Cardinal Timothy Dolan said that the Bible reference Attorney General Jeff Sessions used to justify separating illegal immigrant children from their families "might not be the best" — saying: "No pun intended, but God's law trumps man's law."
"St. Paul always says we should obey the law of the government, if that law is in conformity with the Lord's law," Dolan, archbishop of New York, told Chris Cuomo Friday on CNN.
"St. Paul himself, he wouldn't obey Roman law when it said it was mandatory to worship the emperor.
"I don't think we should obey a law that goes against what God intends — that you would take a baby, a child, from their mom.
"That's just unjust. That's un-American and unbiblical," he said.
Sessions quoted Romans:13 from the New Testament in a speech on Thursday in Indiana to justify the administration's "zero-tolerance" policy on immigration enforcement.
"I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans:13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order," he said.
"Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves."
Sessions has since come under fire from African-American clergy for citing scripture for such use, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Friday slammed the attorney general's "hypocrisy" and ripped "people of all faiths" for supporting illegal immigration policies.
Pelosi, 78, is a graduate of Trinity Washington University, Catholic primarily women's institution in Washington.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also declared the policy "immoral" and called it "a right-to-life" issue at its biannual meeting in Florida this week.
President Donald Trump blamed the situation on Democrats, tweeting Saturday that party members "can fix their forced family breakup at the border by working with Republicans on new legislation, for a change!"
Dolan told Cuomo that the bishops' conference was considering whether to send a group to the Southern border.
"The bishops feel very strongly that to violently take a baby from a mother's womb is wrong and also from a mother's arms is immoral as well," he said. "We're pastors. We're not politicians.
"We worry about the souls, the health, the spiritual and moral and physical health of the people.
"They are people. They're Catholics. They love their faith.
"We think we should go down there and say: 'We love you and you're not alone. We're with you."
Dolan called for the need to balance immigration enforcement with "human decency."
"If they want to be safe in interviewing and screening immigrants, fine," the cardinal said. "If they want to take a baby from the arms of his mother and separate the two, that's wrong.
"I don't care where you're at, what time and condition. You don't have to read the Bible for that.
"That goes against human decency," Dolan said. "It goes against what's most sacred in the human person."
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