Catholics spot glaring problems with Pope Francis' letter targeting Vance, Trump immigration policy: 'Unabashedly political'

Pope Francis is being sharply criticized after inserting himself into the political debate on illegal immigration and mass deportation.

What did Francis say?

On Tuesday, Francis sent a letter to U.S. bishops.

In the letter, Francis used the story of Israel's exodus from Egypt and the holy family's flight to Egypt after the birth of Jesus as the backdrop to opine about the political situation in America.

After affirming the "infinite and transcendent dignity" of every human person, Francis appeared to condemn the idea that illegal immigrants are definitionally "criminal" if they only skirted federal law by illegally entering the country.

"The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality," Francis wrote.

Francis even suggested that deporting non-criminal illegal immigrants (using his definition of criminality, of course) "damages" their "dignity."

Next, Francis wrote about the ordo amoris — the "order of loves," a classic Christian concept. The timing of his thoughts about the ordo amoris is likely not a coincidence. The topic dominated headlines two weeks ago after Vice President JD Vance recited a version of the ordo amoris while discussing immigration.

"Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups," Francis claimed.

Instead, Francis said Christians will discover the "true ordo amoris" only if we meditate on the parable of the Good Samaritan and conclude that it teaches Christians "love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception."

The backlash

It's not exactly clear what motivated Francis to write the letter. But it was not received warmly, especially among conservative Catholics.

R.R. Reno, a theologian and editor of First Things, described Francis' message as "his suicide note." According to Reno, the "practical upshot" of the letter is "nothing other than the globalist, open-borders position, glibly theologized." Indeed, while Francis positioned himself as siding with vulnerable people, Reno explained that Francis' rhetoric better "aligns with attitudes and statements characteristic of progressive elites."

At the Pillar, a Catholic publication, Ed Condon described Francis' letter as a "papal hot take — long on broad strokes and short on either nuance or persuasive detail." Eschewing nuance, said Condon, makes it appear that "the pope has endorsed the idea that to be authentically Catholic is to be for effectively open borders."

Condon, meanwhile, highlighted an important inconsistency, perhaps even a double standard.

With regard to Francis' implicit response to Vance, Condon observed, "Many may be wondering where the pope has been for the last four years."

He explained:

It is hard to mount a credible case for papal intervention against a Catholic VP on a subject which is, at least generally, a matter for prudential application of Church teaching which wouldn’t be even more applicable to the case of a Catholic president stridently supporting policies against the Church’s position on an absolute moral issue.

Yet despite President Joe Biden frequently and explicitly campaigning on his Catholicism as a driver of his policy platforms, no papal corrective came for his full-throated defense of and federal funding for abortion. Francis remained usually silent on the matter while his most prominent American proxies instead telegraphed papal disapproval of bishops who did challenge the president.

Phil Lawler, a prolific Catholic journalist, made similar observations.

"Has any modern Pontiff ever written a statement so harshly critical of the policies of a sovereign nation? If so, it has escaped my notice," Lawler said. "If the Pontiff wanted to bring the principles of Catholic social teaching to bear on the American scene, why did he never denounce the Biden administration for its worldwide promotion of abortion, same-sex marriage, and gender ideology?"

Lawler, moreover, described the letter as "disastrous," said Francis is demonstrating "open hostility" toward the Trump administration, and accused Francis of committing an "injustice to Americans."

"Since it is an unabashedly political document, the Pope’s letter should be judged by its likely political impact — which will be negative," Lawler said. "The Pope’s arguments themselves are defective."

Aside from the double standard that Francis appears to have applied and the inherent political nature of the letter, there are more apparent issues with Francis' dispatch.

Chief among those problems is that while Francis claimed that Christian love and the ordo amoris are "not a concentric expansion of interests," Francis has apparently described Christian ethics as exactly that in the past. Catholic professor Edward Feser, moreover, accused Francis of misrepresenting Vance.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!