US Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are both “against life,” and Catholic voters should choose the “lesser evil,” Pope Francis told reporters on Friday.
Speaking to reporters while returning to Rome from Singapore, the pontiff said that “not voting is ugly,” and that the faithful “must vote.”
“You must choose the lesser evil,” he elaborated. “Who is the lesser evil? That lady, or that gentleman? I don’t know. Whether it is the one who is chasing away migrants, or the one that kills children, both are against life.”
If elected, Trump has promised to close off the US’ southern border and lead “the largest deportation operation in American history.” Harris has vowed to sign a law guaranteeing the same access to abortion as under Roe v. Wade, a landmark Supreme Court decision that was overturned in 2022.
Roe v. Wade protected a woman’s right to seek an abortion, but certain restrictions on this right – for instance, bans on abortion past the second trimester of pregnancy – were set out in subsequent legislation. Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, signed a bill in 2023 allowing abortions to be performed up to the moment of birth.
“To send migrants away, to leave them wherever you want, to leave them … it’s something terrible, there is evil there. To send away a child from the womb of the mother is an assassination, because there is life. We must speak about these things clearly,” Pope Francis told reporters on Friday.
The pontiff has consistently opposed abortion, in line with Catholic teaching. However, he has allowed priests to forgive abortions, and urged bishops not to deny communion to politicians who support the practice.
He has also taken a more liberal stance on immigration-related issues than his predecessors. During the 2016 presidential election, he criticized Trump’s proposal to wall off the US/Mexico border as “not Christian,” and in 2019 the Vatican donated $500,000 to 75,000 Central American migrants attempting to reach the US via Mexico.