The first American pope leads a church increasingly willing to express disapproval of America’s president. Pope Leo XIV and a few U.S. bishops have recently criticized President Donald Trump’s policies on immigration, with Leo saying “deep reflection” is needed about his home country’s treatment of migrants.
Leo’s recent comments were his “strongest criticism of Trump yet,” said the BBC. Scripture asks, “how did you receive the foreigner, did you receive him and welcome him, or not?” Leo said to journalists. The pope was “obviously talking about the ICE round-ups,” said Catholic historian Austen Ivereigh. Immigration is not an abstract issue for the church. “Many people targeted in the ICE raids are Catholic,” said the BBC.
Two American clerics also weighed in last week, said The New York Times. Bishops Kevin C. Rhoades and Robert Barron, both of whom have ties to the administration’s Religious Liberty Commission, both criticized “immigrant detainees’ lack of access to religious sacraments like communion.” The religious liberty of migrant detainees is “part of their human dignity, needs to be respected,” said Rhoades. The comments came after the filing of a lawsuit claiming Chicago-area detainees had been deprived of “basic religious accommodations,” said the Times. It is a rift that puts church leaders at odds with high-ranking Catholics” like Vice President JD Vance.
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The Catholic Church and the White House are “not getting along,” said Elizabeth Bruenig at The Atlantic. The MAGA movement is “home to its share of outspoken Catholics” like Vance, Steve Bannon, and Jack Posobiec, but its anti-migrant stance contradicts church teachings about the “dignity and love that the faithful owe to foreigners and refugees.” Trump’s policies have pitted the “demands of the faith” against the “law of the land.” The church does not require open borders. But the “scale and brutality” of its anti-migrant policies have left “little for Catholics to endorse.”
If the Trump administration “wants to set itself up as somehow Christian,” then it should do the “bare minimum” and “welcome the stranger,” said Simcha Fisher at America, a Jesuit magazine. There is not much sign of that happening. It is “reasonable and acceptable” for Americans not to want to live next door to migrants, Vance said in a recent podcast interview. Such comments from a Catholic official are a “flagrant insult to our faith,” said Fisher.
What next?
Conservatives say a “silent majority” of American Catholics support Trump’s immigration policies, said Catholic News Agency. The president “received a majority of Catholic votes in the last election, depending on which poll you look at,” said Andrew Arthur, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies. Younger Catholics are “more in line with law enforcement, generally, and immigration enforcement, in particular.”
Leo’s criticisms of Trump’s policies are “emboldening Catholic efforts to help immigrants” affected by the crackdown, said Reuters. It is meaningful that the pope is “paying close attention to the suffering of migrants and their families here,” said Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich.
