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eb 11, 2025
Pope Francis rebukes Trump administration migrant crackdown, taking direct aim at Vance
World Feb 11, 2025 10:19 AM EDT
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis issued a major rebuke Tuesday to the Trump administration’s mass deportation of migrants, warning that the forceful removal of people purely because of their illegal status deprives them of their inherent dignity and “will end badly.”
Francis took the remarkable step of addressing the U.S. migrant crackdown in a letter to U.S. bishops in which he appeared to take direct aim at Vice President JD Vance’s defense of the deportation program on theological grounds.
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History’s first Latin American pope has long made caring for migrants a priority of his pontificate, demanding that countries welcome, protect, promote and integrate those fleeing conflicts, poverty and climate disasters. Francis has also said governments are expected to do so to the limits of their capacity.
The Argentine Jesuit and President Donald Trump have long sparred over migration, including before Trump’s first administration when Francis famously said anyone who builds a wall to keep out migrants was “not a Christian.”
In the letter, Francis said nations have the right to defend themselves and keep their communities safe from criminals.
“That said, the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness,” he wrote.
Citing the biblical stories of migration, the people of Israel, the Book of Exodus and Jesus Christ’s own experience, Francis affirmed the right of people to seek shelter and safety in other lands and said he was concerned with what is going on in the United States.
“I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations,” Francis wrote. “The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.”
It is one thing to develop a policy to regulate migration legally, it is another to expel people purely on the basis of their illegal status, he wrote.
“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.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week that more than 8,000 people had been arrested in immigration enforcement actions since Trump took office Jan. 20. Some have been deported, others are being held in federal prisons and still others are being held at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
Vance, a Catholic convert, has defended the administration’s America-first crackdown by citing a concept from medieval Catholic theology known in Latin as “ordo amoris.” He has contended that the concept delineates a hierarchy of care — to family first, followed by neighbor, community, fellow citizens and lastly those elsewhere.
In his letter, Francis appeared to correct Vance’s understanding of the concept.
“Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” he wrote. “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.”
David Gibson, director of the center for religion and culture at Fordham University, said in a social media post that Francis’ letter “takes aim at every single absurd theological claim by JD Vance and his allies in conservative Catholicism (and the Catholic electorate).”
“This is the pope also directly countering misinformation about the Catholic faith that is being expounded by the Catholic vice president,” he added to The Associated Press. “And it is the pope supporting the bishops as well.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had already put out an unusually critical statement after Trump’s initial executive orders. It said those “focused on the treatment of immigrants and refugees, foreign aid, expansion of the death penalty, and the environment, are deeply troubling and will have negative consequences, many of which will harm the most vulnerable among us.”
It was a strong rebuke from the U.S. Catholic hierarchy, which considers abortion to be the “preeminent priority” for Catholic voters and had cheered the 2022 Supreme Court decision to end constitutional protections for abortion that was made possible by Trump-appointed justices. Trump won 54 percent of Catholic voters in the 2024 election, a wider margin than the 50 percent in the 2020 election won by President Joe Biden, a Catholic.
The Trump-Francis collision course on migration dates to the 2016 presidential campaign, when Francis traveled to the U.S. Mexico border and said anyone who builds a wall rather than a bridge to keep out migrants was “not a Christian.” He made the comment after celebrating Mass at the border.
But migration is not the only area of conflict in U.S.-Vatican relations.
On Monday, the Vatican’s main charity Caritas International warned that millions of people could die as a result of the “ruthless” U.S. decision to “recklessly” stop USAID funding. Caritas asked governments to urgently call on the Trump administration to reverse course.
It’s not unusual for a pope to address a country’s bishops or faithful to deliver a specific message. Francis wrote to German Catholics in 2019 to express concern about the German church’s reform process. He wrote to the faithful of the Middle East and in Ukraine last year to express his solidarity in a time of war. Pope Benedict XVI wrote to the Irish faithful in 2010 following the devastating revelations of the country’s clergy sexual abuse crisis.
