Pope Leo XIV blasted President Donald Trump’s “inhuman” treatment of immigrants, offering his most pointed criticism yet of U.S. policy.
The first American pope, who was born and raised in Chicago, had previously distanced himself from his older brother’s MAGA views and privately urged Vice President JD Vance to respect the dignity of “all people” wherever they’re born.
He has also voiced his support for Gaza and Ukraine, and called for an end to the kind of aggressive rhetoric favored by th e Trump administration.
But the pope has generally avoided criticizing U.S. politics specifically during his public remarks—until now.
“Someone who says ‘I’m against abortion’ but is in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life,” Leo, 70, told reporters Tuesday. “Someone who says ‘I’m against abortion, but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants who are in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”
As part of the president’s mass deportation agenda, hundreds of thousands of migrants in the U.S. have been stripped of their legal status, making them eligible for deportation, and thousands have been arrested and held in detention centers despite not having criminal records.
In March, the administration abruptly sent about 250 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s CECOT megaprison, where they were beaten and tortured. The vast majority did not have criminal records.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson said, “President Trump was elected as the President of the United States based on the many promises he made to the American people, including his promise to deport criminal illegal aliens. He is keeping his promise to the American people.”
The president has also demanded the death penalty for murders committed in Washington, D.C., though capital punishment has been banned in the capital for more than 40 years.
The pope had been asked to weigh in on Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich’s plans to honor Sen. Dick Durbin with a lifetime achievement award for his work on immigration reform. The plan sparked a backlash among several other U.S. bishops, who opposed the Illinois Democrat’s record of voting in favor of abortion rights.
Leo, who was approached as he was leaving the papal villa of Castel Gandolfo near Rome, said he wasn’t deeply familiar with the case but that he thought it was important to look at the “overall work that a senator has done” throughout the course of their career.
“I understand the difficulty and the tensions,” he said. “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.”
After the pope’s comments, Cupich issued a statement saying that Durbin, 80, had decided to end the controversy and decline the award.
A number of high-profile Trump administration officials are Catholic, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who joined Vance for a sit-down with Leo soon after his inaugural Mass in May, press secretary Karoline Leavitt, and border czar Tom Homan, who is one of the architects of Trump’s deportation policy.
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