Trump’s immigrant deportations are ‘morally repugnant,’ senior US Catholic leader says

Trump’s immigrant deportations are ‘morally repugnant,’ senior US Catholic leader says

A prominent Catholic Church leader and ally of Pope Leo XIV has strongly criticized the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, describing the rounding up and deportation of immigrants as “inhumane” and “morally repugnant.”

 

In a wide-ranging interview with CNN Vatican Correspondent Christopher Lamb, Cardinal Robert McElroy, the Archbishop of Washington, DC, also voiced strong opposition to Trump’s major tax and spending bill, warned of the risks of US and Israeli strikes on Iran, and discussed his view of the role of women in the church.

 

“It’s right to be able to control our borders. However, what’s going on now is something far beyond that,” the cardinal told CNN. “It is a mass, indiscriminate deportation of men and women and children and families which literally rips families apart and is intended to do so.”

 

McElroy was appointed to lead the archdiocese in the US capital by Pope Francis in January, the month of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration. He was among the more than 100 cardinals who took part in the conclave that elected the first American pope in May.

 

McElroy, who spoke to CNN in Rome on the same day that Trump visited a migrant detention center in Florida known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” said the “mechanism” being used was the “creation of fear” among 10 million undocumented people in the US – “the great majority” of whom had worked hard and contributed to society.

 

“This is simply not only incompatible with Catholic teaching, it’s inhumane and is morally repugnant,” he added.

 

McElroy argued that the government had a right to deport people convicted of “serious crimes,” adding that the problems with immigration were rooted in an American political system that had failed to address immigration law and reform over the last 15 years.

 

McElroy said people were now “afraid even to go to church” after the Trump administration removed the policy that prohibited immigration agents from making arrests in sensitive areas, like churches.

 

“What is behind this?” he asked, referencing the stricter immigration policies and enforcement tactics. “I fear that one of the main things behind it, in the minds of many who are pushing it, is the sense that the people who are coming to our country now are of a different kind.”

 

When it came to church reforms and priorities for Pope Leo, McElroy talked about the importance of addressing the role of women.

 

He said this topic had been an “immensely powerful current” during recent Vatican assemblies, the synod, which looked at questions of church renewal and looked at how to include more women in decision making roles.

 

“The major thrust has to be look at where women ‘aren’t’ and then ask why?”

 

McElroy supports ordaining women as deacons, who carry out functions like a priest but without saying Mass or hearing confessions, which he says is consistent with the church’s theology. “It’s a controversial question within the church,” he admits, “but I think it would be important to move in that direction.”

 

He told CNN that the recent US attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites could encourage other countries to develop nuclear weapons to defend themselves. He said it was “critically important” to maintain “non-proliferation” of nuclear weapons.

 

“My great fear is that the lessons that nations will take away from this intervention against Iran is that if they have nuclear weapons then they won’t be subject to this sort of attack,” he said. “I think that’s an open question. Will this encourage more proliferation because the incentives are stronger now or clearer now, and that’s very ominous.”