How the Pope Connects War, Immigration, and Abortion

Throughout year one of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV has been especially vocal about two issues: immigration and war. The first American pope has spoken of the “inalienable rights” of migrants and lamented the growing, global “zeal for war.” He told a delegation of U.S. clergy last fall that “the Church cannot be silent” in a time of mass deportations, and said in March, a month after the United States began attacking Iran, that God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.”His opposition to the conflict has provoked President Trump’s ire and earned him rebukes from prominent right-leaning Christians. The Fox News anchor Sean Hannity deemed Leo “more interested in spreading left-wing politics than the actual teachings of Jesus Christ.” Vice President Vance advised the pope “to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.” Regarding the pope’s statements about immigration, the podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey accused him of confusing “toxic empathy and Biblical love.”These critiques, however, miss something crucial about Pope Leo’s reasoning. His statements indicate that he’s not disregarding Church teaching to weigh in on political issues of the day. Instead, he’s making a moral case, rooted deeply in Catholic thought, for how the faithful should treat the vulnerable—a case that results in resisting war and protecting migrants, and also opposing abortion.In September, for example, the pope remarked, “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.” In a January address to Vatican diplomats, he voiced his support for Christians who defend “the unborn, refugees, and migrants.” In March, before a group of Polish faithful, the pope said that “in a time marked by the madness of war, it is important to defend life from conception to its natural end.”[Read: The American pope vs. the American president]The idea that being anti-abortion, being against