Bishop appointment affirms Pope’s concern at US immigration policies

The US bishops have been increasingly outspoken in favour of immigrants amid the federal government’s mass deportation campaign.

Pope Leo XIV appointed the Capuchin missionary Fr Emilio Biosca Agüero as the new Bishop of Venice, Florida.

The Holy See announced his appointment on 13 May alongside the acceptance of the resignation of Bishop Frank J. Dewane, 76, who had led the diocese in southwest Florida since 2006.

Bishop-elect Biosca, 61, is a member of the Pittsburgh-based Capuchin Franciscan Friars of the Province of St Augustine and has served since 2019 as pastor of the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Washington, a parish community that is more than 90 per cent immigrants.

Sacred Heart has been targeted in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. More than 40 parishioners were detained or deported last year, according to the Associated Press, leading some Catholics to stop attending Mass.

Speaking to reporters in Venice, Biosca said “the situation at Sacred Heart of Washington is a big concern right now”.

The US bishops have been increasingly outspoken in favour of immigrants amid the federal government’s mass deportation campaign.

In late April, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (UCCB) and other church-affiliated groups expressed concerns about proposed federal regulations that would restrict asylum-seekers and other migrants and their families from work authorisation and housing assistance.

In February, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed a rule that would only permit US citizens or certain categories of eligible non-citizens to participate in the department’s assisted housing programmes.

Also in February, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposed a new rule that would introduce a longer waiting period for asylum applicants requesting employment authorisation.

In a public letter to the DHS on 24 April, the USCCB and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc wrote that the proposed changes “would undermine the rights of displaced people seeking asylum in the United States by excluding them from work in the mainstream economy, limiting not only their ability to access counsel and pay the fees now required to pursue asylum, but their ability to support themselves and their families in safety and dignity”.

In New Mexico, the Diocese of Las Cruces is resisting the Trump administration’s efforts to seize 14 acres of land around Mount Cristo Rey owned by the diocese for a border barrier, prompting the administration to file a lawsuit against the diocese in a federal court on 7 May.

The lawsuit said that the government needs the land to install barriers and other technology “designed to help secure the United States-Mexico border” and maintained it had offered the diocese a fair price. 

The next day, the diocese’s lawyers filed arguments that this would violate the free exercise of religion. It said that that roughly 40,000 people annually climb Mount Cristo Rey, which has a 29-foot-tall statue of Jesus Christ at its peak, for a pilgrimage.

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