Dolan challenges Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric

As US Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump surged ahead in the opinion polls on the strength of his anti-immigrant rhetoric, Cardinal Timothy Dolan issued a reminder of the Bible’s imperative to welcome the stranger, writes Michael Sean Winters.

The Cardinal Archbishop of New York, who formerly taught US church history, wrote that “nativism” – the policy of protecting the interests of native-born residents against those of immigrants – was “a continual virulent strain in the American psyche, which would probably sadly show up again”.

Cardinal Dolan did not name Mr Trump, but his article appeared in the New York Daily News, guaranteeing widespread attention. He said he was not in the business of telling people who to vote for, “but as a Catholic, I take seriously the Bible’s teaching that we are to welcome the stranger, one of the most frequently mentioned moral imperatives in both the Old and New Testament”.