But it’s rare for a pope to weigh in on a specific political program of a country with such a letter, although migration is certainly an issue that the U.S. Catholic Church has long had at the forefront of its agenda.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, acknowledges the pope’s criticism of US immigration crackdown
By PETER SMITHUpdated 10:53 PM GMT+7, February 28, 2025Share
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Vice President JD Vance acknowledged Pope Francis’ criticism of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, without responding to any of its specifics or to the pontiff’s apparent criticism of Vance’s own deployment of Catholic tradition to justify such policies.
Vance, a Catholic convert, spoke Friday at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington. He sought to downplay the controversy and said he and his family pray daily for Pope Francis during the 88-year-old pontiff’s hospitalization for pneumonia and other health troubles.
Vance told the gathering he wasn’t there to litigate “about who’s right and who’s wrong,” though he said he would continue to defend his views. But he spoke in conciliatory terms, crediting Francis as one who “cares about the flock of Christians under his under his leadership and the spiritual direction of the faith.”
Vance, who led the gathering in a prayer for Francis’ health, asserted that religious leaders shouldn’t be treated as social-media influencers subject to constant debate.
Francis issued a major rebuke earlier in February to the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations, warning that it would deprive migrants of their inherent dignity. Francis also apparently responded to Vance directly.
Vance, on social media, had defended the administration’s America-first policies by citing centuries-old teachings on “ordo amoris,” or the order of love, saying people must prioritize their families and those closest to them. Francis, in a subsequent statement, said a true understanding of that teaching is reflected in a “love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.” The pope cited the biblical parable of the Good Samaritan, who took care of a wounded stranger.
On Friday, Vance didn’t address that issue specifically but called himself a “baby Catholic” and acknowledged there are “things about the faith that I don’t know.” Vance became a Catholic in 2019.
He added: “I try to be humble as best I can when I talk about the faith and publicly, because of course, I’m not always going to get it right.”
He also acknowledged taking criticism from bishops, without mentioning what precipitated recent criticism – his claim that the bishops were taking millions of dollars in government aid to “resettle illegal immigrants.”
In fact, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has received millions to resettle legally approved refugees, though it is now battling the Trump administration in court over the cut-off of such funding. One leading cardinal called Vance’s claim “scurrilous.”
Vance also touted the Trump administration’s “protecting the religious liberty of all people, but in particular Catholics.” The administration created a task force focused on eradicating bias against Christians, the predominant religious group in the country.
Vance claimed Friday that the Biden administration “liked to throw people in jail for silently praying.”
Trump has said he pardoned an elderly woman put in jail “because she was praying.” In fact, she and co-defendants were sentenced for blockading an abortion clinic in violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.
Vance acknowledged “you’re certainly not always going to agree with everything that we do,” but he contended it has gone in the “exact opposite direction” of the Biden administration’s strong emphasis on the right to abortion.
Under Trump, the GOP removed a call for a constitutional amendment banning abortion from its 2024 platform, and Trump signed an executive order aiming to reduce costs for in vitro fertilization, which some abortion foes oppose because it can result in embryos being discarded.
Vance, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq, said that over the past four decades, “it has often been historical Christian communities who bear the brunt of failed American foreign policy.” That was an apparent allusion to such things as the U.S. invasion of Iraq’s impact on its Christian minority.
“Perhaps the most important way in which Donald Trump has been a defender of Christian rights all over the world is he has a foreign policy that is oriented towards peace,” Vance said, mentioning Russia, Ukraine and the Middle East by name.
The Catholic minority in Ukraine has been a staunch supporter of its country’s defense against the Russian invasion. Trump was scheduled to meet Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as he hopes to persuade Trump to provide some form of U.S. backing for Ukraine’s security against any future Russian aggression.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Categories: America, Europe, Human Rights, migrants, United States, USA, Vatican