Pope Francis has said that Donald Trump\u2019s plans to deport illegal migrants from the US would be a \u201cdisgrace\u201d if they materialised.<\/p>\n
Speaking to an Italian TV programme from his Vatican residence, Francis said that if the plans went ahead, Trump would make \u201cpoor wretches that don\u2019t have anything foot the bill\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not right. That\u2019s not how you solve problems,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Trump has promised to begin the largest expulsion of undocumented immigrants\u00a0in US history soon after he takes office.<\/p>\n
In a message to Trump shared on Monday, Pope Francis offered him \u201ccordial greetings\u201d and urged him to lead a society with \u201cno room for hatred, discrimination or exclusion\u201d and promote \u201cpeace and reconciliation among peoples\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Pope is known to hold the issue of migrants dear. During a public audience last August, he said that \u201csystematically working by all means to drive away migrants\u201d was \u201ca grave sin\u201d.<\/p>\n
In 2016, before the first presidential election won by Trump, Pope Francis said \u201ca person who thinks only about building walls\u2026 and not of building bridges, is not Christian\u201d.<\/p>\n
Referring to Trump\u2019s promise to build a wall on the Mexican border to keep migrants from travelling into the US, Francis said: \u201cI say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and I will give him the benefit of the doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Francis and Trump later met when Trump and his family visited Rome in 2017.<\/p>\n
Before the US presidential election in 2024, the Pope declined to say whether people should vote for Trump or for his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris, merely urging people to choose \u201cthe lesser evil\u201d according to their conscience.<\/p>\n
During the interview on Sunday evening, Francis also touched on the issue of migration to Europe, saying there was \u201ca lot of cruelty\u201d and that everyone had \u201cthe right to remain home and the right to emigrate\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Pope also added that some of the southern European countries that receive the most migrant arrivals \u201care not having any children and need manpower\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some of these countries, there are entire villages that are empty. A good, well-thought out migrant policy would help countries like Italy and Spain too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In another section of the interview, Francis was asked about the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and said he did not know why making peace was so difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know why\u2026 it\u2019s as if there was an international drive towards self-destruction,\u201d the Pope said.<\/p>\n
Francis, 88, has been in the post since 2013, when he was elected to succeed Pope Benedict XVI.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pope Francis has said that Donald Trump\u2019s plans to deport illegal migrants from the US would be a \u201cdisgrace\u201d if they materialised. Speaking to an Italian TV programme from his Vatican residence, Francis said that if the plans went ahead, Trump would make \u201cpoor wretches that don\u2019t have anything foot the bill\u201d. \u201cThat\u2019s not right. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}