Pope Leo XIV is stepping up his campaign against President Trump.
According to Reuters, Leo met with American bishops in the Vatican on Wednesday where he urged them to speak out against the Trump administration’s policy of deporting millions of illegal aliens.
Leo, who was elected in May and is America’s first ever Pontiff, was reportedly handed “dozens” of letters from immigrants and left-wing activists complaining about the injustices they are facing.
“Our Holy Father … is very personally concerned about these matters,” El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz, who attended the meeting, told the agency.
“He expressed his desire that the U.S. Bishops’ Conference would speak strongly on this issue.”
The Vatican has so far refused to comment on the meeting, although the report fits with the rhetoric Leo has recently been spreading.
Addressing thousands of pilgrims at St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Leo warned that migrants must not be treated with “the coldness of indifference or the stigma of discrimination.”
Without singling out any country in particular, Leo said that Catholics should “open our arms and hearts to them, welcoming them as brothers and sisters, and being for them a presence of consolation and hope.”
Leo explained that the church was living through a “new missionary age” that tasked its members with providing “hospitality and welcome, compassion and solidarity” to migrants coming to the West.
“In the communities of ancient Christian tradition, such as those of the West, the presence of many brothers and sisters from the world’s South should be welcomed as an opportunity, through an exchange that renews the face of the Church,” he explained.
His remarks came just several days after he took issue with the Trump administration describing itself as “pro-life” because of its determination to carry out mass deportation.
“Someone who says I’m against abortion but says I’m in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life,” he explained.
”So someone who says, I’m against abortion, but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt rejected his comments out of hand.
“I would reject that there is inhumane treatment of illegal immigrants in the United States under this administration,” she responded.
“There was, however, significant, inhumane treatment of illegal immigrants in the previous administration as they were being trafficked and raped and beaten, in many cases killed over our United States southern border.”
Karoline Leavitt — Donald Trump’s Catholic press secretary — rejects Pope Leo’s claim that migrants are treated inhumanely in the United States. pic.twitter.com/YWjSyeQiy8
— Christopher Hale (@chrisjollyhale) October 1, 2025
