Following are NCR reader responses to recent news articles, opinion columns and theological essays with letters that have been edited for length and clarity.
Catholics against ICE raids
NCR has now reported that ICE confrontations with migrants are not only only on streets, and at factories and restaurants, but on church grounds (NCR, June 26, 2025). U.S. bishops, who have been of various minds regarding ICE and detention of migrants, are now faced with not only opposing seemingly indiscriminate ICE actions but also publicly defending the centuries old principle of sanctuary.
San Bernardino Bishop Alberto Rojas has spoken about the detentions on church grounds as being anti-Gospel. All bishops and Catholics have sacred ground to stand on in criticizing Trump's treatment of migrants. We can cite the Gospel's messages of love as well as Pope Francis's encyclical Fratelli Tutti. Francis wrote, "Our response to the arrival of migrating persons can be summarized by four words: welcome, protect, promote and integrate" (paragraph 129).
If the bishops want to equivocate regarding the migrant issue, what will they do or say to defend sanctuary, now that ICE has walked past church gates? I suggest that the bishops as a whole don their vestments and mitres and walk a pilgrimage for love and sanctuary for all, starting at the White House and proceeding prayerfully to the Capitol. May we all join this prayerful walk.
MARK WINIARSKI
Great Neck, New York
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Gender-affirming care willfully misunderstood
Thank you so much for the enlightening opinion piece "Stop legitimizing pseudoscience to marginalize trans people" (NCR, June 25, 2025). I work with a nonprofit that supports LGBTQ+ youth and their loved ones in Mobile, Alabama, and find the succinct and persuasive language in this message will be very useful for educational purposes and in my personal conversations with others.
I am a health care provider, a registered nurse, and know that our local medical providers follow the current science and evidence-based practice in providing gender-affirming care. I find that the resistance to accepting the evolving scientific evidence in transgender care is similar to climate denial in years past. People who want to believe a certain idea will find the one or two scientists or studies that support their view and ignore or discount the hundreds and thousands of scientists and studies that refute their view.
RHODA VANDERHART
Mobile, Alabama
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Trump's Iran strikes indefensible
Most of the time Michael Sean Winters' viewpoints resonate strongly with me. However, I take exception to his recent column suggesting that the U.S. bombing of Iran's uranium enrichment sites is morally justified (NCR, June 25, 2025). His conclusion provides the reason to question his judgement. "Might continued diplomacy have achieved the same result? Perhaps, but history is filled with might-have-beens. "
I would suggest that "continued diplomacy", especially if it involved a repositioning of our unquestioned support for Netanyahu's war mongering, could have achieved the same result. And as even "just war" theory holds, going to war should be a last resort when all diplomatic efforts have been exhausted.
Let's not forget that it was Trump who pulled us out of the Iran nuclear deal and it was current and past administrations (both Republican and Democratic) that have sold U.S. weapons to Israel, supported Israel's obliteration of Gaza, and allowed Israel to avoid a two-state solution in the struggle with Palestinians. If we put the same pressure on Israel as we are putting on Iran, perhaps diplomacy would have an even greater chance.
JAMES PURCELL, NCR Board Member
Los Gatos, California
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