Pope Francis thinks Americans should choose ‘lesser of two evils,’ criticizes Trump, Harris – DNyuz

Pope Francis has spoken out about the upcoming choice of Americans between vice president Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump on Friday, criticizing both candidates as “anti-life” and urging Catholic voters to choose the “lesser of two evils.”

“One must choose the lesser of two evils. Who is the lesser of two evils? That lady or that gentleman? I don’t know,” Francis told reporters while on the papal plane.

Francis, who has been more openly political on some issues than his predecessors, criticized Trump’s handling of immigration and Harris’ support for access to abortion services.

“To send migrants away, to leave them wherever you want, to leave them behind… it is a terrible thing, there is evil there. To send a child away from the mother’s womb is murder, because there is life. We must speak clearly about these things,” he said.

It is not the first time that the Pope has spoken out on such issues during his 11-year term.

In 2016, when Trump was running his first presidential campaign on building a wall on the southwest border, Francis said of the GOP front-runner: “Anyone who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not about building bridges, is not a Christian. This is not the Gospel.”

Trump then immediately hit back, saying, “If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which, as everyone knows, is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have become president.”

In 2021, in a rare public rift between the Vatican and U.S. bishops, the pope, through the institution, warned conservative U.S. bishops to “pull the brakes on their effort to deny communion to politicians who support abortion rights.” the new york times reported. The Vatican’s response came as some leading U.S. bishops questioned whether President Joe Biden communion because he supports a number of reproductive freedom measures. Biden is the first Roman Catholic to occupy the Oval Office in 60 years, since John F. Kennedy.

Francis, who called abortion a “plague” and a “crime” comparable to “mafia behavior,” said at the time that Communion “is not the reward of saints, but the bread of sinners.”

The pope has also criticized couples who choose to have pets over children, criticizing the Republican vice-presidential candidate and the new Catholic JD Vance“childless cat ladies” comments, in which he says that “denial” of paternity or motherhood “takes away our humanity.”

In October 2023, hundreds of delegates from around the world flocked to the Vatican, kicking off a month-long meeting as part of Pope Francis’ “Synod on Synodality,” a gathering to discuss the Church’s global goals and plans. For the first time ever, female delegates were allowed to participate.

A few months later, in December of last year, Francis issued new guidelines for gay couples who are Catholic, stating that their unions can be formally blessed as long as they are not mistaken for marriages. Queer couples, the letter made clear, cannot rely on “dress, gestures or words appropriate to marriage.”

Some of the pope’s positions on women and queerness are far from revolutionary, but they have unsettled a growing movement of a new kind of right-wing American Catholics.

Milo Yiannopoulosthe former Breitbart editor-in-chief who incited a racist campaign against the comedian Leslie Jones and was banned from Twitter for it in 2016, has called for “setting the Vatican straight” and “making America homophobic again.” (This is the same man who says he arranged the 2022 meeting between Trump and white nationalist Nick Fuentes.)

According to Pew, 20% of American adults describe themselves as Catholic and are generally older than the U.S. average, and three-quarters of this group would view Francis favorably. About six-in-ten Catholics say abortion should be legal, with 39% saying it should be legal in most cases and just 11% saying it should be illegal in all cases.

In the 2020 election, 52% of Catholic voters chose Biden, compared to 47% for Trump.

Despite his criticism of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, the leader of the Holy See said Catholics should vote.

“Not voting is ugly,” the 87-year-old pope said. “It is not good. You must vote.”

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