In an April appearance on Meet The Press, Buttigieg also defended earlier remarks in which he appeared to question President Donald Trump's belief in God, and suggested that Evangelical Christians who support President Trump are hypocrites.
Trump, said Buttigieg, is not following scriptural imperatives for believers to care for widows and immigrants, and therefore is not behaving in a Christlike manner.
"The hypocrisy is unbelievable," said Buttigieg. "Here you have somebody who not only acts in a way that is not consistent with anything that I hear in scripture in church, where it's about lifting up the least among us and taking care of strangers, which is another word for immigrants, and making sure that you're focusing your effort on the poor--but also personally, how you're supposed to conduct yourself."
Self-described white born-again/evangelical Christians voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016, with 81 percent in favor compared to only 16 percent voting for Hillary Clinton.
Catholics, particularly Hispanic Catholics, supported Trump in 2016 at higher levels than they did Mitt Romney in 2012. The last time a Republican presidential candidate won majority support among Catholic voters was George W. Bush in 2004.
In response to Buttigieg's comments on biblical imperatives, Meet the Press host Chuck Todd asked the mayor his thoughts on abortion. Buttigieg, who considers himself pro-choice, said he thinks abortion is a moral question that should be decided by a woman and her doctor, not by "a male government official imposing his interpretation of his religion."
The Church teaches that abortion is the deliberate ending of an innocent human life, and is a grave sin.