Roman Catholic voters have been a pivotal swing vote in United States presidential elections for decades. Since secularists usually vote Democrat and evangelicals typically vote Republican, the Catholic swing vote usually determines the outcome of the election. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump recognizes this fact and likely picked a pro-life Roman Catholic as his running mate to help him win the religious vote.

The latest Pew Research Center survey, conducted from August 26 to September 2, shows that 61 percent of white Catholics support Trump, while 65 percent of Hispanic Catholics support Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Since Hispanic Catholics make up 45 percent of the Catholics in the U.S., the Catholic vote will likely be pretty evenly divided between Trump and Harris this election cycle.

Pope Francis has condemned both candidates, telling journalists at a press conference: “Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants or the one who supports killing babies. Both are against life. … One should vote and choose the lesser evil. Who is the lesser evil, the woman or the man? I don’t know.”

This statement let the world know that Pope Francis supports open borders and opposes abortion, but it did not give Catholics any guidance about how to vote. The U.S. bishops’ conference has published a document, however, designating abortion as the “preeminent priority” for Catholic voters this cycle. So it seems the Catholic Church will begrudgingly support Trump, while opposing his border security policies.

The Bible is clear that the life of an unborn child is equal to that of an adult (Exodus 21:22-23). If a person’s actions caused an unborn child to die, God judged him the same as a person who had killed an adult. This means that abortion is murder. Yet the Bible does not say nations must have an open border.

The Old Testament gives the same law for “him that is homeborn” and “the stranger that sojourneth among you” (Exodus 12:49), yet there is no scripture allowing illegal immigration. In other words, you have to treat legal aliens the same as you treat citizens, but you are allowed to deport illegal aliens. The pope is twisting scripture to make it sound like a national border is sinful.

The current split between white and Hispanic Catholics highlights a prophesied split between the “king’s chapel” and the “Holy Roman Empire.” Amos 7:13 describes the king’s chapel as a religious movement supporting an end-time type of King Jeroboam ii. Since Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has identified Donald Trump as this Jeroboam antitype, the chapel is primarily made up of evangelical Christians and pro-Trump Catholics who want to defend America’s borders from a hoard of illegal aliens.

These illegal aliens and the Hispanic Catholics are supported by a rising modern iteration of the medieval Holy Roman Empire. That church-state union has combined to dominate Europe repeatedly throughout history, and biblical prophecy shows that it will do so again in our day, playing a major role in world events. You can read more about this in our free book The Holy Roman Empire in Prophecy.

Francis is saying it is an act of charity to let millions of unvetted immigrants pour into America, and that it is an act of murder to turn them away. Yet the truth is that the immigration crisis is the beginning of a prophesied invasion of the United States. Pointing to Bible prophecy, the late Herbert W. Armstrong wrote in 1956 that barely a third of Americans would survive the coming siege and invasion (Ezekiel 5:1-2). Many religious people are now turning away from the pope to stand against this invasion. Yet God prophesies that they will fail unless they truly repent and look to him above any policymaker, political party or religious denomination.

To learn more about the Vatican’s involvement on the U.S. southern border, read Mr. Flurry’s articles “Why Is the Pope Meddling in American Politics?” and “America Is Being Besieged Economically.”