JD Vance’s words on immigration were a dog whistle to ‘professional’ Catholics

Charles Collins/Crux• January 29, 2025

Most people – and most Catholics – think the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is just about when all the Catholic bishops in the United States get together and make various announcements.

But US Vice President JD Vance’s biting words on the USCCB’s immigration work showed this was not the case, with his pronouncements serving as a so-called “dog whistle” to what you could call the “professional” Catholic class in the country., while also making a nod toward the divisions that exist in the US Church.

Vance also hinted at devisions that exist in the US Church when he questioned its role in supporting undocumented immigrants on the CBS show Face the Nation on 26 January.

It has become popular when speaking about the words of politicians in the United States to use the term “dog whistle” – usually implying that the politician is, through the suggestive implications of his or her words, pushing a hidden agenda of racism or homophobia to his or her target supporters.

However, the term at its simplest also means a sound that only a dog can hear and which “ordinary people” can’t hear. Hence to those with ears to hear, Vance was saying he knows there is more going on in regard to the USCCB and immigration.

“I think that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognise that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they [just] worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line?” Vance said.

Writing for Religion News Service (RNS), Father Thomas Reese SJ thanked Vance for highlighting the questions around the Church’s support for immigration.

“Vice President JD Vance has done what the US bishops have been incapable of doing: he has made their position on migrants and refugees national news,” Reese wrote. “He said the bishops’ support for refugees was motivated by their desire to get money from federal programs aimed at helping refugees.”

Looking through the transcript of the Face the Nation interview, Vance uses the word “Catholic” five times. Twice, he refers to his own religious faith: near the beginning he refers to himself as “a practicing Catholic” and near the end he refers to himself as “a devout Catholic”.

The other three times are also the only times he uses the word “bishop” – and what he says is “the US Conference of Catholic Bishops”.

Vance also says, “I believe the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, if they’re worried about the humanitarian costs of immigration enforcement, let them talk about the children who have been sex trafficked because of the wide-open border of Joe Biden.”

Later, he is even more blunt.

“I think the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has, frankly, not been a good partner in common sense immigration enforcement that the American people voted for, and I hope, again, as a devout Catholic, that they’ll do better.”

After the Vice President’s remarks, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement acknowledging it received funds from the government under a 1980 law, but added: “These funds are not sufficient to cover the entire cost of these programs. Nonetheless, this remains a work of mercy and ministry of the Church.”

The US bishops all get together only twice a year, but the USCCB as an organisation – with around 300 employees – meets five days a week, all year long.

They form the committees, write the documents and do most of the work. Most of the time, when you see a bishop’s signature on a USCCB document, they didn’t actually write it (this is of course the situation in most places – churches, governments, and institutions – it isn’t a judgement).

One of the not-too-much-talked-about facts of life in the US Catholic Church is the division between the more conservative “pro-life” wing (which is deeply committed to policy areas like abortion, sexuality, bioethics, etc.) and the “justice and peace” wing (which is particularly concerned with policy areas like immigration, poverty and anti-war advocacy).

The two wings don’t always get along.

When the USCCB was formed in 2001, by the merger of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and United States Catholic Conference (USCC), a common joke in the coffee room was, “Did the NCCB have to pay the Democratic Party for the USCC?”

In other words, a lot of the programs supported by the USCCB are related to the “justice and peace” wing; and the Trump administration has spent its first week in office letting the “pro-life” wing know the administration is on their side.

Vance spoke at this year’s March for Life in Washington, DC, for example, and Trump issued several executive orders on issues going against transgender-supporting policies.

RELATED: Trump signs executive order to restore ‘biological reality’ in federal policy

Society has changed over the past 40 years, and the division between these two sides in the US Church has changed as well – but the division persists.

It used to be that the “pro-life” wing was, in general, weak when it came to supporting the use of the military, while the “justice and peace” wing was weak on abortion, often saying “pro-choice” didn’t mean you thought it was the right choice to make.

Now, the “justice and peace” wing is dealing with new issues often endorsed by non-religious liberals, such as transgenderism, support for assisted suicide and gay marriage.

Practically speaking, this means the “pro-life” wing increasingly comprises of more of the sorts of Catholics who you find actually going to Mass regularly, even if the “justice and peace” wing still has a large presence in diocesan chanceries and various departments of the bishops’ conference.

The Trump Administration must have noticed the situation in Texas, where conservative Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued to revoke the license to operate of Annunciation House in the border city of El Paso. (As an aside, the conservative Republican Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, is a Catholic.)

Despite the opposition of the USCCB to this strong move against a Catholic charity, Trump actually made huge gains among Hispanic voters in Texas, even winning a majority of the male Hispanic electorate.

It all goes to show that the new administration seems to realise it can get away with battling the institutional Church structure, without losing Catholic voters.

RELATED: Vance says US bishops should “do better” and support “common sense” immigration enforcement

Photo: US Vice President JD Vance steps off Air Force Two upon arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, USA, 27 January 2025. Vance traveled to Virginia to survey damage from Hurricane Helene. (Photo by BEN CURTIS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images.)