Pope Francis had quite a busy weekend. In a rare TV interview, he slammed President-elect Donald Trump’s call for the mass deportation of immigrants in the U.S. as a “disgrace.” He also made his first appearance on TikTok, which was briefly banned in the States on Sunday, to promote his new autobiography “Hope.”
The 88-year-old pontiff was asked about the incoming Trump administration’s plans to deport undocumented immigrants in a 40-minute conversation with talk show host Fabio Fazio on “Che Tempo Che Fa”, aired by the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned Italian channel Nove.
“If it is true, it will be a disgrace, because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing pay the unpaid bill. It won’t do. This is not the way to solve things,” Francis said during the interview to promote “Hope,” which is being released in over 80 countries.
“Che Tempo Che Fa,” which is Italy’s most popular talk show, is produced by Banijay Italia label L’Officina.
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Courtesy Banijay
Francis also took to TikTok for the first time to tout “Hope” — which is the first memoir by a sitting pope — in a clip released Sunday by Italian publisher Mondadori. In the video, the Pope thanked journalist Carlo Musso, who wrote the book with him, for “his patience” in listening to his memories.
The Catholic Church’s leader, who has made calls for migrants to be welcomed and integrated into societies a key plank of his papacy, underlines in the memoir how the topic resonates with him personally. In “Hope,” he recounts how his paternal grandparents and father intended to sail from Italy to Argentina in 1927 on a ship called the Principessa Mafalda, which sank off the coast of Brazil and cost 300 lives. They ended up reaching Argentina on a subsequent voyage.
As Trump moves back into the White House, Francis also appears to be ready to take a critical approach to the new administration with the appointment of Cardinal Robert McElroy as the next Archbishop of Washington, D.C. McElroy has described the mass deportation of immigrants as “incompatible with Catholic doctrine,” according to CNN.