Pope Francis said that American voters face the choice between “the lesser evil” in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, taking aim at both Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump, and emphasizing that he believes both are running for president on anti-life policies.
“Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants or the one who (supports) killing babies,” Francis said, speaking to journalists aboard the papal plane Friday, as reported by The Associated Press. “Both are against life.”
The in-flight press conference, which took place on a chartered flight from Singapore to Jakarta as part of a 12-day tour, saw the Pope urge Catholics to vote with their conscience.
“In political morality, in general they say that if you don’t vote, it’s not good, it’s bad. You have to vote, and you have to choose the lesser evil,” he said.
“Who is the lesser evil, the woman or man? I don’t know.”
Although he did not mention either candidate by name, he alluded to both of their platforms as being against the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Francis has made the plight of migrants a priority of his pontificate and speaks out emphatically and frequently about it. While strongly upholding church teaching forbidding abortion, Francis has not emphasized church doctrine as much as his predecessors.
“To have an abortion is to kill a human being. You may like the word or not, but it’s killing,” he said Friday. “We have to see this clearly.”
Francis said migration is a right described in scripture and that anyone who does not follow the Biblical call to welcome the stranger is committing a “grave sin.”
While popes generally don’t wade into politics, it’s not the first time Francis has shared his thoughts on a U.S. election. In 2016, during the run-up to the presidential election, he said that Trump’s plan to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out migrants “is not Christian.”
The U.S. bishops conference, for its part, has called abortion the “preeminent priority” for American Catholics in its published voter advice. Harris has strongly defended abortion rights and has emphasized support for reinstating a federal right to abortion.
In his comments, the Pope added: “On abortion, science says that a month from conception, all the organs of a human being are already there, all of them. Performing an abortion is killing a human being. Whether you like the word or not, this is killing. You can’t say the church is closed because it does not allow abortion. The church does not allow abortion because it’s killing. It is murder.”
According to the Catholic News Agency, Francis’ remarks about voting for “the lesser evil” refers to the Catholic’s longstanding teaching “that when faced with a choice between candidates who aren’t wholly aligned with the Church’s position on fundamental ‘nonnegotiable’ issues — such as the sanctity of life, marriage, and religious freedom — it is permissible to cast a vote against the candidate who would do the most harm.”
The Pope’s comments come just days after the first presidential debate, in which abortion and migration were significant topics.
— with files from The Associated Press