Catholics fearing deportation need not attend Mass, says US diocese

‘Our churches remain open to welcome and serve our parish communities, but no Catholic is obligated to attend Mass on Sunday if doing so puts their safety at risk.’

The Diocese of Nashville, Tennessee, told local Catholics that the Sunday obligation does not apply if they fear being detained at Mass as the Trump administration pursues its mass deportations policy.

“In response to the recent immigration enforcement activities in the Nashville area, many of those in our diocese are concerned about possibly being confronted or detained while attending Mass or other parish events,” the statement said.

“Our churches remain open to welcome and serve our parish communities, but no Catholic is obligated to attend Mass on Sunday if doing so puts their safety at risk.”

Rick Musacchio, executive director of the Tennessee Catholic Conference, said attendance at Spanish-speaking Masses was down because of the raids in the area. Immigration enforcement agents are “not directly targeting our parishes but there is very heavy, unusually heavy police activity in the areas around our parishes”, Musacchio said.

Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas, chair of the US bishops’ committee on migration, made Catholic witness the focus of the 2025 Cardinal Bernardin Common Cause lecture at the University of Loyola Chicago, warning that the Church faces repercussions from the Trump administration because of its support for migrants.

“I do expect – you can mark my words – that we’re going to see a challenge to our tax-exempt status if we continue to speak on this issue or anything else that is contrary to actions of this administration,” Seitz said.

“In the social tinderbox in which we find ourselves as a country right now, there must be a credible response of faith,” said Seitz. “Our Christian faith must make a difference, capable of generating an alternate history to the dystopian one that is presently being enacted.”

He continued: “To state it clearly, the actions which I have described to close the border to the vulnerable, to deprive hundreds of thousands of persons of legal status, to broaden the state of exception and to deny due process, and to move in the direction of mass deportations, are all morally indefensible from a Catholic perspective.”

Pope Leo XIV received the US Vice President J.D. Vance in a private audience on Monday, along with the Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Vance also held “cordial” talks with the Holy See’s secretary for relations with states, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, in which they discussed “the collaboration between Church and State … as well as some matters of special relevance to ecclesial life and religious freedom”, according to a Vatican statement.

Vance and Gallagher also had “an exchange of views on some current international issues, calling for respect for humanitarian law and international law in areas of conflict and for a negotiated solution between the parties involved”, the statement said.

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