“Jesus says very clearly: At the end of the world, we’re going to be asked, you know, how did you receive the foreigner? Did you receive him, and welcome him, or not?” said Pope Leo XIV when asked about immigration issues in the U.S. this week.
Pope Leo, a Chicago area native and the first pope born in the U.S., went on to say: “I think there’s a deep reflection that needs to be made in terms of what’s happening,” according to Vatican News.
Since President Donald Trump took office for his second term this year, his administration has cracked down hard on illegal immigration. That has included Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in major cities, including Los Angeles and the pope’s hometown of Chicago.
“Despite unprecedented obstruction from soft-on-crime politicians, activist judges and lawless rioters, ICE continues to arrest criminal aliens who flocked to Chicago to take advantage of Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson’s sanctuary polices,” said an Oct. 30 ICE press release. More press releases have covered detentions in California, Indiana, Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia and more.
In Chicago, a “delegation of clergy, religious sisters and laity, together with a Chicago auxiliary bishop, were barred for the second time in three weeks from bringing the Eucharist to those being held at an immigration detention center just west of Chicago on the feast of All Saints Nov. 1,” OSV News reported this Monday.
This Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis also issued an injunction “designed to permanently rein in agents’ use of tear gas, pepper balls and other crowd control measures,” WTTW reported. Ellis ruled that there “was ample evidence that federal agents had violated Chicagoans’ First Amendment rights to free speech and free assembly,” and “impermissibly” prevented “the free exercise of religion by targeting members of the clergy with force.”
Regarding clergy being blocked from meeting with migrants held in detention to provide communion, Pope Leo told reporters in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, that “the spiritual rights of people who have been detained should also be considered, and I would certainly invite the authorities to allow pastoral workers to attend to the needs of those people.”
Democratic Catholic activist Christopher Hale posted about the pope’s comments on X Tuesday. Hale claimed that he reached out to a White House spokesperson who said “the pope doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Vice President JD Vance, a convert to Catholicism, asked Hale in a public message which White House spokesperson gave him the statement.
Though Vance is very publicly Catholic, both he and the president doubled down on a joke Trump made about wanting to be pope after the death of the late Pope Francis earlier this year. It offended some other Catholics.
Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin also weighed in on the pope’s comments on X in a Wednesday post.
“Religious organizations have ALWAYS been welcome to provide services to detainees in ICE detention facilities. Religious leaders may request access to facilities through proper channels and have those requests approved,” she said, adding that “[ICE} does not separate families.”
In response, Hale said: “Calling the pope a liar is beyond the pale, Tricia. The Archdiocese of Chicago followed every required protocol weeks ago – and was still denied.”
According to The Daily Beast, it “approached the DHS and McLaughlin, as well as the White House,” to ask if the McLaughlin comments had been approved.
McLaughlin said, “I’m a Catholic,” in response, per the outlet. It also noted that families were indeed separated during ICE crackdowns in Trump’s first term.
Pope Leo, who lived in Peru for years, told reporters that “many people who have lived for years and years” in the U.S. while “never causing problems,” are being impacted by the Trump policies and that there is confusion about what’s happening to the detainees. He also urged a “dialogue” between the U.S. and Venezuela regarding immigration.