Pope called out for comments on Italian, Irish migrants to America

The pope has come under fire for claiming Irish and Italian migrants were responsible for introducing whiskey and the mafia to America.

Francis gave his controversial view on American history during a speech at the Vatican in which he ostensibly set out to defend the role of migrants.

He recalled a conversation with an American who told him that Americans were not migrants because ‘‘we have already rooted here’’.

The pope told his audience that he had replied: ‘‘Don’t lose your memory: You are a people of migrants, of Irish migrants and Italian migrants.’’

He added: ‘‘The Irish brought you whiskey and the Italians brought you the mafia. Always look at the roots.’’

Rather than a defence of migrants, as the pope might have intended, the comments were described as ‘‘an ethnic slur’’ by Robert Mickens, the editor of La Croix International, a Catholic newspaper.

‘‘Francis is sensitive on other questions, but with comments like this you open a door and the risk is other people take it further,’’ he added.

Daniele Moro, executive director of the US-Italy Global Affairs Forum, said: ‘‘I hope the pope’s opinion was taken out of context – to link Irish and Italian [migration] only to whisky and mafia is a really bad way to define US immigrants.’’ He added: ‘‘Millions of Americans of Italian origin, now at the third or fourth generation, have nothing to do with these stereotypes.’’

The pope has made the defence of migrants a central pillar of his papacy and has spoken of how his father migrated from Italy to Argentina in the 1920s.

However, Mickens argued that he was not helping to improve the image of migrants with his latest remarks. ‘‘He feels he can say these things because his family migrated,’’ he said.

The pope has raised eyebrows in the past for a series of jokes seen as reinforcing negative stereotypes, starting with his habit of making jibes about mother-in-laws.

In 2015 he said: ‘‘Families fight. And sometimes plates fly, and sometimes kids get knocked on the head.

And let’s not even talk about mothers-in-law.’’

In 2013 he warned a gathering of nuns against turning into ‘‘old maids’’.

Latin American countries have also complained about his inappropriate remarks, including Brazilians, after he jokingly claimed last year he would not bless them because they drank too much and did not pray.

In 2015 the Vatican was forced to apologise to Mexico after the Pope described the rise of drug trafficking activity in Argentina as ‘‘Mexicanisation’’. –