White House Takes Issue With Pope’s Comments on Immigration

The White House is disputing Pope Leo XIV’s characterization this week of what he regards as the “inhuman treatment” of immigrants by the Trump administration. 

“I would reject that there is inhumane treatment of illegal immigrants in the United States under this administration,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in response to a question about the pope’s comments.

The pontiff had contended in remarks to reporters, “Someone who says that ‘I’m against abortion, but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.” The pope also argued, “Someone who says, ‘I’m against abortion, but says I am in favor of the death penalty,’ is not really pro-life.”

“I understand the difficulty and the tensions. But I think, as I myself have spoken in the past, it’s important to look at many issues that are related to the teachings of the church,” Leo continued. 

The dispute between the new pope and the Trump administration hearkened back to the tensions between Vice President JD Vance and Pope Francis, Leo’s predecessor, who criticized the vice president for defending the enforcement of American immigration law by President Donald Trump.

In a letter published in February to American Catholic bishops, Francis had written, “I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations. 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 also noted that 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.”

Vance later became one of the last American leaders to meet with Francis before he died in April, reflecting fondly of the experience in a post on the social media platform X. 

The press had gathered outside the Castel Gandolfo, the summer residence of the head of the Catholic Church, and had asked the pope to weigh in on the controversy surrounding Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who was recently offered a lifetime achievement award from the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Office of Human Dignity and Solidarity. 

Durbin subsequently declined the award after mounting criticism from Catholic clergy and laity alike, including the bishop of his home diocese of Springfield.

The Democrat senator has been prohibited from receiving Communion in the Diocese of Springfield since 2004 for his political support of abortion. Durbin is not the only Catholic Democrat politician who has been rebuked by church leaders for his public advocacy. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was barred in 2022 from receiving Communion in the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

The archdiocese’s decision also received criticism from former Illinois Rep. Dan Lipinski, who lost a Democrat primary in 2020 after maintaining his pro-life views in what became a socially liberal congressional district. 

After Durbin declined the honor, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, released a statement doubling down and writing that he wanted “to make clear that the decision to present him an award was specifically in recognition of his singular contribution to immigration reform and his unwavering support of immigrants, which is so needed in our day.”

In recent months, several Catholic prelates have appeared to oppose some of the Trump administration’s efforts to uphold America’s immigration laws. One auxiliary bishop admitted at a Sept. 11 panel discussion at Georgetown University that he was once an illegal alien. Archbishop José Gomez discussed how he thinks 30% of the attendees of Masses celebrated in some of the parishes of his archdiocese are illegal aliens.

The post White House Takes Issue With Pope’s Comments on Immigration appeared first on The Daily Signal.