Pope Francis again criticizes President Donald Trump's immigration policies in open letter
Pope Francis, in an open letter to Catholic bishops in the United States on Tuesday, warned that President Donald Trump’s cruel immigration policies “will end badly.”
In the letter, the pope said the criminalization of migrants and the mass deportations planned by the U.S. government are dangerous and called the country's current immigration policies a “major crisis.”
“What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly,” he said. “I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of good will, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters.”
The pope recognized the efforts of American bishops who worked with migrants and refugees.
The pope also indirectly rebuked comments made recently by Vice President J.D. Vance, who cited an early Catholic theological concept called “ordo amoris” or “order of love” to defend the administration's anti-immigration policies.
“The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan” that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception,” the pope said.
Pope Francis has long criticized Trump
When then-candidate Trump was running for president back in 2016, the pope suggested that Trump "is not a Christian," amid the Republican's calls for deporting immigrants and building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
"A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian," he said, as previously reported by Paste BN. "This is not the gospel."
Trump hit back on Facebook: "If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened. ISIS would have been eradicated unlike what is happening now with our all talk, no action politicians."
In 2017, Trump went on to visit the Vatican as part of his first trip abroad as president.
In recent weeks, the pope has continued to criticize Trump’s policies. In an Italian television interview, the pope said it would be a “disgrace” if Trump pursued his anti-immigration policies, according to Reuters.
"It would make the migrants, who have nothing, pay the unpaid bill," said the pope. "It doesn't work. You don't resolve problems this way."
Contributing: Reuters
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for Paste BN. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@gannett.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.