“You might imagine I was rather befuddled to see it,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan said of Steve Bannon's comments. | Robin Marchant/Getty Images for SiriusXM Cardinal Dolan rips into Bannon for 'insulting' remarks about Catholic Church and immigrants

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s assertion that Roman Catholic bishops “need illegal immigrants” is so “preposterous,” “insulting” and “ridiculous” that it doesn’t merit a response, Cardinal Timothy Dolan said Thursday.

In an excerpt of a “60 Minutes” interview broadcast Thursday morning, Bannon told CBS’ Charlie Rose that the Catholic church and bishops “have been terrible about” undocumented immigrants. He suggested they were unable “to come to grips with the problems in the church” because they rely on undocumented immigrants to fill the churches and have an economic interest in “unlimited illegal immigration.”


Dolan told SiriusXM in a radio interview that he hadn’t heard Bannon’s comments but saw a transcript of his remarks.

“You might imagine I was rather befuddled to see it,” Dolan said. “I don’t really wanna care to go into what I think is a preposterous and rather insulting statement that the only reason we bishops care for immigrants is for the economic because we want to fill our churches and get more money. That’s insulting and that’s just so ridiculous that it doesn’t merit a comment.”

Bannon, an immigration hard-liner who returned to Breitbart News after being ousted from the White House last month, said he disagreed with the Trump administration’s rescission of former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides work permits for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. The administration began phasing out the program this week, but the rescission won’t take effect until March, giving Congress six months to find a legislative solution.

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Dolan said earlier this week that Trump’s decision on DACA turned so-called Dreamers into “political hockey pucks” and “is certainly not Christian” nor American. Bannon said he respects Dolan and other bishops on doctrine. But “this is not about doctrine at all,” he said. “This is about the sovereignty of a nation. And in that regard, they’re just another guy with an opinion.”

Dolan, for his part, said Thursday he appreciated Bannon’s effort to clarify that DACA isn’t an issue of Catholic doctrine and that bishops were simply giving their opinions.

“This is not an issue of Catholic doctrine because it comes from the Bible itself, and we Catholics are people of the book,” Dolan said. “And the Bible is so clear — so clear — that to treat the immigrant with dignity and respect, to make sure that society is just in its treatment of the immigrant, is biblical mandate. It’s clear in the Old Testament — my Jewish neighbors remind of that all the time — and it’s clear from the lips of Jesus when he said: ‘Whatever you do to the least of my brothers you do to me. And when I was a stranger' — meaning an immigrant or a refugee — 'you welcomed me.’”