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Guantanamo.- Pope Francis has encouraged Catholics in the United States to vote in the November elections, saying they should \u201cchoose the lesser evil\u201d while criticising both of the leading candidates.<\/p>\nGuantanamo.- Pope Francis has encouraged Catholics in the United States to vote in the November elections, saying they should \u201cchoose the lesser evil\u201d while criticising both of the leading candidates.<\/p>\n
Without naming the two main U.S. presidential candidates, the pontiff decried abortion and restrictions on immigration.<\/p>\n
In remarks on Friday while flying to Rome from Singapore, the pope named neither the Republican nor Democratic presidential nominees: former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, respectively.<\/p>\n
But he offered pointed criticisms of their platforms, saying refusing to welcome immigrants is a \u201cgrave\u201d sin and abortion is akin to an \u201cassassination.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot voting is ugly,\u201d Francis said. \u201cIt is not good. You must vote.\u201d And he added: \u201cYou must choose the lesser evil. Who is the lesser evil? That lady or that gentleman? I don\u2019t know. Everyone, in conscience, [has to] think and do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 87-year-old pontiff made the comments as the U.S. presidential elections are entering the final weeks, with voting scheduled for November 5th. While conservative on social issues like abortion, Francis has been one of the foremost critics of rich countries embracing increasingly restrictive immigration policies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether it is the one who is chasing away migrants or the one who kills children,\u201d the pope said, \u201cboth are against life.\u201d The U.S. is home to about 52 million Catholics, a conservative-leaning constituency that is well-represented in several key swing states, such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.<\/p>\n
Polling by the Pew Research Center indicated that about 52 percent of U.S. Catholics identify with or lean towards the Republican Party, compared with about 44 percent for the Democratic Party. But the centre noted that the Catholics, in the past, have been \u201cclosely divided.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his comments on Friday, which came after a 12-day tour across Southeast Asia and Oceania, Francis also lamented the lack of progress towards a peace deal to bring Israel\u2019s war in Gaza to a close.<\/p>\n
\u201cForgive me for saying so, but I don\u2019t see any progress being made towards peace,\u201d he told reporters on board the papal plane, adding that an Israeli strike on a school this week that killed Palestinian children was \u201cugly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guantanamo.- Pope Francis has encouraged Catholics in the United States to vote in the November elections, saying they should \u201cchoose the lesser evil\u201d while criticising both of the leading candidates. Without naming the two main U.S. presidential candidates, the pontiff decried abortion and restrictions on immigration. In remarks on Friday while flying to Rome from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internacionales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9872"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9874,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9872\/revisions\/9874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}