Rome — Pope Francis weighed in Friday on the choices for voters within the 2024 U.S. presidential election, indicating to reporters on the papal plane as he returned from a marathon Asia trip that each Vice President Kamala Harris and her Republican challenger, former President Donald Trump, are, in his opinion, “against life.”
Asked by CBS News what he would advise a Catholic voter forced to make a choice from a candidate who backs abortion rights and one who has said he would have 11 million migrants deported, the pope said: “They are each against life — the one who throws away migrants and the one who kills children.”
The pope addressed the topics, each of which featured prominently within the presidential debate between Harris and Trump on Tuesday night, as he spoke with journalists on a flight from Singapore to Jakarta, making his way back to Rome from a 12-day, 20,000 mile tour of Asia and the Pacific.
Simone Risoluti/Getty
Asked whether there have been any circumstances under which it might be morally permissible for a Catholic to vote for a candidate who does support abortion rights, Francis said when considering political morality, “one must vote.”
“One must select the lesser of two evils,” he said. “Who is the lesser of two evils, that lady or that gentleman, I have no idea.”
Pope Francis said American Catholic voters would should examine their conscience and make that call before going to the polls.
“It needs to be clear that sending migrants away, denying migrants the capability to work, to not welcome migrants, it’s a sin. It is grave,” the pope said.
Francis said immigration was a right that dates back to biblical times, and noted that it was repeated within the Old Testament of the Bible that the people of Israel had an obligation “to care for the orphan, the widow and the stranger — that’s, the migrant.”
Francis also reiterated the Catholic Church’s position that abortion is murder.
“Whether you just like the word or not, it’s a killing,” he said. “It is an assassination, and on this we must always be clear.”
