Pope calls Trump's threat of mass deportation a 'disgrace'

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- On the eve of U.S. President Donald Trump's inauguration, Pope Francis said the new president's threat to begin a massive deportation of immigrants would be a "disgrace."

In an interview on Italian television Jan. 19, the pope said that if Trump carries out his threat "it will be a disgrace, because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing pay the bill" for problems in the United States.

"This won't do! You don't resolve things this way," the pope told the interviewer, Fabio Fazio, host of a popular Sunday night talk show.

Much of the interview focused on stories Pope Francis told in "Hope: The Autobiography," a book he wrote with Italian editor Carlo Musso. The book was released Jan. 14.

When speaking about immigration, Pope Francis did not focus on the United States alone.

"Italy now has a median age of 46 years. Think about that. They don't have children," the pope said. The population is declining and there are fewer workers paying the taxes needed to cover health care and pensions for the elderly.

"If you aren't having children, let migrants in," the pope said.

Fazio also asked Pope Francis about his appointment of Consolata Sister Simona Brambilla as the first woman prefect of a Vatican dicastery and about the role of women in the church in the future.

While the process of women being given leadership roles in the Roman Curia "is something that has gone slowly," the pope said it is going well, and he announced that in March Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist Raffaella Petrini, secretary-general of the office governing Vatican City State, will become president of the office. She will succeed Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, who will turn 80 March 1.

Fazio asked Pope Francis what his first thought was when it became clear that the world's cardinals were about to elect him pope during the conclave in March 2013.

"They're crazy! But God's will be done," he responded.

In the book, "Hope: The Autobiography," Pope Francis wrote that as soon as he had dressed in his new white soutane, he went out to greet Indian Cardinal Ivan Dias and stumbled.

"It's true! It was the pope's first stumble," he told Fazio. "I went to greet Cardinal Dias who was in a wheelchair and I didn't see the step and I tripped. The 'infallible' pope started with a fall," he said, using air quotes when he said, "infallible."