Letter to the editor: Pope rebuked Trump, Vance over mass deportations, Brunswick Beacon

Brunswick Beacon, 05.01.25

World leaders praised the life and legacy of Pope Francis, who passed away hours after meeting VP Vance on Easter Sunday. Francis used his last moments to reinforce his 2016 criticism of Trump’s mass deportations of migrants as a “disgrace,” “not the gospel,” and “not Christian.” Francis said he prayed that America would live up to its ideals of being a “land of opportunity and welcome for all.”

Francis was the first Latin American pope. Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina to Italian immigrants who fled Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime, his life was a testament to both the desperation and the contributions of immigrant refugees. 

On Jan. 30, Vance defended Trump’s mass deportations, saying Americans should love family, neighbors, community, fellow citizens and foreigners in descending order of importance. “Just google ‘ordo amoris,’” Vance wrote, referring to a Catholic doctrine translated as “order of love.”

On Feb. 10, Pope Francis responded, reminding us that the baby Jesus was an immigrant, a refugee in Egypt fleeing the tyranny of King Herod. He deplored Trump’s treatment of immigrant refugees as criminals and rejected Vance’s lack of compassion. “Christian love,” said Francis, “is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups,” but “a fraternity open to all.”

Trump’s Easter message called immigrants “criminals,” “murderers, drug lords, dangerous prisoners, the mentally insane…MS-13 gang members and wife beaters,” engaged in a “sinister attack on our Nation…so violent that it will never be forgotten!” 

The Pope’s Easter message rejected Trump’s “program of mass deportations,” noting “how much contempt is stirred up towards the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants!” He asked us to “hope anew and to revive our trust in others…for all of us are children of God!” 

Pope Francis’ message was clear: you can embrace Christ’s example of love and inclusion, or Trump and Vance’s example of hate and exclusion. You cannot do both.

Eileen Farrell

Sunset Beach