(RNS) — In 2022, Pope Francis was asked about the U.S. bishops’ conference and identified one man, El Paso, Texas, Bishop Mark Seitz, as an example of a “good pastor.” Seitz, who had just been named to head the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ migration committee at the time, has lived up to Francis’ model, becoming a defender of immigrants without legal status in his border diocese and, with the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, the face of Catholic resistance to a harsher reprise of the president’s anti-immigrant policies.

The bishop spoke to RNS on March 31 about his approach to speaking out, the difficulty in reaching lay Catholics and his willingness to take risks. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How has your understanding of the Trump administration changed since January?

I don’t think we’ve ever seen a president that used his executive power to this degree. And we know that the courts and hopefully eventually the Congress will have their input in our democratic system of checks and balances.

Many of the actions have had and will have a tremendous impact on the poor within our country and around the world. It is going to, we believe, destabilize many countries that were able to keep some measure of stability in the past, and it will lead to an even greater number of people seeking refuge.

Have you figured out your approach to meeting this moment?

To some degree, the tactics of the church remain the same, and that is: Announce the gospel, in season and out. We don’t have the kind of infrastructure that a political party or an administration has, but we see this as a time when there are tremendous threats to the poor, and particularly to that group of the poor that we call immigrants. We need people to be able to hear another perspective to know that the narrative of “invasion” and “threat” and “criminal” doesn’t speak to the whole reality. 

I’m also working with our committee and with our staff to get the word out to dioceses and parishes. That’s been an ongoing initiative, and we’ve tried to really breathe new life into that process where we have a liaison assigned from each diocese who is responsible for bringing these issues before the bishop and to parishes.

In March, the attorney for the mass shooter who targeted Hispanic people in the Walmart in El Paso said he carried out that shooting because he believed it was what President Trump wanted.

That’s been something we’ve been aware of practically since day one of the shooting and came out in the manifesto. We’ve said from the time that this rhetoric began being used that we were very concerned that it would lead to violence, that people would somehow see it as a call to violence. 

What ways do you think the church has done well in this situation? And how has it struggled? 

I think you would find, if you did a survey around the country, that Catholic leaders, Catholic organizations, Catholic charities, as well as thousands of laity, have expressed their concern and continue to step up and work for the care of immigrants. I’ve seen it as I go around to parishes in my diocese, even places that would be considered more conservative-leaning, where they’ve expressed to me a great deal of concern about the way that immigrants are being treated. 

The other side is that we really do struggle, even on a diocesan level, to reach the people in the pews these days. When you have 15 to 20% of your people — those who identify as Catholic — going to church on a given Sunday, it’s really hard to reach them with the teaching of the church. They’re not coming necessarily to be taught; they’re coming to worship God. So you see a disconnect very often between what the church teaches, what the gospel says and positions that people are taking.

In a certain sense, it’s not too surprising if they’re not hearing the word of God week by week, they are hearing their particular news channels or from their political party. They’re being, I fear, formed more by those influences.

At your March 24 vigil on the 45th anniversary of St. Óscar Romero’s assassination, you reflected on his life. 

He’s one of my heroes. He’s a man who was converted by his experience. In a sense, he had been kind of distanced from the daily life of the people he served, which is something that can certainly happen, especially for when a person reaches the level of bishop — sometimes we can become removed from daily realities in our effort to administer large organizations. 

And yet somehow by the grace of God, he was moved by his encounter with people that he came to love. When his friend, Blessed (the Rev. Rutilio) Grande, was killed, I think that was an extremely significant moment for him. 

Whenever I think of Óscar Romero, I think about the importance for me to stay connected with the reality of people’s lives, to let my faith be in dialogue with what people are living. I am encouraged to pray more because of the example of Óscar Romero. It’s not a matter of a daily litany, but I certainly think his influence has been a real light for me.

Are there parallels between the fraught relationship Romero had with his government and the situation that the Catholic Church in the U.S. is facing right now?

Whenever immigrants are being treated badly, whenever the poor are being treated badly, whenever there’s a forgetfulness about their human dignity, then there’s a parallel. When that mistreatment is coming from the government, there’s a parallel. 

I certainly wouldn’t want to equate the two governments or the two administrations, but when policies don’t take into account human dignity and lead to harm towards those people, then like St. Óscar Romero we’re called to speak up and not to be afraid. He knew he was taking great risks.

I don’t think we have death squads like they did in El Salvador. But we do have reasons to be concerned about groups and individuals that see the things being spoken against immigrants and against the church because of her involvement and be concerned that they might take things into their own hands. 

We’re not blind to that possibility. Óscar Romero encourages me to be willing to take what risks might come with speaking up.