Pope Leo spoke out today about the Trump administration's approach to mass deportation and the treatment of some immigrants.

The Pope was asked about Catholic bishops who've been critical of those policies.

In a so-called special pastoral message, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops decried the, quote,

indiscriminate deportation campaign and said they are

quote praying for an end to the dehumanizing rhetoric and violence the Pope

offered his support for that message this evening I appreciate very much what

the bishops have said I think it's a very important statement I would

invite especially all Catholics, but people of

goodwill to listen carefully to what they said. I think we have to look for ways of treating

people humanely, treating people with the dignity that they have. If people are in the United

States illegally, there are ways to treat that. There are courts. There's a system of justice.

Before the Pope's remarks, I spoke with one of the bishops behind that immigration message.

That's Bishop Mark Sites of El Paso, Texas, who met with the Pope this fall.

Bishop Sites, welcome to the NewsHour.

Thanks for joining us.

It's great to be with you, I'm not.

So as we noted there, this kind of message is very rare. What did you and other bishops see that said to you,

it's necessary to deliver this message and right now? Well, I think probably there were a lot of people

that would have liked to have heard from us as a body even sooner.

But it's a complicated matter with 300 plus bishops in the United States to come together around a statement,

even though there is a high deal of unanimity in terms of the issue itself to come together on the words is challenging,

and we undertook that process at our last meeting.

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