Sometimes truth is spoken just a little more candidly that is acceptable for broader social discourse. I’m very curious what public reaction will come from Pope Francis’s comments about the election of the U.S. president.

Pope Francis says U.S. voters will have to choose “the lesser evil” in the coming presidential election, criticizing both candidates for policies he said were “against life.” The 87-year-old pontiff didn’t mention former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris by name in his comments released Friday. He urged Americans to vote even if faced with a difficult choice.  “Both are against life: the one that throws out migrants and the one that kills children,″ said Francis. “I can’t decide; I’m not American.”

Wow. A party and a candidate that “kills children.” Of course, that is the motivating factor behind every pro-life proponent. Every individual human being, from the moment of conception, has inherent dignity of being created in the image of God, who actively works even in the mother’s womb:

Psalm 139: 13 -16: For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

Normally non-partisan public figures tone down the rhetoric, even when true. But not this time. Maybe it’s because at 87 years old the pope is losing his filter. Nevertheless, what he said is true. One party and one candidate is the proponent of allowing a mother to kill her child if the child is unwanted. Pope Francis final admonition:

“​​One must vote. And one must choose the lesser evil,” Francis said. “Which is the lesser evil? That lady or that gentleman? I don’t know; each person must think and decide according to their own conscience.”

There is, of course, more on the table in the upcoming election than simply wrestling with should we vote for the candidate who will be harsher to illegal immigrants or will we vote for the candidate who will expand the killing of babies. But for the case as Pope Francis laid out, the choice seems pretty clear.