“JD Vance is wrong,” the future-pope wrote on Feb. 3, echoing the title of the op-ed in the National Catholic Reporter.
WASHINGTON — In his final social media post as a cardinal, the future-Pope Leo XIV shared a sermon by a Washington auxiliary bishop criticizing the President Donald Trump administration’s deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
The post on X, formerly known as Twitter, was originally uploaded on April 14 by Rocco Palmo, a Catholic blogger and commentator based in Philadelphia, about a week before Pope Francis died.
Attached to the tweet is an Associated Press article by journalist Ben Finley, titled “Who is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man ICE mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison?,” along with a sermon titled, “This Ordeal is the Passion,” by Archdiocese of Washington Auxiliary Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala. The sermon, posted to the archdiocese of Washington’s official newspaper “The Catholic Standard” calls some of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, “horrifying.”
“Most egregiously, the government has now claimed the authority to unilaterally seize certain people based on mere suspicion, or because of their tattoos and send them to a prison in El Salvador accused of human rights abuses — all without review by a court to even determine their identity,” Menjivar-Ayala writes in the sermon, retweeted by the future pope. “The government admits some have been wrongfully deported, but officials are fighting against attempts to right these wrongs.”
Like Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, Menjivar-Ayala was born in El Salvador. Before he was deported in March, Abrego Garcia was among those who lived under the Archdiocese of Washington, which includes several Maryland counties. While Trump immigration officials have called the Maryland man’s deportation “an administrative error,” the president and his allies have continued to claim without evidence that Abrego Garcia is a member of the terrorist organization and gang, MS-13.
The re-post by future Pope Leo XIV also references this nationality connection between Abrego Garcia and Menjivar-Ayala. The April post on X was written by Palmo.
“Once an (undocumented) Salvadorean himself, now DC (auxiliary bishop),” Palmo writes of Menjivar-Ayala.
The X post then paraphrases from Menjivar-Ayala’s sermon.
“Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?,”
Leo XIV used his birth-name “Robert Prevost” on his X account and the handle “@drprevost,” a reference to a doctorate in canon law he earned in 1987 from the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas in Vatican City. Prevost’s bio reads in Spanish, “Catolico, agustino, Obispo,” which translates to “Catholic, Augustinian, bishop.” His profile photo shows the future-pope in a vestment, embracing Pope Francis. The pontiff’s X account was created in 2011.
In the auxiliary-bishop’s sermon, Menjivar-Ayala also appeared to reference the administration’s deportation of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, who was detained by immigration authorities in March, before going on to criticize Abrego Garcia’s deportation.
“The video of a student being accosted by masked agents after her visa was revoked without notice — apparently because of an op-ed she co-wrote years ago — is horrifying,” Menjivar-Ayala writes.
In February, the future-pope also posted op-eds critical of comments made by Vice President JD Vance, in reference to his interpretation of the frequently quoted Bible verse from the Gospel of Mark: “love your neighbor as yourself.” Applied to U.S. policy, Vance said he interpreted this verse to mean, “love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world.”
In what appears to be his last original post on social media, Leo XIV, then known as Cardinal Robert Prevost, pushed back against the vice president.
“JD Vance is wrong,” the future-pope wrote on Feb. 3, echoing the title of the op-ed in the National Catholic Reporter, “Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”
Both Vance and Trump have congratulated Leo XIV, since his election to the papacy Thursday. Vance is only the second Catholic to serve as vice president.
“I’m sure millions of American Catholics and other Christians will pray for his successful work leading the Church,” Vance said Thursday. “May God bless him!”
Trump called Leo XIV’s election, “a great honor for our country.”
“I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV,” Trump said Thursday. “It will be a very meaningful moment!”