The new “woke pope” seems to be trickling his wokeness down to even the ultraconservative Archbishop of San Francisco, who just joined more than 200 other US bishops in condemning Trump’s immigration crackdown.

There is no question that Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of the Archdiocese of San Francisco has long been a massive Trumper. He’s been virulently against same-sex marriage forever, he flouted COVID restrictions during the deadliest days of the pandemic, he never missed an opportunity to publicly attack Nancy Pelosi or then-President Joe Biden. His Twitter posts of late are often making a martyr out of Charlie Kirk. Trump even named Cordileone to his so-called Religious Liberty Commission.

But Cordileone just publicly rebuked Trump, seemingly for the first time. The Chronicle reports that Cordileone joined 216 Catholic bishops in making a statement to condemn the Trump administration’s mass deportation tactics. The statement was a “special statement” from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. That too is highly unusual, as special statements are considered a “particularly urgent way of speaking as a body of bishops,” and that conference has not issued any other special statements in the last 13 years.

The statement comes after the new Pope Leo XIV has publicly urged US bishops to condemn the immigration crackdowns last month.

“We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people,” the statement from the bishops said. “We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.”

The Chronicle reported in May that Catholic mass attendance was down by as much as 45% at some Mission District parishes, as ICE agents have been doing raids at churches in order to meet their Trump-mandated quotas of immigrants to arrest.

"We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools,” the statement continued. “We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones.”

You can read the full statement from the Catholic bishops here. It does not mention Trump by name, and only refers to "the leaders of our nation." Though while it is a strongly and compassionately worded statement, we cannot imagine it's going to have any influence on the thinking of Donald Trump.

Related: SF’s Nutty Archbishop Takes On Pelosi in National Advertising Campaign [SFist]

Image: @ArchCordileone via Twitter