Border czar Tom Homan told Catholic Church leaders to "stay out of politics" after President Donald Trump publicly criticized Pope Leo XIV, widening an already sharp rift between the White House and the Vatican over immigration enforcement and foreign policy.

Homan, a lifelong Catholic, framed his remarks not as an attack on the faith but as a challenge to Church hierarchy. He said he wished bishops and other leaders would sit down with him to hear what he has seen enforcing the border, and what happens when it goes unenforced.

The comments, reported by EWTN News, came after Trump initiated a direct, personal denunciation of Pope Leo XIV, escalated it publicly, and doubled down in media appearances. Trump called the pontiff "weak on crime, and terrible for foreign policy." Several U.S. bishops responded by defending the pope. Homan chose a different lane, telling the clergy to mind theirs.

Homan's challenge to the bishops

Homan did not mince words. He acknowledged his own membership in the Church, then drew a line between spiritual authority and policy advocacy:

"I love the Catholic Church. I just wish they'd stick to fixing the Church, because there's issues. I know because I'm a member. And stay out of politics."

He went further, suggesting that Church leaders lack firsthand knowledge of the border crisis and its human toll. He invited them to learn from his experience rather than lecture from a distance.

"Maybe they'd understand why a secure border saves lives. A secure border's the most humane thing this country can do."

That framing, secure borders as a humanitarian act, not a cruel one, has been central to the Trump administration's defense of its enforcement posture. Homan has made the argument repeatedly, and it carries weight precisely because he pairs it with his Catholic identity. He is not an outsider attacking the Church. He is a parishioner telling his bishops they are wrong on the facts.

The Washington Examiner reported that Homan has also compared the Vatican's own security walls to U.S. border enforcement, noting that penalties for jumping the wall at the Vatican "are much harder than the ones here in the United States." He told the pope directly: "You ought to be fixing the Catholic Church because they got their own issues."

Bishops rally around Pope Leo

Several prominent U.S. Catholic bishops pushed back, not against Homan specifically, but against Trump's tone toward the pontiff. Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez defended Pope Leo XIV's record of speaking on global challenges.

"Pope Leo XIV has consistently spoken with clarity and compassion with calls for peaceful resolutions to complex challenges in a manner that upholds the sanctity and dignity of all human life as our world continues to be afflicted with division, conflict, and suffering."

Pérez added that "both the pope and his message deserve respect and admiration." Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, called Trump's comments "disrespectful" and urged the president to apologize.

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Archbishop of Oklahoma City, said he was "disheartened" by the remarks. The broader clash between the White House and the Vatican has been building for months, and Coakley's measured language reflected an institution trying to defend its leader without escalating the confrontation further.

Archbishop Mark S. Rivituso of Mobile, Alabama, echoed Coakley's views in a statement posted to social media. He affirmed the pope's role "as a spiritual leader who speaks from the Gospel and for the care of souls."

Rivituso urged the faithful to stand with the pope, but he also struck a conciliatory note that Homan's critics largely did not:

"I ask for all to pray for our president and all in public office to work for a greater peace and justice in our world."

A pattern, not a one-off

Homan's comments did not arrive in a vacuum. The border czar has been publicly challenging the Vatican's stance on immigration for months. Breitbart News reported in February 2026 that Homan said Pope Leo XIV "misunderstands" the harms of illegal migration, arguing that stronger border enforcement reduces rape, trafficking, fentanyl deaths, and migrant deaths. He cited a figure of illegal immigration being down 96 percent under President Trump, claiming the decline is "saving thousands of lives every year."

That claim, whether the bishops like it or not, puts the moral argument on different ground. If fewer people are dying in the desert, drowning in the Rio Grande, or being trafficked by cartels because fewer are making the journey, then the administration's enforcement-first approach has a humanitarian case to make. Homan has made it bluntly: "Illegal migration is not a victimless crime."

The tension between Catholic bishops and the Trump administration runs deeper than rhetoric. Bishops have broadly supported legalizing or accommodating more migrants, while Trump officials argue for legal, orderly immigration and stricter enforcement. That divide is philosophical, and it is not new. But the personal nature of Trump's criticism of Pope Leo has sharpened it considerably.

Fox News reported that Homan said he would welcome a discussion with Pope Leo XIV but maintained that the Vatican should stay out of immigration policy. "I wish they'd stay out of immigration, they don't know what they're talking about," Homan said of Vatican leaders.

Vance backs the line

Homan is not alone in the administration. Vice President JD Vance weighed in as well, drawing a sharper institutional boundary. Fox News reported that Vance said, "In some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality... and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy."

That formulation, morality over here, policy over there, is a deliberate rhetorical move. It does not deny the pope's spiritual authority. It denies his policy authority. And it reflects a growing view inside the administration that the Vatican has overstepped by weighing in on specific enforcement decisions rather than confining itself to broad moral principles.

Pope Leo XIV, for his part, has responded briefly and calmly to the president's criticism, declining to engage in debate and reframing his remarks as moral teaching rather than political rebuttal. That restraint has won him praise from bishops and Catholic commentators, but it has not quieted the White House.

The Newsmax account of the clash described it as part of a broader public confrontation between Trump and Pope Leo over immigration and foreign policy, a confrontation that has grown more personal with each round.

The real question the bishops won't answer

What Homan is asking, however bluntly, is a question that deserves a serious answer: Have the bishops spent time at the border? Have they talked to the families of fentanyl victims? Have they sat with Border Patrol agents who pull dead migrants from the desert? Have they looked at the trafficking data?

The bishops' statements in response to Trump's criticism of Pope Leo were measured, respectful, and focused on defending the pontiff's dignity. Fair enough. But none of them engaged with Homan's underlying point, that the Church's immigration advocacy is disconnected from the operational reality of an open border.

The dispute between the Vatican and the White House now spans immigration, foreign policy, and the Iran conflict. It shows no sign of cooling. And as the administration digs in, the question for Catholic leaders is not whether they have the right to speak on policy, of course they do, but whether they are willing to grapple with the consequences of the policies they advocate.

Homan says a secure border saves lives. The bishops say compassion demands openness. Somewhere between those positions are the actual people, migrants, border communities, American families, who live with the results. They deserve more than slogans from either side.

When Church leaders lecture on border policy but decline the border czar's invitation to see the crisis firsthand, they make his point for him.