America’s Catholics are facing a turmoil of power.
The Vatican’s simplistic theology on open borders is contradicted by the social and economic realities of large movement. The U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops ( USCCB), in accord with Pope Francis ‘ globalist conceits, opposes President Donald Trump’s resolve to curtail illegal migration. Christians must choose between upholding the just rules of our own country and loyalty to episcopal command.
Francis ‘ hostility to Trump is no mystery. Damian Thompson, former director of Britain’s Catholic Herald, wrote:” In 2016, Francis gave his blessing to the Hillary Clinton party’s Catholic before companies, motivated not just by their shared fascination with anti-racism and climate change but hatred for Donald Trump”. That same year, Francis declared the leader” not Biblical” for building a border walls.
Bitter of Trump’s re-election, Francis is raising the stakes.
Cardinal Robert McElroy was appointed as the pope of Washington, D.C. In January, the pope received his first salvo against the new administration. McElroy is an ally of Francis and is in charge of the left-wing of the British hierarchy on all controversial issues, including embracing LGBT sexual behavior and the perceived threat of climate change. He is a vocal critic of Trump’s immigration laws and does not like them.
The bishop sent a letter to the USCCB on February 10 to encourage opposition to the administration’s attempts to impose current immigration legislation. His letter blatantly refutes Catholic social theory by imposing strict border control. It was a first-ever attack on a royal status.
Elevating a Trump Writer
The next day, Feb. 11, Francis elevated Bishop Edward Weisenburger of Tucson, Arizona, to the Archdiocese of Detroit, the largest in Michigan. The chairman was slapdash at the appointment in a determined manner. Weisenburger is a part of the catholic madness that causes unhampered migration. He was a furious critic of Trump during his first management, and he seized the promotion as an opportunity to refute an earlier recommendation that Catholics who actively support Trump’s border policies could face episcopal sanctions.
Weisenburger second voiced that threat in 2018 at the USCCB’s yearly spring assembly. He cautioned Catholics who work at the U.S. border against facing” classical penalties” for their actions. This is script for withholding the sacrament or, if needed, complete condemnation. For rebukes are seldom, if ever, raised outside the circumstances of right-to-life matters, chiefly pregnancy.
In his bishop, he had mandated that priests in his diocese no signal religious exemption letters for Catholics who had vehemently opposed the Covid vaccine during the Covid era as Bishop of Tucson. In addition to making fun of” the moral good of the community,” he claimed there was” a clear moral obligation to abide by mask mandates and social distancing.”
Weisenburger’s diktat erases the distinction between moral imperatives ( e. g., condemnation of sinful acts ) and actions requiring prudential judgment. It subordinates the subtleties of Catholic morality to the shifting ideologies of the pyramid. Spiritual expert diminishes correctly.
Reviving Anti-Catholicism
Catholics are pitted against each other by the insurrectionist tone of Catholic Charities and the USCCB. It likewise risks reviving the once-pervasive anti-Catholicism that infected the country before John F. Kennedy’s 1960 vote.
The Catholic Church was widely criticized as an entity inconsistent with American politics in Paul Blanchard’s 1949 book American Freedom and Catholic Power, which was widely read. When did organisations post” Catholics need not use” signs on gates and store windows?
Does Herberg, recognized sociologist of faith, reviewed the text in Commentary. He deplored the story’s “vulgar anti-Catholicism”. Anyway, he found troubling” the Church’s tendency to mistake, or rather to equate, the moral interests of Christianity with the political and social, even financial, interests of the Vatican, the hierarchy, and the Church establishment”.
Skewed Problems
The latest pope brings Herberg’s discomfort up to date. Bishop Joseph Strickland, removed from his Texas bishop in 2023 for criticizing Francis, illustrates the material of it. He responded to the priest’s letter to the USCCB in Substack:
Through Catholic Charities and other companies, the Catholic Church in the United States receives important federal funding to help refugees and migrants. Less money for these programs is a result of stricter immigration enforcement, which is unquestionably a significant factor in the Vatican’s position.
On the other hand, the Church can no longer expect the same strong economic justifications for their aggressive opposition. This might be the reason why Pope Francis remained largely silent on President Biden’s procedures while publicly opposing President Trump and Vice President Vance on immigration policy and problems.
The priest’s careful indignation is not lost on American Catholics.
The distorted problems of the USCCB are not included either. According to Stickland,” the USCCB used less than 1 % of the federal funds for pro-life activities and 90 % of the collected federal funds for immigration resettlement.” Although claiming that pregnancy is their dominant concern, the USCCB has previously collected cash for pro-life actions”.
According to Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, the United States Catholic Church spent more than$ 5 billion on victims ‘ compensation and legal fees in sex abuse cases involving minors between 2004 and 2023. With coverage companies meeting less than one-fifth of colony costs, priests have been selling temples, reorganizing churches, and filing for insolvency.
Catholic Charities is a large, sprawling government with behind — wages, pensions, and operating costs. If those costs are not covered, the bishoprics are burdened.
Put plainly, the American episcopate needs income. Despite the fact that the majority of migrants entering illegally by force of numbers are neither fleeing persecution nor being eligible for asylum, the so-called refugee resettlement provides it.
They are, however, siphoning resources, including jobs, away from disadvantaged and working-class Americans. The Center for Immigration Studies ( CIS ) reports that three-fourths of the employment growth since 2019 has gone to immigrants, both legal and illegal. The participation rate in the labor force for less-educated men born in the United States is at a historically low level.
In other words, the episcopate is very picky about what charity it defines.
A flyer distributed by Catholic Charities to archdiocesan churches earlier this month was distributed by my own parish. Knowing Your Rights In an Encounter With ICE was written in English and Spanish and taught illegal immigrants how to “remain silent and refuse to answer any questions from ICE agents” and” Do not respond to questions about your immigration status or where you were born.” The flyer included two hotlines for legal support, one in the New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs. Both are operated by Catholic Charities. In addition, the nonprofit organization hosted a Feb. 7 webinar on Zoom to assist illegal immigrants in impeding the administration’s executive orders.
In summary, Francis ‘ letter to the USCCB and his vehement appointments are a clear indication of the danger this pontificate poses for both the American Catholic Church and cohesion and national security.
