While reflecting on the legacy of the late Pope Francis, Megyn Kelly was highly critical of his stances on a variety of social issues.
On Monday morning, the Vatican announced the death of the Pope. His death followed a prolonged respiratory illness that began in February, and his cause of death was officially determined to be cardiocirculatory collapse after suffering a stroke shortly after waking up. Pope Francis was 88 years old.
Francis — who was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio — was viewed as a more reformist Pope. He publicly chastised American politicians for their treatment of illegal immigrants and also expressed an open-mindedness toward the LGBTQ community while boasting compassion as a central tenet of his faith.
On Monday’s episode of The Megyn Kelly Show, Kelly explained why such views complicated his legacy, saying:
He clashed with President Trump over Trump’s immigration policy, saying before the [2016] election that a person who thinks only about building walls and not of building bridges is not Christian. This is why he was controversial amongst, in particular, a lot of Christians here in America who tend to be more conservative. The Trump campaign responded by pointing out that the Vatican is surrounded by walls. We saw that exact thing happen a couple of weeks ago where, once again, he was ripping on Trump’s policies when it comes to immigration; and, once again, we had Tom Homan coming out and saying, “My response as a
lifelong Catholic to this pope is that the Vatican has walls. Why is that?”Ahead of the 2024 election, the Pope declined to say whether people should vote for Trump or [Kamala Harris], merely urging people to choose the lesser evil according to their conscience; but in a letter to U.S. bishops in February, Pope Francis wrote that mass deportation “damages the dignity of many men and women and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.”Now look, this is the problem because not only is that the church’s official stance, but the church has been participating in getting immigrants here and then finding them housing and helping them stay here, irrespective of the fact that they’re here illegally; and Pope Francis didn’t have to deal with that. It’s caused a lot of us in the Catholic Church to wonder what exactly we’re donating toward on Sunday. It really does. It’s one thing if you want to help support your priests, make sure that they’re well taken care of, make sure your church is well taken care of, make sure it’s got flowers on the altar for Easter Mass; but funding illegals coming into the country? They’re not all upstanding Catholics.And, you know, a lot of us who are Catholic but lean right felt this tug-of-war going onbetween the Pope’s messaging and what he wanted us to believe were, you know, deep Catholic teachings, and what we understand as Americans who are watching our citizens murdered in the streets by these people to be true.
Watch the clip above.