#U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

[mariacallous]

Every morning, a line forms at about six outside the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, on West Thirty-first Street, near Penn Station, as it has done (with a few exceptions) since 1930; on average, there are two hundred and fifty people, mostly men in various states of need. At seven, a bell is rung and meal bags—people can choose from oatmeal, fruit, a sandwich, nuts, juice, and coffee—are distributed by half a dozen volunteers standing at folding tables set up on the sidewalk. The food is provided by a group called Franciscan Bread for the Poor, which is aligned with the church but operates independently and is funded entirely by private donations. It’s the sort of face-to-face “work of mercy” that Pope Francis has advocated throughout his pontificate, inspired by the example of the medieval saint whom he chose as his namesake.

I was there earlier this month, invited by a friend who volunteers one morning a week, between his arrival at Penn Station, on New Jersey Transit, and the beginning of his workday in the Flatiron District. Not long after, he sent me a cellphone video, posted by the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, which showed Francis paying a surprise visit to St. Peter’s Basilica, two and a half weeks after his release from the hospital. The Pope was in a wheelchair, as he generally has been during the past year, but he was wearing black pants and a white shirt rather than his white papal vestments, and he had a striped blanket over his shoulders to ward off the spring chill. “Feels like an end,” my friend commented. Those two scenes—of an ailing Pope, and of the long-standing Catholic commitment to helping the vulnerable—point to the two dominant stories of Catholicism in the United States, which have converged in the weeks leading up to Easter.

The more obvious story is that of the Pope’s health. Francis, who is eighty-eight, was rushed from the Vatican to Gemelli Hospital, on February 14th, with bronchitis in both lungs. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, said that the Pope was “probably close to death.” But crowds of the devout held nightly recitations of the Rosary in St. Peter’s Square, and he was finally discharged on Sunday, March 23rd, after thirty-eight days. He gave a thumbs-up to a waiting crowd and was taken to the Casa Santa Marta, the guesthouse where he lives. Two weeks later, he appeared unexpectedly in St. Peter’s Square (using a breathing apparatus), and the following Wednesday he received King Charles and Queen Camilla. On Palm Sunday, the Vatican released a video of Francis praying and greeting a few well-wishers at St. Peter’s. He looked better than he had in the video my friend had sent three days earlier. Still, the relief over Francis’s survival hasn’t dispelled questions of whether he is able to lead the Church at a critical moment—or whether he should follow the precedent set by his predecessor, Benedict XVI, and resign the papacy, making way for a healthier man.

The other story is that of the abrupt cessation of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ program for the resettlement of migrants and refugees, announced in a Washington Post opinion piece this past Monday, by Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the current president of the conference. The bishops have run the operation with government funding since 1980, building on more than half a century of similar efforts funded by other means. The closure is a recent development in a conflict involving the Church’s efforts to aid people in need and the funding of those efforts by the federal government, which has played out since Inauguration Day. In an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” on January 26th, Vice-President J. D. Vance, a Catholic convert, accused the bishops of operating their refugee-resettlement programs, supported in part by federal funding, in order to make money. Over the next two weeks, the Trump Administration began gutting U.S.A.I.D., a principal funder of Catholic Relief Services’ efforts to help migrants and refugees, prompting C.R.S.’s president to announce impending layoffs and a reduction in services. Vance, speaking with Sean Hannity on Fox, sought to justify the Administration’s actions in Catholic terms. On February 10th, in a rare public letter to the bishops, which included an implicit rebuke of Vance, Pope Francis urged them to continue their work with refugees. When he took ill, four days later, public attention shifted away, but the conflict remained unresolved. The bishops sued the government, challenging its “suspension of funding for the refugee assistance programs we have run for decades.” A federal judge ruled against them, maintaining that a contractual dispute was beyond his court’s purview, and the bishops have appealed.

The situation suggests the precarity of a Church led by an ailing pontiff and put under pressure to accommodate itself to a government’s way of doing things. In January, Cardinal Dolan gave an opening prayer at President Trump’s Inauguration, as he’d done eight years earlier. On February 19th—the day after the bishops filed their lawsuit—I attended a press event organized to highlight the New York archdiocese’s work with migrants and refugees through its social-services organization, Catholic Charities. I asked Dolan if he had spoken with the President about the matter of migrants and refugees. He said that he had: “I like to reassure him that, if he’s looking for an organization and for a community of people who would want true immigration reform, who would want secure borders, and would want dangerous people in our country not to be here anymore, he’s going to find allies. And I’ve also mentioned that if you want to kind of dramatically and radically alter the magnificent history of the benevolent approach that this great country has had to offering hospitality to the immigrant—that, to us, is not only against our religion, it’s against our patriotism and our sense of what America is all about.”

