The comments provided the latest indication of a potential renewal of friction between the Vatican and the next Trump White House.

This is not the first time the pope has rebuked the president-elect’s position on illegal immigrants. In September 2024, Francis criticized then-candidates Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump when asked a question about the U.S. presidential election. The pope blasted Harris’s position on abortion and Trump’s immigration stance.

It’s also a topic which resonates personally with Francis. In his new autobiography, the Pope recalled how his paternal grandparents and father had planned to sail in 1927 on the Principessa Mafalda from Italy to Argentina, which sank with the loss of many lives, but ended up making a later crossing.

Pope Francis had quite a busy weekend. In a rare TV interview, he slammed President-elect Donald Trump’s call for the mass deportation of immigrants in the U.S. as a “disgrace.” He also made his first appearance on TikTok,

Pope Francis said Donald Trump’s plans to impose mass deportations of immigrants would be a “disgrace,” as he weighed in on the incoming U.S. president’s pledges nearly a decade after calling him “not Christian” for wanting to build a wall along the U.

Francis previously said that Trump cannot be a Christian if he plans to build a wall to keep migrants from Mexico out.