Pope Condemns Trump Admin: Jesus Was A Migrant

The National Catholic Reporter reports:

Pope Francis has written a sweeping letter to the U.S. bishops decrying the “major crisis” triggered by President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans and explicitly rejecting Vice President JD Vance’s attempts to use Catholic theology to justify the administration’s immigration crackdown.

“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,” reads the pope’s Feb. 11 letter.

The pope’s letter, published by the Vatican in both English and Spanish, offered his solidarity with U.S. bishops who are engaged in migration advocacy and draws a parallel between Jesus’ own experience as a migrant and the current geopolitical situation.

The Associated Press reports:

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 said 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.”

The Washington Post reports:

Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, who is overseeing the mass deportation efforts, dismissed the pontiff’s criticism, calling on Francis to stay out of U.S. national security issues.

“Concentrate on the Catholic Church,” Homan, a Catholic, said in a message to the pope during an interview on Newsmax. “You’ve got a lot of problems right there in the Catholic Church. You have enough to fix in your own home. Leave the border stuff to us. We know what we’re doing.

There has long been friction between the pope and Trump, particularly over the president’s treatment of migrants. During Trump’s first candidacy in 2016, Francis said Trump was “not Christian” for his plan to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall to deter migrants.

See the letter at the first link.