When I asked Dolan if he had spoken with Trump about the issue lately, he replied, “He’s got my number; I don’t have his,” drawing laughs. But, if given the chance, “I’d say, ‘Thanks for the good work that you’re doing, there’s some things we’re concerned about,’ ” he said. “We do worry about a caricature of all immigrants as ruthless and dangerous and bad for the United States, where the overwhelming majority of immigrants have been a positive boost to this nation. He knows that: our First Lady is an immigrant—our beautiful First Lady was a refugee, from Slovenia.” Melania Trump actually came to the U.S. to pursue her modelling career, but this was vintage Dolan, using jokey self-deprecation to disavow his proximity to state power and to scant the authority vested in him as archbishop. Surely the man who heads the Catholic Church in the largest city in the nation (where nearly forty per cent of the population is foreign-born), and who maintains a cordial relationship with the President, might be expected to press the case harder.

Dolan’s timidity in February presaged the decision of the bishops’ conference to wind down the refugee program in April, apparently without any attempt to sustain it independently. In the Washington Post piece, Archbishop Broglio framed the program’s demise as a fait accompli. “The federal government’s suspension of refugee resettlement programs,” he wrote, “has made it too difficult for the bishops’ conference to continue operating our resettlement agency. In the past, when government funds did not cover the full cost of these and other care programs, they were generously supported by the faithful. However, the work simply cannot be sustained at current levels or in its current form with only the church’s resources.” He did not explain why this meant that the program had to be shut down altogether, but added that he was “praying for the impacted refugees,” and vowed that the Church would “find new means” to help people in need.

Michael Sean Winters, writing in the National Catholic Reporter, posed the questions that the archbishop left unanswered: “Was there no thought given to meeting with Catholic philanthropists to keep at least some of the work going? Was there any discussion about having an emergency second collection as we do when some disaster strikes? Were bishops scheduled for the Sunday talk shows to make the case for maintaining government contracts with religious groups to help these desperate people?” (Asked to address those questions, Chieko Noguchi, the spokesperson for the bishops’ conference, noted that there is “a special collection that aids in the various projects and efforts supported by the USCCB, including our office of Migration & Refugee Services.”) Broglio’s vagueness invited some suspicion that the bishops had acted as they did to avoid conflict with the federal government while they are in litigation with it; to stay in its good graces as the Supreme Court considers a case involving government funding for a Catholic charter school in Oklahoma, which could radically redraw the lines between religion and public education; or just to avoid the vexed work of opposing a vengeful and capricious chief executive. The vagueness was underscored in the Catholic Standard, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington, where the auxiliary bishop Evelio Menjivar, a native of El Salvador, invoking the example of Saint Óscar Romero, urged readers to abandon their “silence . . . or even approval” of the federal government’s policies and instead “demand that the government respect human dignity.”

Under the circumstances, the morning meal service outside St. Francis of Assisi—with its volunteers, private donors, and formal independence—serves as a reminder that there is another way to give aid to people in need. The Breadline, as it’s called, predates F.D.R.’s New Deal, which set the template for many government-administered social services. Dorothy Day, who, with Peter Maurin, founded the Catholic Worker Movement, in Manhattan, in 1933—a movement that eventually consisted of newspapers, soup kitchens, houses of hospitality, and centers of nonviolent resistance—was wary of the New Deal on the ground that it assigned to the government works that ought to be performed as “a personal sacrifice,” and she rejected nonprofit, tax-exempt status for the Catholic Worker, lest it inhibit the movement’s ability to oppose wars and state-sponsored injustice. Certainly, countless people have benefitted from the vast social-service efforts that the Catholic Church has carried out with government funds. But we are now seeing, in the U.S. bishops’ capitulation, the wisdom of Day’s position and the limits of their leadership at a time when the Pope is unable to step in and affirm the Church’s commitments in strong terms—that is, to lead.

That may be the situation of the Church as a whole. The Vatican press office has confirmed that Francis is continuing to work during his recuperation, which is due to last two months. But the question remains: Is Francis healthy enough to lead the Church? The Italian historian Alberto Melloni suggested that the very question of resignation is an impertinence: “Those who say that he will not resign cannot know; those who say that he should resign talk about things that are not within their competence.” A doctor who treated the Pope at Gemelli predicted that he would recover “if not to 100%” then to “90% of where he was before.” Most close observers of the Church whom I’ve spoken with say that Francis shouldn’t resign the papacy as long as he is of sound mind. Their reasons vary. “He still has work to do.” “He will know when the time is right.” “The right wing wants him dead”—and a resignation would invite the Catholic right to seize the authoritarian moment and press for the election of a neo-traditionalist Pope who could join Viktor Orbán, Giorgia Meloni, and Donald Trump in championing an emergent Christian nationalism in the West.

