Pope Fran­cis slammed both U.S. pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates on Fri­day for what he called an­ti-life poli­cies on abor­tion and mi­gra­tion, and ad­vised Amer­i­can Catholics to choose who they think is the “less­er evil” in the up­com­ing U.S. elec­tions.

“Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out mi­grants or the one who (sup­ports) killing ba­bies,” Fran­cis said. “Both are against life.”

The Ar­gen­tine Je­suit was asked to pro­vide coun­sel to Amer­i­can Catholic vot­ers dur­ing an air­borne press con­fer­ence en route back to Rome from his four-na­tion tour through Asia. Fran­cis stressed that he is not an Amer­i­can and would not be vot­ing.

Nei­ther the Re­pub­li­can can­di­date Don­ald Trump nor the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date Ka­mala Har­ris was men­tioned by name.

But Fran­cis nev­er­the­less ex­pressed him­self in stark terms when asked to weigh in on their po­si­tions on two hot-but­ton is­sues in the U.S. elec­tion — abor­tion and mi­gra­tion — that are al­so of ma­jor con­cern to the Catholic Church.

Fran­cis has made the plight of mi­grants a pri­or­i­ty of his pon­tif­i­cate and speaks out em­phat­i­cal­ly and fre­quent­ly about it. While strong­ly up­hold­ing church teach­ing for­bid­ding abor­tion, Fran­cis hasn’t em­pha­sized church doc­trine as much as his pre­de­ces­sors.

Fran­cis said mi­gra­tion is a right de­scribed in Scrip­ture, and that any­one who doesn’t fol­low the Bib­li­cal call to wel­come the stranger is com­mit­ting a “grave sin.”

He was al­so blunt in speak­ing about abor­tion. “To have an abor­tion is to kill a hu­man be­ing. You may like the word or not, but it’s killing,” he said. “We have to see this clear­ly.”

Asked though what to do at the polls, Fran­cis re­called the civic du­ty to vote.

“One should vote, and choose the less­er evil,” he said. “Who is the less­er evil, the woman or man? I don’t know.

“Every­one in their con­science should think and do it,” he said.

It’s not the first time Fran­cis has weighed in on a U.S. elec­tion. In the run-up to the 2016 elec­tion, Fran­cis was asked about Trump’s plan to build a wall at the U.S.-Mex­i­can bor­der. Fran­cis de­clared then that any­one who builds a wall to keep out mi­grants “is not Chris­t­ian.”

In re­spond­ing Fri­day, Fran­cis re­called that he cel­e­brat­ed Mass at the U.S.-Mex­i­co bor­der and “there were so many shoes of the mi­grants who end­ed up bad­ly there.”

The U.S. bish­ops con­fer­ence, for its part, has called abor­tion the “pre­em­i­nent pri­or­i­ty” for Amer­i­can Catholics in its pub­lished vot­er ad­vice. Har­ris has strong­ly de­fend­ed abor­tion rights.

In oth­er com­ments, Fran­cis:

● de­nied a French me­dia re­port that he would trav­el to Paris for the De­cem­ber in­au­gu­ra­tion of the re­stored Notre Dame Cathe­dral, say­ing flat-out he would not be there. But he con­firmed he would like to go to the Ca­nary Is­lands to high­light the plight of mi­grants.

● tamped down re­newed spec­u­la­tion that he might fi­nal­ly re­turn to Ar­genti­na lat­er this year, say­ing he wants to go but that noth­ing had been de­cid­ed. He added: “There are var­i­ous things to re­solve first.” Fran­cis hasn’t been home since be­fore the 2013 con­clave that elect­ed him pope.

● de­clared that Chi­na was “a promise and a hope” for the Catholic Church and hoped to one day vis­it.

● called sex­u­al abuse “de­mon­ic” and weighed on the lat­est rev­e­la­tions of as­sault against a leg­endary French priest, Abbe Pierre. —ABOARD THE PA­PAL PLANE (AP)

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Sto­ry by NICOLE WIN­FIELD | As­so­ci­at­ed Press.  As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­li­gion cov­er­age re­ceives sup­port through the AP’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with The Con­ver­sa­tion US, with fund­ing from Lil­ly En­dow­ment Inc. The AP is sole­ly re­spon­si­ble for this con­tent.