Pope Francis’ rebuke of President Donald Trump’s deportation policies appears to conflict with his own past statements and the teachings outlined in the U.S. Catholic Catechism advise politicians to enact policies for the common good, but emphasize country’s right to regulate immigration. 

The Trump administration’s stated policy of mass deportations of illegal immigrants stirred backlash from Catholic authorities in the United States. The controversy came to a head when Pope Francis directly criticized the policy in a letter to U.S. Bishops, calling the plans a “major crisis.” 

His Holiness, who the Pew Research Center estimates is the spiritual leader for roughly 53 million Catholic U.S. adults, said that though countries have the right to defend their borders and keep citizens safe from criminals, “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.” 

"Comparing the plight of migrants to the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt in the Bible, the Pope reaffirmed the Church’s teaching that immigrants have the right to seek shelter and safe conditions outside of their homeland.

"Politically charged comments"

The new critiques seem to contradict past statements from Pope Francis himself and past Pontiffs of the Roman Catholic Church as well as guidelines for American Catholics outlined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  

“The Pope is making politically charged comments. I mean, I've been speaking out for years now about the fact that he's meddling in American politics in a way that is not befitting of a pope. His comments are always favoring to the Democrats and and criticizing Trump, I've made the case directly to the Vatican and to the United States bishops that the best friend that the Catholic Church has right now is one Donald J. Trump,” former priest and Priests for Life National Director Frank Pavone told the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. 

“[Trump’s] policies on immigration, by the way, are not inconsistent with what you read in the Catholic Catechism about immigration. When you go to the Catechism, it says, ‘yes, we welcome people, they have inherent human dignity.’ Listen, I don't know anybody that disagrees with the fact that they have human dignity. We have to help people as much as we can, but that's the operative phrase, as much as we can, because then the Catechism goes on to say, nations that are welcoming immigrants have a right, have a duty, to provide for their own people, to set laws and conditions for immigration and those wanting to enter another country must obey its laws and respect its status as a nation and its culture,” Pavone explained. “And that's exactly what President Trump is saying.” 

Immigrants also must respect the “heritage” of the country

"We're not against immigration, we're against people throwing the law out the window and coming into a country without sharing its values. I have seen absolutely no reason why the Pope and the bishops should have any problem with that whatsoever,” he added. 

The version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church promulgated in the United States outlines that “more prosperous nations, to the extent that they are able” should “welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin.” The Catechism also notes that public authorities have the right to make the right to immigrate “subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption.” 

In addition, the Catechism teaches that immigrants also must respect the “heritage” of the country wherein they reside, obey the law and “assist in carrying civic burdens.” 

Pope Francis’s prior comments on immigration also seem to conflict with his latest criticism of the new administration. “Can borders be controlled? Yes, each country has a right to control its borders, who enters and who leaves, and countries that are in danger—of terrorism or the like—have more right to control them more,” Francis told the Spanish newspaper El País in January 2017. 

Former Pope John Paul II, who is considered a saint in the Catholic Church, explained that the rights of immigrants must be carefully balanced with the needs and conditions of the local inhabitants of a country. 

“The challenge is to combine the welcome due to every human being, especially when in need, with a reckoning of what is necessary for both the local inhabitants and the new arrivals to live a dignified and peaceful life,” the former Pope said in his 2001 World Day of Peace message. 

Cartels have taken over illegal immigration

Pavone says Trump’s policies align with Catholic teaching because the conditions that migrants seeking to cross the Southern Border are subjected to are not conducive to the human dignity that the Catechism calls for. “I mean, you see those videos. I remember one with the mother pushing her baby underneath the sharp barbed wire fence. Meanwhile, she's up to her waist in mud. Is this human dignity? This is not the way people are supposed to be treated,” Pavone said. 

Human smuggling and trafficking operations have thrived in response to conditions at the U.S. Southern Border in recent years, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reported last year. Migrants from all over the Latin American region—an indeed from around the world—would descend on Mexico to make the journey to the border. Migrants often used to pay smugglers called "coyotes" to gain illegal entry into the U.S., but recently the Mexican cartels have taken over the business. 

The conditions created by this arrangement are sometimes deadly. In one horrifying example, 50 immigrants were found dead near San Antonio, Texas. They were found locked in the back of a semi-truck along with 16 others who were taken to a local hospital. The then-Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus said that the incident shows the “callous human smugglers…show no regard for human life.” 

Minnesota Bishops: "leadership failure has resulted in repeated conflicts at the border"

Bishop Mark Seitz of the Diocese of El Paso, Chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Migration Committee, did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News about the Catholic Church’s teachings on immigration. 

“We do not oppose legitimate law enforcement actions against those who would threaten the safety and security of our families and our communities,” Bishop Seitz said in January. “But when the law is used to divide, to instill fear, to separate, this is not good law. This is not humane law. This is not just law.” 

Other Bishops took a more measured stance, placing blame on both the Biden and Trump administrations for a failure to balance the dignity of illegal immigrants with prudent border policies. “Elected officials in both major political parties have failed to rise above political calculation and collaborate on a solution rooted in respect for migrants and the common good of the nation. This leadership failure has resulted in repeated conflicts at the border and in our communities that have only grown worse,” the Minnesota Bishops said in a statement. 

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also sued the Trump administration after it pulled funding from their migrant and refugee resettlement programs. Other Catholic groups, like Catholic Charities have collected billions in grant money from the federal government for immigrant resettlement programs, Just the News previously reported. 

His Holiness' criticisms of mass deportation policies has rankled some Catholics in the Trump administration. Tom Homan, the administration’s border czar, is a Catholic and has argued that facilitating illegal immigration does more harm than good, citing the incidents of sexual assault, human trafficking, and even death on the journey to America through Mexico. Homan fired back at the Pope, in a purported interview with Fox News, saying he “ought to stick to the Catholic Church and fix that. That’s a mess.”