VATICAN CITY (RNS) — A day after calling incoming President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan for migrants “a disgrace,” Pope Francis said Monday (Jan. 20) that he hopes the United States under the new administration will avoid “hatred, discrimination or exclusion.”
On Sunday, responding to a question by Italian television journalist Fabio Fazio, Francis said of the deportation program, “If this is true, it would be a disgrace, because it would make poor wretches, who have nothing, pay the price of the (world’s) inequality. That’s not right; this is not how you solve things.”
In the same interview, he stressed the importance of “welcoming, accompanying, promoting and integrating migrants.”
In his message for the United States’ Inauguration Day on Monday, Francis offered his prayers for the 47th president as he embarks on his second term. “Inspired by your nation’s ideals of being a land of opportunity and welcome for all, it is my hope that under your leadership the American people will prosper and always strive to build a more just society, where there is no room for hatred, discrimination or exclusion,” the statement said.
“At the same time, as our human family faces numerous challenges, not to mention the scourge of war, I also ask God to guide your effo …