Pope Francis says care for migrants 'is not a notion invented by some pope'

Pope Francis.
(Image credit: ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images)

"Seeing and acting with mercy: That is holiness," Pope Francis argued Monday in a new apostolic exhortation entitled "Gaudete et Exsultate," which means, "Rejoice and Be Glad." Apostolic exhortations are mid-level papal communications, not intended to define Catholic Church doctrine but carrying more weight than some other papal writings.

Francis' aim was to "re-propose the call to holiness in a practical way for our own time," which turned his attention to poverty, migration, and abortion. "Our defense of the innocent unborn," he wrote, "needs to be clear, firm, and passionate. Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned."

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.