Much of Pope Francis’s February 10 letter to the Catholic bishops in the United States centered on its subject: immigration. I focused on that in my first take, which addressed how to define “dignity,” what were the letter’s potential long-term implications, and how ordo amoris could be understood in ways that both Pope Francis’s and Vice President J.D. Vance’s interpretations are correct (see here). Since writing that piece, however, I’ve asked whether this letter also raises some potential ecclesiological questions. Given the attention this Pope has given to ecclesiology — his efforts to foster a new understanding of “church” — these questions should not be overlooked.

Francis’s letter (here) was written nominally on his own initiative, i.e., he is not claiming to respond to any request for guidance. It is addressed specifically to Catholic bishops in the United States. Addressees of papal documents are important. Other people may read them, but the addressees are their target audience and action agents. Why is this letter addressed to the bishops? The letter says it wants to address the bishops as “pastors of the People of God who walk together [pellegrina] in the United States of America.” Given that “walking” and “accompanying” are key leitmotifs of this pontificate, one must ask: who is “walking?” The bishops or the bishops with their fellow Catholics? If it is the bishops walking together as a college, that’s one thing; presumably, the letter is an expression of collegiality. But if the bishops are (also?) pastorally accompanying Catholics in the United States, shouldn’t that letter also have been addressed to the latter?

Are the Catholics of the United States addressees of the papal missive, or is the letter’s instruction to be communicated “top-down?” If the former, they weren’t mentioned. If the latter, then how does “top-down” communication fit into Francis’s call for a “dialogical, synodal Church?” How does it fit in a Church where Francis has criticized “clericalism?” How does it fit with Vatican II’s teaching about the primacy of lay Catholic initiative in fields of primarily temporal concern? (On the last point, see Lumen gentium, especially no. 31, here.)

On top of that, while addressed to the bishops, it is an open letter. It did not come through the Apostolic Nunciature or through closed ecclesiastical channels. The Vatican published it on its website. So, it’s clear it was not intended to be read only by bishops, though, being addressed to bishops, one can ask if it is to be a “trickle-down” missive.

Furthermore, why was the letter not addressed to “people of good will?” Even though they are not addressees, they even receive an exhortation (along with the “faithful”) in paragraph 9. I ask that question in all seriousness because it implicates the question of what is “dignity?” “Dignity” is a central organizing principle to the letter, a concept supposedly introduced in the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 2024 declaration, Dignitas infinita (here). But, as I have observed, when that declaration was issued, the concept of “dignity” could be somewhat ambiguous (see here).

Here I make a temporary aside to probe that question of “dignity’s” ambiguity. When Colombian President Gustavo Petro initially refused a U.S. military plane carrying deportees, he said it was offensive to “dignity.” (He subsequently dispatched his presidential jet). Other Latin American leftists decried sending deportees back in handcuffs as offensive to “dignity.” Asking how to know and who defines what “dignity” encompasses, does its papal articulation include Petro’s and/or the Latin American left’s claims about “dignity” offenses in the repatriation process? Assuming arguendo that these are “dignity” offenses, does that mean U.S. repatriating authorities have to bear the additional risk of midair rebellion by un-handcuffed returnees aboard a flight the deportees do not want to be on? If yes, why?

I suggest we need better to specify the content of “dignity” because its nature and content seem to ask whether to write letters about it to “all people of good will.” Is “dignity” primarily a revelational category and, if so, what is the basis for that claim? Or is “dignity” like natural law, in principle intelligible to all rational persons? One reason, arguably, for affording greater prominence to “dignity” as a concept in ecclesiastical parlance could be to find some common vocabulary with, say, secular international human rights discourse. But if “dignity” is in principle accessible to all, then — with due affirmation of the Church’s claim to be able to teach authoritatively on natural law — does this not suggest a letter about “dignity” is more aptly addressed to all “persons of good will?” Would that not be better in keeping (as the very letter puts it) with man’s subjective “dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation” (no. 6)? Again, because Catholic social teaching starts primarily from natural law principles (illumined by revelation), should not the principles the Pope says ought to be part of their articulation in the case of immigration be addressed not just to Catholics but also to the broader, religiously pluralistic American body politic, which presumably includes people of rational good will? Or are they to be informed “top-down” by the bishops?

Some commentators have claimed there are elements in Francis’s letter that appeal not just to Catholic teaching but also to long-held American values, like openness and U.S. immigrant history. In some ways, I think such claims might at best be found between the lines but, if such allusions were a consideration, then those values also include a certain separation of church and state. Does not paying attention to that value also argue for a letter addressed more broadly than just to America’s Catholic episcopate?

These questions are not hair splitting. They involve the heart of an ecclesiological model that this pontificate and those who claim to be inspired by it have pressed with vigor, supposedly as somewhat delayed ripening fruit of the Second Vatican Council. If so (dato non concesso), then which way is it: do we write just to bishops or not?