Saint Joseph Catholic Church

A majority of Catholic voters in the US support the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, despite sharp criticism by American bishops, a new poll shows.

The survey found 54% of Catholics supporting the deportation of illegal immigrants, while 30% opposed the drive. Support for the Trump policy was strongest among white Catholic voters. Notably, however, the crackdown also drew more support (41%) than opposition (39%) among Latino voters.

On another controversial issue, a 55% majority of Catholic voters support the death penalty, again despite opposition from their bishops.

Among Catholics who attend Mass regularly, Trump enjoys solid overall support, with 67% viewing him favorably. Trump also scores well with male Catholics, winning a 62% favorable rating.

Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s “border czar,” said that the Catholic Church should “support keeping the community safe again,” in an interview with Raymond Arroyo of EWTN.

Homan stressed that the crackdown on illegal immigration is directed primarly a “public-safety threats and national security threats.” But he added that anyone who is in the US illegally is subject to arrest.

Homan, who is Catholic, said that he has not been approached by bishops who criticize the administration’s policies, but he is “willing to sit down with anybody in the Catholic Church and talk about it.”

In a December 12 address to officials of Italy’s Information System for the Security of the Republic, Pope Leo XIV encouraged them to maintain an ethical perspective on their work.

Recognizing the importance of intelligence work to protect public safety, the Pope encouraged them to “work not only with professionalism, but also with an ethical perspective that takes into account at least two essential aspects: respect for human dignity and the ethics of communication.”

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Pope Leo XIV marked the centenary of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology by issuing an apostolic letter today on the importance of archaeology.

In the apostolic letter—the sixth of his pontificate—Pope Leo wrote that archaeology “reminds us that God chose to speak in a human language, to walk the earth and to inhabit places, houses, synagogues and streets.”

“By concentrating on the physical traces of faith, archaeology educates us in a theology of the senses: a theology that knows how to see, touch, smell and listen,” he said. “By examining stones, ruins and other artifacts, it teaches us that nothing touched by faith is insignificant ... In this sense, archaeology is also a school of humility.”

At the conclusion of his general audience yesterday, Pope Leo XIV recalled the 60th anniversary of the Letter of Reconciliation of the Polish Bishops to the German Bishops, written two decades after the conclusion of World War II.

The message “changed the history of Europe,” Pope Leo told Polish-speaking pilgrims. “May the words of that document—‘We forgive and ask forgiveness’—be for the peoples in conflict today a testimony that reconciliation and forgiveness are possible when they are born of a mutual desire for peace and a common commitment, in truth, for the good of humanity.”

The Vatican omitted Pope Leo’s words from its English translation of his remarks.

On December 9, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, marked the anniversary in an Italian-language address at Pontifical Gregorian University.