'60 Minutes' Platforms Leftist Catholic Cardinals Bashing Trump, 'Lawless' ICE

Tim Graham
April 13th, 2026 5:02 PM

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The elitist media’s treatment of the Catholic Church is entirely ideological. When Catholic leaders take moral positions Democrats favor, they are heroes. When they sound moral alarms that Republicans favor, they are either disparaged or ignored (more often ignored).

On Sunday’s 60 Minutes, the apparently mandatory anti-Trump segment was an interview with three Cardinals everyone associated with “progressive” Pope Francis – Blasé Cupich of Chicago, Robert McElroy of Washington DC, and Joseph Tobin of Newark. The two big anti-Trump topics were the war in Iran and mass deportation. There were no questions on abortion or gender ideology or nuns suing the Democrat governor of New York.

Norah O’Donnell, who was granted an interview with Pope Francis in 2024 – where she also hammered on immigration and called on the pontiff to denounce “climate deniers” (he called them “foolish”) – was back to provide another platform for the leftist-pleasing prelates.

O'Donnell noted that Pope Leo "appeared" to be criticizing Pete Hegseth in a Palm Sunday homily. CBS quoted Hegseth, and typically failed to note Hegseth was quoting from the Psalms. She asked "Is this a just war?" Cardinal McElroy hit the right note for CBS: "No. Under Catholic teaching, this is not a just war." 

But O'Donnell deserves some credit for noting "Iran has been the chief exporter of terror. Is there no scenario in which preventing that can be a just war?" The answer was contradictory: McElroy said "It's an abominable regime, and it should be removed," but it's still an unjust war somehow. 

Cardinal Cupich was cued to denounce social-media videos glamorizing war -- that's an easy one. Then they shifted to deportations. O'Donnell noted Cardinal Tobin called ICE a "lawless organization," sounding exactly like Democrats. She asked: "Why did you do that?" He claimed "I didn’t say that they were people without law. But when people act in this way, when they have to hide their identities to terrify people, when they can actually violate other guarantees of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, well, I think somebody's got to call that out and I'm not the only one."

O'Donnell did not ask whether an illegal immigrant is "lawless," or whether sneaking into our country is sinful in any way. They just moved on, to Cardinal McElroy complaining that "fear" of deportation is causing smaller attendance at Spanish-language masses. O'Donnell noted McElroy thought the border was "getting out of control" under Biden, but now the government is rounding up "people who have been living good, strong lives." Again O'Donnell pushed back a bit: 

O’DONNELL: But this was discussed during the campaign. It was widely discussed. And yet President Trump won the Catholic vote over Kamala Harris handily, 55 to 43 percent. He promised to secure the border. He talked about deportation. And a majority of Catholics voted for the policy.

CUPICH: I would like to know what Catholics feel about this indiscriminate mass deportation. I think that it’s very clear the American people are saying, "We really didn't vote for this."

This is where church leaders sound more like Sunday-morning pundits than moral witnesses. Maybe Catholics voted for Trump because of those other undiscussed issues -- abortion, LGBTQ, religious freedom. 

Finally, O'Donnell could not suppress several grins over the optics of the American-born pope spending July 4 on the Italian island of Lampedusa to sympathize with all the migrants arriving there to spread out over Europe. How deliciously anti-Trump! 

O'DONNELL: Pope Leo will spend July 4th in Lampedusa, Italy, a site where tens of thousands of migrants land on their way to Europe every year. It's America's 250th birthday. Do you think the Holy Father is sending a message, Cardinal, with that visit?

CUPICH: He's sending a message that his top priority right now is to be with those who are downcast and marginalized.

Then came the sappy Statue of Liberty reference:

O'DONNELL: Coincidence that he's going there on July 4th?

TOBIN: I know at least one member of my archdiocese that will be happy and she`s green, and she's on a little island just -- that belongs to New Jersey and is technically part of the Archdiocese of Newark. And she's holding up a torch, and she's reading from a scroll, and it says, "Welcome."

So, once again, the notion that Bari Weiss is "ruining" things by turning CBS toward the center isn't coming true.

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