Archbishop of Chicago Blase Cupich took a shot at Breitbart News executive chairman and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, a devout Catholic, saying it is “laughable” to believe that financial profit is the reasoning behind the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) support for mass immigration to the United States.

In an interview with former President Obama political strategist David Axelrod, Cardinal Cupich hit back at Bannon’s comments during a September segment of CBS’s 60 Minutes where he blasted Catholic Bishops for supporting illegal immigration while ignoring the issues and hardships it creates for American citizens.

Bannon said in the interview:

The [Catholic] bishops have been terrible about this. You know why? Because unable to really … come to grips with the problems in the Church, they need illegal aliens, they need illegal aliens to fill the churches … They have an economic interest in unlimited immigration, unlimited illegal immigration.

Cupich told Axelrod that, like Cardinal Timothy Dolan, he found Bannon’s statement “laughable” and claimed that the Church actually spends money trying to aid illegal and legal immigrants, as well as refugees.

Cupich said:

Yes, in fact, he even went so far as to say that we wanted to increase our collections as a result of that. That it was a monetary, a financial decision which I think Cardinal Dolan found laughable, as I do. We budget quite a bit of money every year in order to assist people who are migrating here, people who are trying to enter into our society and be a part of the American dream.

As Christmas approaches, I sat down with Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich, a thoughtful and provocative prelate, who had much to say about everything from the tax bill to the plight of immigrants and the pernicious role of money in politics. #AxeFiles https://t.co/EZTPqP21ij pic.twitter.com/g9LUR2ggFX — David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) December 21, 2017

Cupich also said that the American Catholic Church has always been an “immigrant church” and that the U.S. is an “immigrant nation,” a notion that is often repeated by the open borders lobby.

Cupich continued:

So it really … it just goes beyond the smell-test altogether as far as I’m concerned. We help immigrants because we are an immigrant nation and we are an immigrant church. We’ve always done that, this is nothing new to us. This is not a new venture for us. It’s who we are and have been from the very beginning of the history of the Catholic Church in this country.

As Breitbart News’s Michael Patrick Leahy has previously reported, though, it remains an undeniable truth that the Catholic Church is rewarded by the federal government in their support for mass immigration and refugee resettlement to the U.S.

Breitbart News reported:

As for the Catholic Church’s economic interest in unlimited legal immigration, one need look no further than the hundreds of millions of dollars paid each year by the federal government to Catholic Charities, one of the nine leading voluntary agencies (VOLAGs) who resettle the tens of thousands of refugees who arrive in the country each year under the Refugee Admissions Program. “In FY 2015, the State Department, through the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, spent more than $1 billion on these programs, which settled international refugees ‘vetted’ by the United Nations High Commission on International Refugees in all 50 states and the District of Columbia,” Breitbart News reported: Much of this $1 billion in annual revenue goes to voluntary agencies (VOLAGs), several of which are Christian non-profits, such as Catholic Charities, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, World Relief Corporation, Church World Service, and Domestic and Foreign Missionary Service of the Episcopal Church of the USA. (also referred to as Episcopal Migration Ministries), who are contracted on behalf of the government to help these refugees get settled in their new homes in America.

Additionally, immigration to the U.S. — both legal and illegal — has primarily derived from North American and Central American countries that are heavily Catholic.

Of the 12 to 30 million illegal aliens currently residing in the U.S. with the support of the Catholic Bishops, the vast majority are from Mexico and surrounding Central American nations. As Pew Research reported, about 52 percent of the illegal alien population is from Mexico, where more than 80 percent of the country is Catholic.

At the same time, the American Catholic Church’s congregation has rapidly shifted due to mass immigration through the decades.

In a report by Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), researchers found that “The Catholic Church is experiencing an ethnic transformation. Twenty-five years ago, nearly nine in ten (87%) Catholics were white, non-Hispanic, compared to 55% today. Fewer than four in ten (36%) Catholics under the age of 30 are white, non-Hispanic; 52% are Hispanic.”