You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind?” Yes. That Jesus.
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself?” Yes. That Jesus.
The one who said, ‘On these two commandments hang ALL the law and the prophets?’ Yes. That Jesus.
The one who said, “Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice”? Yes. That Jesus.
The one who scolded us, “Leave vengeance unto the Lord”? Yes. That Jesus.
The one whose spirit is reflected at the base of our nation’s beloved Statue of Liberty? Yes. That Jesus.
The one who said the measure of our faith is how we treat the hungry, the thirsty, and the stranger? Yes. That Jesus.
Yes. that was the very same one whose name Cardinal Timothy Dolan invoked when he eulogized Charlie Kirk as “a modern-day St. Paul — a missionary, a hero who wasn’t afraid to say Jesus’ name.”
Charlie Kirk – a man who evangelized about using lethal force against immigrants and preached that Michelle Obama and several other brilliant Black women “did not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously.”
Yes. Cardinal Dolan praised the man who said those terrible things as if he was the very apostle Jesus selected to spread the Gospel.
But let’s recall that acronym, WWJD, meaning What Would Jesus Do?
And if the question is WWJD, then the answer, in this case, can only be: Repent.
A month has gone by since Cardinal Dolan said that, and I still can’t stop thinking about it. That’s because the Cardinal owes an apology — to Chicagoland, to the homeland, and to humanity and Rome.
Catholicism isn’t just one faith among many. It is America’s largest Christian body and the predominant faith across much of the region where Cardinal Dolan spoke. In Chicago, Catholic churches anchor whole neighborhoods — Polish, Mexican, Irish, Filipino, Haitian, Brazilian — generations of immigrants whose first English words were prayers learned at Mass. For millions, the Church is more than ritual. It’s refuge.
So when Cardinal Dolan praised a man who urged “lethal force” against migrants, much of his own flock was still in mourning.
They were mourning Silverio Villegas González, the father from Michoacán who dropped off his boys at school in Franklin Park and was shot in the back minutes later by an ICE officer. They were mourning his sons — and every child who will grow up knowing their father died trying not to be torn from them.
Chicago is a city of immigrants and their children. Nearly one in five Chicagoans was born abroad; one in three children has at least one immigrant parent. In Chicagoland’s parishes, nearly half of all Catholics are Latino, the majority of them Mexican. These families built the Archdiocese’s churches, teach in its schools, and fill its pews every Sunday.
The week Cardinal Dolan spoke, those families were grieving — not just for one man but for what this country risks becoming when compassion is mocked and cruelty is blessed.
Cardinal Dolan’s words fell on a city whose Catholic heart still beats with immigrant blood. Where the same Jesus who said “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” is honored in a thousand parishes. And when he compared Charlie Kirk — a man who mocked Black women and called for violence against migrants — to St. Paul, he didn’t just misread Scripture. He broke faith with his own people.
Even the Gospel most cherished in conservative pulpits — Matthew — leaves no room for such cruelty. Its Jesus does not build walls; He breaks bread. He warns that all the law and prophecy rest on love of God and NEIGHBOR, and then defines that love not in sentiment but in service: “For I was hungry and you gave me food… I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
To preach that Gospel while excusing violence against the stranger is not fidelity — it’s hypocrisy in holy robes.
The Church cannot claim to follow Jesus while turning its back on those He identified with most: the poor, the outcast, the stranger.
It is the same warning told through Sodom’s story: that when hearts grow hard and compassion turns cold, judgment follows. The prophets were clear — Sodom’s sin was not lust, but arrogance, greed, and the refusal to care for the poor and welcome the stranger.
From Chicago to America, to the world, to Rome — Cardinal Dolan owes a deep apology. To the immigrants who have carried this nation’s labor and its faith.
To the children who will be raised knowing their father died trying not to be torn from them. To the mothers who teach their sons that love is stronger than hate. To the parishioners who still believe that “love your neighbor as yourself” means all neighbors.
Yes. Cardinal Dolan owes an apology to each of them and to every believer who, like Jesus himself, knows the words, “Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me,” are a commandment.
Because when cruelty is crowned as courage and violence is blessed as virtue, the Gospel itself is profaned.
For we are all flesh and blood, all fallible and all beloved.
We all stumble, and we all stand in need of grace.
I know I am.
And when we fail, we must seek repentance — even from those who already love and respect us.
I worry this plea will fall on deaf ears. Please, Cardinal Dolan — in our Lord and Savior’s name — prove me wrong.
Ben Jealous is a former national president of the NAACP and a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania.
