It’s also a topic which resonates personally with Francis. In his new autobiography, the Pope recalled how his paternal grandparents and father had planned to sail in 1927 on the Principessa Mafalda from Italy to Argentina, which sank with the loss of many lives, but ended up making a later crossing.

If this is true it is a disgrace because it makes the poor unfortunate who have nothing pay the price of imbalance. This is not how things are solved,” the pope said on Italian TV.

Pope Francis on Sunday criticized President-elect Donald Trump's reported plan to sharply intensify immigration enforcement actions across the U.S. in the days after his inauguration.