Pope Francis offered President Trump his congratulations on returning to the White House, but called his plan to deport millions of immigrants from the U.S. a "disgrace." Why it matters: American Catholics strongly supported Trump in the 2024 election.

Pope Francis slammed Trump’s planned mass deportation plan as 'a disgrace' while promoting his memoir on TV, and also made his TikTok debut.

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.

"If it is true, it will be a disgrace, because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing to pay the unpaid bill," Francis said.

If this is true it is a disgrace because it makes the poor unfortunate who have nothing pay the price of imbalance. This is not how things are solved,” the pope said on Italian TV.

Vásquez was most recently selected by Francis to oversee the Diocese of Tyler, also in Texas, after he dismissed its former bishop, Joseph Strickland, who had openly accused the pope of being a heretic and called into question the validity of his leadership.

The pope’s comments provided the latest indication of a potential rekindling of frictions between the Vatican and the next Trump White House.

ROME (AP) — 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.S.-Mexican border.

This comes after Francis appointed Cardinal Robert McElroy to be the next Archbishop of Washington, D.C. McElroy is a staunch opponent of mass deportations, calling them “inconsistent with Catholic doctrine,” CNN reports.

The pontiff, who frequently expresses sympathy for migrants and refugees, criticises raids which are set to begin this week