Pope Francis’ rebuke of President Donald Trump’s deportation policies appears to conflict with his own past statements and the teachings outlined in the U.S. Catholic Catechism advise politicians to enact policies for the common good, but emphasize country’s right to regulate immigration.
The Trump administration’s stated policy of mass deportations of illegal immigrants stirred backlash from Catholic authorities in the United States. The controversy came to a head when Pope Francis directly criticized the policy in a letter to U.S. Bishops, calling the plans a “major crisis.”
His Holiness, who the Pew Research Center estimates is the spiritual leader for roughly 53 million Catholic U.S. adults, said that though countries have the right to defend their borders and keep citizens safe from criminals, “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.”
“Comparing the plight of migrants to the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt in the Bible, the Pope reaffirmed the Church’s teaching that immigrants have the right to seek shelter and safe conditions outside of their homeland.
The new critiques seem to contradict past statements from Pope Francis himself and past Pontiffs of the Roman Catholic Church as well as guidelines for American Catholics outlined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
“The Pope is making politically charged comments. I mean, I’ve been speaking out for years now about the fact that he’s meddling in American politics in a way that is not befitting of a pope. His comments are always favoring to the Democrats and and criticizing Trump, I’ve made the case directly to the Vatican and to the United States bishops that the best friend that the Catholic Church has right now is one Donald J. Trump,” former priest and Priests for Life National Director Frank Pavone told the “Just the News, No Noise“ TV show.
“[Trump’s] policies on immigration, by the way, are not inconsistent with what you read in the Catholic Catechism about immigration. When you go to the Catechism, it says, ‘yes, we welcome people, they have inherent human dignity.’ Listen, I don’t know anybody that disagrees with the fact that they have human dignity. We have to help people as much as we can, but that’s the operative phrase, as much as we can, because then the Catechism goes on to say, nations that are welcoming immigrants have a right, have a duty, to provide for their own people, to set laws and conditions for immigration and those wanting to enter another country must obey its laws and respect its status as a nation and its culture,” Pavone explained. “And that’s exactly what President Trump is saying.”
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