Bishop Valdivia: Ceuta represents ‘historic mission’ for Spain
Bishop Ramón Valdivia, apostolic administrator of Cádiz and Ceuta, commented on the recent mass crossing of the Tarajal border by about 70,000 people, urging the Church to respond with faith and compassion. He highlighted Ceuta’s role as a historic mission for Spain, emphasizing the importance of faith in nation‑building and the protective presence of St. Mary of Africa. Valdivia urged the Church to rebuild trust, support those fearful or anxious, and seek a dignified solution for illegal entrants, noting the crisis has occurred twice since 2021. He welcomed Pope Leo XIV’s Angelus remarks, calling them a balm of comfort and a call for peace, stability, and justice in the region.
about 2 months ago
Bishop Ramón Valdivia, the apostolic administrator of the Spanish Diocese of Cádiz and Ceuta, framed the recent mass crossing of the Tarajal border—where roughly 70,000 people entered Ceuta—as a test of Spain’s historic mission and a spiritual challenge for the Church. He emphasized the city’s role as “a bastion of faith” that must respond with compassion, trust in God, and a commitment to peace, stability and justice, while also calling for the rebuilding of trust and a dignified solution for those who arrived illegally. Valdivia welcomed Pope Leo XIV’s Angelus remarks on the crisis, describing them as a comforting “balm of the heart” that reinforced the Church’s pastoral effort in the region. 1 2
The Church’s role in nation‑building amid migration crises
Migration crises test whether a nation understands itself merely as a political territory or as a community ordered toward the common good. Catholic teaching holds that the Church does not replace the state or dictate a single immigration policy. Rather, she forms consciences, defends human dignity, serves vulnerable persons, strengthens social bonds, and helps public authorities pursue policies that are both humane and responsible.
Nation-building is more than economic growth, border control, or institutional stability. It involves creating a social order in which persons, families, communities, and public authorities cooperate for the flourishing of all. The common good is therefore not identical with the state or with the interests of a majority. It emerges through relationships marked by reciprocal solidarity and subsidiarity.
Subsidiarity means that responsibilities should be exercised at the most immediate level capable of addressing them effectively: families, parishes, municipalities, civil associations, regions, national governments, and—where necessary—international institutions. It resists both excessive centralization and the abandonment of local communities. Catholic social teaching envisions “many layers” of society ordered together toward the common good through solidarity.
In a migration crisis, this means that no single actor is sufficient:
Subsidiarity also permits responsibility to move upward when a problem exceeds national capacity or when international cooperation better protects persons and families. Migration is precisely such a challenge: no nation can address forced displacement, trafficking, climate pressures, and regional instability in isolation. Pope Leo XIV therefore calls for a “coordinated, supportive, and effective response” involving protection, welcome, integration, and assistance to countries of origin.
The starting point of Catholic teaching is the equal and inalienable dignity of every human person. A migrant does not acquire human dignity by receiving legal status, economic usefulness, or cultural approval. Nor does a citizen lose the right to public security or social stability. The challenge is to uphold both truths simultaneously.
Fratelli Tutti warns that migration can become politically exploited through fear, producing xenophobia and social closure. It states that migrants are sometimes treated as though they were less entitled to participate in society, despite possessing the same intrinsic dignity as everyone else. Such treatment is incompatible with Christian faith when political preferences are placed above human dignity and fraternal love.
This does not mean that every migration policy is morally equivalent or that nations have no authority over admission and immigration procedures. The Catechism teaches that prosperous nations should welcome foreigners seeking security and livelihood when they are able, while also recognizing that public authorities may subject immigration to juridical conditions for the sake of the common good. Immigrants, in turn, are obliged to respect the heritage and laws of the receiving country and to share its civic burdens.
The Catholic position therefore rejects two opposite errors:
The governing principle is not fear but responsible solidarity: protection of the vulnerable, respect for legitimate law, attention to the common good, and recognition that every person is a potential contributor to society.
The Church contributes to nation-building first by embodying a different social logic. She is a communion that crosses ethnic, linguistic, and national boundaries. In the Church, migrants are not merely recipients of aid; they are members of the Body of Christ, capable of serving, evangelizing, and enriching the communities that receive them.
The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development describes the Church’s internal challenge as living out her catholicity by including every baptized person as a full member, wherever that person comes from. Migrant Catholics should be integrated into local communities as citizens and equal members, not confined to the margins or treated as permanent guests.
This ecclesial witness has direct civic consequences. Parishes can become places where people learn to encounter one another personally rather than through stereotypes. They can provide:
Pope Leo XIV describes the parish as a community where people learn to “welcome, accompany and integrate” one another in communion. The Church’s role is therefore not limited to charitable distribution. She helps create the relationships through which a fragmented population can become a people.
