Intense exchanges between the Vatican, Washington for Trump’s Immigration Policy – La Croix International

It took only three short weeks for President Donald Trump and his administration to join their first public confrontation with Pope Francis. On February 11, after the Holy Press Service of the Holy Presser published a letter from the pope to the US bishops, a criticized US government plan for mass deportation, the White House quickly responded through a close associate of President Trump.

“I would like to focus on the Catholic Church and allow us to deal with the boundaries,” said Tom Homan, director of the US agency responsible for borderline and immigration implementation. “He wants to attack us because we guarantee the security of our borders? He has a wall around the Vatican, right? (…) We cannot have a wall around the United States? “

Rude criticism

Although Trump’s “border king” has criticized Pope Francis – when the latter expressed concerns before the billionaire enters the Oval Office – such a direct response from a sedentary public official of the pope is quite rare. It illustrates the deep division between the Vatican and Washington on immigration policy.

Additional reading: Pope calls Trump to encourage a fair society, calls a deportment plan a “shame”

In his letter to the US bishops, Pope Francis openly expressed his disapproval from the immigration plan of the Republican administration, which he sees as a embodiment of an “ideological criterion that distorts social life.” Turning to all Catholics through their bishops, he stated that “a well -formed conscience cannot help but criticize and disagree with any measure that tacitly or explicitly equates the illegal status of some migrants with crime.”

The development of “tidy and legal migration”, the added pope, cannot be achieved “through the privilege of some and the victim of others. Every human being begins badly and it will end badly, “he warned. to extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation or persecution (…) undermines the dignity of many men and women and puts them in a state of great vulnerability. “

Multiple exchanges between the two states

“This is not a minor question: the authentic rule of the law is checked exactly in decent treatment that all people deserve, especially the most, and most marginalized,” the Pope’s letter said. This universal concept of human dignity is far from the one made by US Vice President JD Vance. “You love your family, then you love your neighbor, then love your community, then love your fellow citizens in your own country and then you can focus on the rest of the world,” said the Catholic converter in 2019, seeing this one in this one The order of charity “very Christian concept”.

While Donald Trump has never publicly attacked Pope Francis’ statements, the Pope did not hesitate to comment on the US policy. On the eve of Trump’s inauguration, January 19, he called out the plan to deport tens of thousands of migrants from the United States the soil “disaster”.

In addition, the recent reduction in US funding for the NGO has caused outrage from one of Pope Francis’ best advisers, Cardinal Michael Cherni, a Dicaster prefect to promote integral human development. “Many people are hurt and horrified by these measures,” he complained on Monday, February 10th. “Repression is a terrible way of managing and even less to administer justice,” he added.

The immigration issue can poison the relationship between the Vatican and Washington over the next four years.