. Peter realized that his martyrdom was ultimately a good that Christ desired, so, too, our following of magisterial teaching is our charitable acceptance of the arduous task that Christ asks us to conduct.

There is a good chance that many of the protestors in Los Angeles would agree with my assertion on our duty to immigrants, even if the religious subtext were stripped from it. They have made their support for the migrant community in the city clear, although it has not always been shown in peaceful or respectful ways. To be quite frank, the scenes out of the city in recent days have been horrifying. It’s never good when a city is on fire, but even less so when the city burns because of violent protests. The police should never use unreasonable force, but even less so against journalists that are simply doing their job on the sidelines. The businesses and homes of law-abiding citizens should always be off-limits during protests, and yet there are many instances of both being ransacked, vandalized, and destroyed by violent protesters in the city. And while there are certainly non-violent protesters in the crowds, their peaceful contributions to a healthy dialogue have been overshadowed by the violent actions and riots led by those intent on causing anarchy. This is not peaceful protesting.

The Catholic Church has consistently taught that protests over unjust policies are our right, given that they are peaceful and non-violent. Violence in a protest can never be justified. The late Pope Francis encouraged Catholics to stand up for what is right “peacefully, without succumbing to the temptation of aggression and violence.”¹ Further, his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, lamented that “moral relativism” has led to an increase in sudden and violent riots around the world in place of the “fraternal regard for the poor and the weak” that should be the primary focus of peaceful civil protests.² These “civil protests” can be as simple as doing such countercultural things as setting up a free legal non-profit to help people immigrate to the country legally. They do not have to be literal on-the-street protests as at Los Angeles or El Paso, for example, but they should always be peaceful. The Church can never – never – condone unjustified violence in what is meant to be a peaceful setting. This is one of the primary reasons why the riots in Los Angeles are so distressing from a Catholic point of view. If they were peaceful, then they could be reasonably construed as justified. However, because of the violence that has stemmed from the protests, they cannot be justified in the eyes of the Church and Her teachings.

The stated goal of the civil unrest in Los Angeles was to stand in solidarity with the migrants in the city. As far as the Church is concerned, this is a noble goal. After all, we are called to advocate for the least of our brothers and sisters so that their human dignity can be preserved, even if it may be uncomfortable for us. Pope Pius XII called it our “duty” to “relieve as much as possible the wretchedness and want” of migrants, especially those that are displaced from their country by war, violence, and extreme poverty.³ It is not just, then, for a government to send legitimate refugees back to war-torn countries, or for them to deport victims of human trafficking back to dangerous countries for the “crime” of being brought illegally into the country. To be clear, however, Catholic social teaching consistently proclaims that a country cannot be forced to accept immigrants, and that even if a country is to be merciful in its acceptance of them, it cannot be expected to welcome so many immigrants that the entire social and political atmosphere of the country will change. Countries are allowed to make their own laws regarding immigration without fear of moral dilution provided that they are merciful and just in their decisions.

It is the right, then, – and some would argue the duty – of Catholics to peacefully stand up for every one of our brothers and sisters in Christ. As Our Lord makes clear in Matthew 25:40, whatever we do for “the least of these brothers and sisters” of His, we do for Him. When we accept the migrant that is oppressed by unjust laws in their nation, we accept Christ. When we stand up for those that are unjustly deported by the government, we are standing up for Our Lord. And while there are valid uses of deportation, such as keeping our country safe from dangerous felons that are not eligible for American citizenship, it should not be deployed indiscriminately against everyone that enters this country as an immigrant. That flies in the face of the teachings of the Catholic Church on the dignity of the human person: everyone is entitled to a fair judicial process and a chance at building a better life, regardless of how they came to enter this country.

In America, the government proclaims that all so-called “illegal immigrants” are dangerous, while the opposition claims that there is no such thing as a “dangerous immigrant.” However, there are dangerous immigrants; they are the violent immigrants, the hardened criminals and gang members, who have connections that allow them to live safely and securely by threatening the safety of others. These are the types of immigrants that justify deportation: their illegal and unsafe actions warrant their removal from the country on the grounds that they are upsetting the social order and the rule of law. On the other hand, it is almost always the case that the least among us – the migrants that need the most help – are refugees of violence and religious persecution. Perhaps they are even trying to escape the dangers of violent criminals just as much as we are trying to keep those criminals out of our country. They are not threatening, and they are not dangerous. The Catholic Church teaches, then, that we are to help them to the best of our ability, just as we would help Christ.

Pope Benedict XVI made it clear that an open-border policy is not the answer to the problems of migration. In fact, he posited that such a policy might lead to an increase in human trafficking, which is to be avoided at all costs, with the crime being “clearly condemned and prosecuted.”⁴ In the same message, he also acknowledged that states have the “right to regulate migration.” But he also said that Catholics are bound by the perennial moral teachings of the Church to have great “attention and concern for the dignified existence of migrants.”⁵ To be a follower of Catholic social teaching on immigration is not to be a leftist supporter of open borders and free immigration for all. Neither is it to be a right-wing supporter of sealing all the borders and deporting every immigrant in any given country – perhaps even the legal ones. To follow Catholic social teaching on immigration is not to be political. It is to be Christian in our approach to caring for the “least of these” that Christ so clearly commands us to look after. States have the right to create their own laws, and as citizens of said states, we have a moral duty to uphold them. But migrants – especially those from war-torn and violent areas – have a human dignity that supersedes any mortal institution, because God-given rights are a divine institution of the highest nature. Holy Mother Church has decreed that we are to follow the laws of our state to the greatest extent possible while also protecting the inherent human dignity of our brothers and sisters. This does not mean that we have to support illegal migration – indeed we may have a moral obligation against it –, but it does mean that we are called to care for all of our immigrant brethren in Christ, regardless of their legal status.

If Christ were to return to Earth right now, I am sure that there would be many things on His mind besides immigration. And it is by no means the only thing that we should be concerned with: there are many ongoing wars, constant day-to-day struggles that so many people face, and horrifying living conditions in some parts of Africa and the Middle East. In the United States, though, the issue of immigration has been brought to the forefront of the national consciousness with the context of the violent situation in Los Angeles. In truth, we do not know when Christ will return to this world to signal the coming of the next one. When He takes stock of our work on immigration, however, and on caring for all those souls that needed our help the most, let us hope that He does not tell us that He must return to Calvary to be crucified again. Instead, let us pray that we have done enough to defend the sanctity of human life that we can hear Him say the words found in St. Matthew’s Gospel: “Well done, good and faithful servant: because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”⁶