Emergency assistance is indispensable, particularly for refugees and forcibly displaced persons. Catholic ministries provide food, shelter, medical care, legal assistance, and other services that make God’s closeness concrete. Pope Leo XIV calls such ministries “agents of hope” and emphasizes that migrants and refugees should be recognized as persons with intrinsic dignity who are invited to participate fully in community life.
Yet nation-building requires more than humanitarian relief. It requires participation. A person who is perpetually housed, managed, and spoken for may remain socially excluded even while receiving material assistance. Migrants should therefore be enabled to become agents in their own development through education, lawful employment, civic involvement, family stability, and representation in appropriate social institutions.
This is consistent with the Catholic understanding of solidarity as shared responsibility rather than one-sided benevolence. Solidarity can involve redistribution, voluntary giving, contractual cooperation, and reciprocity; in its broadest sense, it means accepting interdependence and responsibility for one another.
The Church should consequently encourage both migrants and host communities to contribute:
Integration is not the erasure of cultural identity. Pope Benedict XVI presents cultural differences as opportunities for encounter and dialogue, while insisting that authentic development requires respect for legitimate differences. He also describes migration as a possible opportunity for understanding among peoples, peace, and development.
A nation cannot address migration responsibly while ignoring the conditions that force people to leave. Pope Leo XIV identifies war, insecurity, economic inequality, inadequate living conditions, and the climate crisis among the causes that compel migration. He calls for both safe and legal pathways for those who migrate and serious efforts to secure the right of people to remain in their own lands when peace and dignified livelihoods can be protected.
This reflects the Catholic principle of integral human development, which concerns the whole person and every person, not merely aggregate economic production. Pope Benedict XVI states that authentic development necessarily includes solidarity and must encompass the entire human family.
Catholic social teaching also critiques an economy governed exclusively by either market competition or state administration. Economic life requires reciprocity, gratuitousness, and the logic of gift—forms of cooperation that build social cohesion rather than treating persons solely as workers, consumers, or costs. Solidarity-based initiatives within civil society can therefore strengthen the social fabric.
The Church’s contribution includes advocating:
The social purpose of property also matters. Catholic tradition teaches that created goods are destined for the whole human race. Fratelli Tutti recalls the strong patristic teaching that withholding necessities from the poor can amount to depriving them of what is rightfully needed for life. Consequently, housing, land, work, and basic services cannot be treated as matters of indifference when migrants and citizens alike lack the means for a dignified existence.
The Church is not a political party, nor does she endorse every policy proposed in her name. But she cannot be excluded from public moral debate. An authentic Christian faith seeks to change the world, improve social institutions, and advance justice. Evangelii Gaudium explicitly rejects the idea that religion should be confined to private life and states that the Church cannot remain on the sidelines in the struggle for justice.
Her public role has several dimensions:
The Church helps Catholics assess migration policies according to dignity, solidarity, subsidiarity, legality, family life, and the common good rather than partisan pressure or social fear. Catholic citizens have a responsibility to participate prudently in political life and to promote policies consistent with moral truth.
The Church should defend migrants when they are abused, trafficked, detained unjustly, discriminated against, or denied basic human rights. She should also challenge governments when they fail to address root causes or use migrants as instruments of political manipulation.
The Church does not deny the state’s responsibility to regulate immigration and maintain public order. Rather, she calls public authority to exercise that responsibility justly, humanely, and within the limits imposed by human dignity and the common good.
The Church’s historical experience and ethical vision can help educate future generations and contribute to adequate laws. The 1992 document Refugees: A Challenge to Solidarity describes the Church as a sign of communion and unity, committed to a “civilization of love” through service, advocacy, and ecumenical and interreligious cooperation.
The Church’s vision is neither a borderless abstraction nor a closed national identity. It is a nation-building rooted in the conviction that political communities exist for persons and families, not persons for political communities.
A constructive Catholic approach includes:
The deepest Catholic contribution is to transform the question from “How can society protect itself from migrants?” to “How can society protect human dignity, preserve the common good, and enable all persons to contribute to a just social order?” This does not eliminate difficult policy decisions, but it places them within a moral framework capable of resisting both indifference and fear.
Migration crises reveal whether nation-building is based on exclusion or fraternity. Catholic teaching calls the Church to serve migrants, form consciences, defend the vulnerable, support legitimate public authority, and cultivate communities where newcomers and citizens become participants in a shared social life.
The Church does not solve migration through charity alone. She works for integral development, just laws, responsible governance, cultural encounter, and social friendship. In this way, migrants are not treated merely as a burden to be managed but as persons whose dignity must be protected and whose gifts can contribute to the renewal of nations. As Pope Leo XIV emphasizes, the Church and civil society are called to turn borders from places of abandonment into spaces where human dignity is responsibly protected.