In the final days of his life, Pope Francis did not go quiet. Instead, he made one last, bold move—calling out President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement for what he saw as their cruelty toward the poor, the marginalized, and especially migrants.
The 88-year-old pope, who died Monday, used his last public address during Easter to deliver a pointed message. From the balcony at the Vatican, weakened but unwavering, he asked the world, “How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized and migrants?” His words, though not naming Trump directly, were a clear shot at the hardline immigration stance that has defined the MAGA agenda.
Just a day before, Francis met with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, a staunch Trump ally, at the Vatican. According to The Daily Beast, the meeting was cordial. Francis gave Easter eggs to Vance’s children. Vance told the pope, “It’s good to see you in better health.” But behind the niceties, tension simmered. The pope’s Easter speech made it clear: he was not backing down.
While Bloomberg reported that the private conversation between Francis and Vance focused on Trump’s so-called “commitment to restoring world peace,” immigration was noticeably absent. Still, Francis didn’t need a private meeting to speak his mind. He used his platform to draw a line between compassion and political cruelty.
This wasn’t the first time Francis clashed with Trump-world. Earlier in the year, he issued a strong critique of Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019. Francis said, “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups.” Vance, brushing it off, called himself a “baby Catholic” and admitted, “There are things about the faith that I don’t know.”
Francis also made headlines in February when he reacted to reports of mass deportations being floated by Trump and his allies. On the Italian show Che Tempo Che Fa, he said, “If true, this will be a disgrace… This is not the way to solve things.”
The pope’s opposition to Trump’s policies wasn’t new. During Trump’s first term, Francis blasted the U.S. border wall plan as “not Christian.” Trump fired back, calling him “disgraceful” and “a very political person.” But in 2017, they met in person, and Trump later called it the “honor of a lifetime.”
Still, that didn’t stop Francis from speaking his truth. Even as his health declined, he kept confronting what he saw as the moral failures of the MAGA movement—especially the way it treats the least protected in society.
As The Beast noted, Pope Francis’s refusal to stay silent in the face of political power, especially from Trump and his allies, will define his legacy. He didn’t just preach love—he demanded it from those in power. And in his final act, he made sure the world knew where he stood.
