Pope Francis condemns Trump’s deportations and the White House responds that the Vatican also has a wall

The battle between Pope Francis and Donald Trump has already begun, as anticipated given the history of hostile exchanges during the former president’s tenure (in 2016, the Pope even stated that Trump was “not a Christian”). This time, the conflict centers around immigration. On Tuesday, Pope Francis published an unusual letter addressed to U.S. bishops, written “in these delicate moments,” in which he focuses entirely on this issue.

“I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations,” he writes. “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.”

The letter, written in both English and Spanish, is stern and contains strong phrases and expressions. Pope Francis refers to the “walls of ignominy” and urges the faithful to oppose Trump’s immigration policy, which he almost describes as a moral perversion — especially significant given that the U.S. president released a photo this Sunday of himself praying in his office with a group of televangelists and ultraconservative Christians.

The Pope’s critique is aimed at discrediting the confessional and religious image that the current U.S. right-wing movement has cultivated. “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,” he writes.

After defending the dignity of all individuals, regardless of status, Francis adds a pointed political interpretation: “Worrying about personal, community or national identity, apart from these considerations, easily introduces an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth.” The Pope insists that immigration policies “cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others.” “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 warns.

The White House has not held back either. Immigration chief Tom Homan, a Catholic, told reporters that the Pope “ought to fix the Catholic Church” and leave U.S. authorities take care of the country’s borders. “He wants to attack us securing our border? He has a wall around the Vatican, does he not? So he has a wall to protect his people and himself, but we can’t have a wall around the United States,” Homan told reporters at the White House.

Back in 2016, when the Pope criticized the construction of a wall on the Mexican border, Trump responded by suggesting that the Pope would want him to be president if the Vatican were attacked by the Islamic State.

The Pope’s statements deepen the confrontation, not only with Trump, but with the most ultraconservative sectors of the U.S. Catholic Church. In December, anticipating such a clash, the Pontiff appointed the progressive Robert McElroy, an outspoken critic of Trump and a staunch defender of immigrants, as the new archbishop of Washington D.C. Meanwhile, Trump has announced that his choice for ambassador to the Vatican is Brian Burch, an ultraconservative Catholic, and the president of the Catholic Vote platform, who is a declared enemy of the Argentine pontiff.

Attack on Vice President J. D. Vance

Francis’s message is profound, as it frames the situation as one where democracy itself is at risk. He asserts that deportation “damages the dignity” of people, emphasizing that this is “not a minor issue.” He writes: “An authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized. The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all — as I have affirmed on numerous occasions — welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable.”

In another passage, he affirms: “All the Christian faithful and people of good will are called upon to consider the legitimacy of norms and public policies in the light of the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights, not vice versa.”

There is a paragraph clearly written with Vice President J. D. Vance in mind, though he is not named directly. The references, however, are obvious. Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, recently justified the deportations of migrants on Fox News, citing a theological concept of St. Augustine called the ordo amoris — the order of love. He argued that moral duties towards one’s children exceed those towards “a stranger who lives thousands of miles away,” placing family first, then community, country, and only lastly, the rest of the world. He even encouraged people on social media to search for ordo amoris on Google.

In his letter, the Pope explicitly references this idea, writing: “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.” In a pointed rebuke presented as catechesis, the Pontiff explains that Christian love “is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups.” “In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings!” he writes.

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