Pope Francis 'exposes ugly truths' about Christianity and Vance’s Trumpism defense: analysis

12 February

Although Vice President JD Vance is quite popular among far-right white evangelicals and Christian nationalists, he isn't an evangelical himself. The "Hillbilly Elegy" author and former U.S. senator is a convert to Catholicism, and he argues that Trumpism is quite compatible with Christianity because it puts "American citizens first."

But not all Catholics share Vance's devotion to President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Former President Joe Biden and ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California), for example, consider themselves devout Catholics and are scathing critics of Trump. And now, Trump's immigration policies are drawing condemnation from the most prominent figure in the Catholic Church: Pope Francis.

In an open letter published on the Vatican's website on Tuesday, February 11, Pope Francis wrote, "I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations. The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality. At the same time, one must recognize the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival."

Pope Francis continued, "That said, the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness."

The New Republic's Greg Sargent examines the contrast between Vance and Pope Francis' views in an article published on February 12.

Sargent argues that the Pope's "remarkable" open letter "exposes some ugly truths about 'America First' Trumpism — and about the high-minded-sounding justifications that Vance is using to paper them over."

"First, Pope Francis correctly identified a big problem with Vance's defense of Trumpism," the New Republic journalist explains. "Vance wants us to believe that Trump's immigration policies reflect a good-faith ordering of our ethical obligations: Trump might not want to deport all undocumented immigrants, but this is required of him by his proper duty to American citizens. But there is no way to reconcile Vance's innocent rendering of 'America First' with what we're seeing right now. Trump's policies are built on a massive ratcheting back or withdrawal of our obligations to enormous numbers of people outside our borders — or outside our legal structures — who are making moral appeals on us, appeals that the United States under administrations of both parties has recognized for decades."

Sargent adds that the gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) by the Trump Administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) "put nearly $500 million of food assistance at risk of spoilage."

"As former USAID official Jeremy Konyndyk tells me, it's likely this food is bound for places suffering from 'active famine' and 'major food emergencies,'" Sargent observes. "The Trump-Musk cuts evince an extraordinarily wanton lack of concern for the global poor. They practically proclaim this proudly."

Read Greg Sargent's full article for The New Republic at this link and Pope Francis' open letter here.

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