A US Catholic diocese has suspended the obligation to attend Sunday Mass for immigrants who fear immigration raids.
Bishop Alberto Rojas of the Diocese of San Bernardino, California issued the decree dispensing from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass on Monday, 8 July, “in light of the pastoral needs of our diocese and the concerns expressed by many of our brothers and sisters regarding fears of attending Mass due to potential immigration enforcement actions by civil authorities.”
The bishop continued: “I, as your shepherd, issue this decree in accordance with my authority under the Code of Canon Law, particularly Canon 87 §1, which states: ‘A diocesan bishop, whenever he judges that it contributes to their spiritual good, is able to dispense the faithful from universal and particular disciplinary laws issued for his territory or his subjects by the supreme authority of the Church.’”
Canon 87 is a commonly used provision in Church law which enables bishops to prudently dispense the faithful from certain ecclesiastical laws—laws made by the Church’s legitimate authority. It does not permit bishops to dispense from Divine Law, which refers to natural law written into human reason and revealed law found in Scripture.
Canon 87 is used, for example, to allow baptised Catholics to marry Christians from other denominations—referred to as “mixed marriages”—or non-Christians, in what are called “disparity of cult” cases. It is also regularly used to grant dispensations from the obligation to abstain from meat on Fridays, notably when St Patrick’s Day falls on a Friday in Lent.
Clarifying the scope of his decree, the bishop added: “All members of the faithful in the Diocese of San Bernardino who, due to genuine fear of immigration enforcement actions, are unable to attend Sunday Mass or Masses on holy days of obligation are dispensed from this obligation, as provided for in Canon 1247, until such time as this decree is revoked or amended.”
Canon 1247 establishes the obligation for Catholics to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation. However, the law does not bind in cases of “grave cause,” meaning it could be argued that Catholics who fear detention by immigration authorities would already be morally exempt without a formal dispensation.
Concluding the decree, the bishop wrote that he was “guided by the Church’s mission to care for the spiritual welfare of all entrusted to my care, particularly those who face fear or hardship,” and he invoked the intercession of “Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas.”
Bishop Rojas’s decree follows a similar statement issued by the Diocese of Nashville on 13 May, in which the diocese confirmed that, in relation to immigration raids, “no Catholic is obligated to attend Mass on Sunday if doing so puts their safety at risk.”
Under President Donald Trump, over 200,000 undocumented immigrants have been deported since he took office in January 2025. The vast majority come from Catholic-majority Latin American countries, and many seek refuge in the Catholic Church upon arrival in the United States.
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