That all may be true, but it’s also possible to foresee a scenario in which Francis, reaching a limit in his recuperation, initiates a tactful and elegant transition. At this point, he has appointed nearly four-fifths of the cardinals who will elect his successor, and, in the past two Octobers, the Synod on Synodality has enabled many of them to get to know one another better prior to an eventual conclave. This fall will also be the sixtieth anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, which shaped the Church as it exists today. In this scenario, Francis would serve through the summer and resign on October 4th, the day of the feast of St. Francis of Assisi. The cardinals would then come to Rome for a series of meetings, then enter the conclave to elect a successor to Francis—probably within a few days, if recent conclaves are any indication. The next Pope would be installed in time for the new liturgical year, which will begin with Advent, on Sunday, November 30th, and carry the Jubilee celebrations through to next January. Francis, for his part, would look on from the Casa Santa Marta, having shown confidence in the Church as a whole through his willingness to cede power to a colleague more fully able to exercise it.

[cheerfullycatholic]

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on the federal death penalty Jan. 20, among the first actions of his second term, directing the attorney general to “pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use,” prompting statements of concern from Catholic opponents of the practice.

...

The death penalty order was among those Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and head of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, called “deeply troubling” in a Jan. 22 statement about Trump’s first batch of executive orders in his second term.

...

Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, a group that advocates for the abolition of capital punishment in line with Catholic teaching, said in a statement Trump’s executive order on the death penalty “makes no sense." “What we know about the death penalty is that it does not deter crime or make communities safer,” Vaillancourt Murphy said. “It’s immoral, flawed and risky, arbitrary and unfair, cruel and dehumanizing. Both the state and federal death penalty systems are broken beyond repair, and emblematic of a throwaway culture.”

...

The Catholic Church’s official magisterium opposes the use of the death penalty as inconsistent with the inherent sanctity of human life, and advocates for the abolition of the practice worldwide. In his 2020 encyclical “Fratelli Tutti,” Pope Francis addressed the moral problem of capital punishment by citing St. John Paul II, writing that his predecessor “stated clearly and firmly that the death penalty is inadequate from a moral standpoint and no longer necessary from that of penal justice.”

“There can be no stepping back from this position,” Pope Francis wrote. Echoing the teaching he clarified in his 2018 revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the pontiff said, “Today we state clearly that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible’ and the church is firmly committed to calling for its abolition worldwide.”

Pope Francis on Jan. 9 in his annual audience for members of the diplomatic corps, also said the death penalty “finds no justification today among the instruments capable of restoring justice.”

[chuckyeager]

A priest is suing the gay dating and “hookup” app Grindr after the company reportedly failed to protect his data, leading to his resignation from a top position at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

[darkmaga-returns]

By Monica Showalter American Thinker

February 22, 2025

The U.S. Catholic bishops have lawyered up.

And they’re out to claw back “their” money — at last count $65 million in taxpayer cash — which they use to advance the entry of millions of illegal migrants into the U.S. and leave the taxpayers with the bill for their permanent upkeep.

According to Catholic News Agency:

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is suing the Trump administration over what the bishops say is an unlawful suspension of funding for refugee programs in the United States.

Upon taking office last month, President Donald Trump issued sweeping executive orders that, among other measures, directed a freeze on foreign assistance funds and grants, with the White House seeking to uproot left-wing initiatives in federally funded programs.

The orders have led to a flurry of legal challenges from advocates and nonprofit groups arguing that the funding freeze is unlawful. Other groups such as Catholic Charities have urged the Trump administration to reconsider the freeze, citing the “crucial care” the funding helps provide.

“Crucial care”? Are they talking about the transport flights to ferry in so-called ‘asylum-seekers’ into the country on chartered jets at no cost to them; people who might not have even thought to enter the U.S. without authorization as “asylum seekers” with residence privileges in the U.S. had this taxi service had not been provided them, courtesy of Catholic Charities?

Or the free legal advice, which teaches illegal migrants how to clam up for immigration authorities in order to get away with their illegal entries?

[beardedmrbean]

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer apologized for a social media video in which she wore a Harris-Walz campaign hat and fed Doritos to a kneeling podcast host in what some critics said made a mockery of a sacred Christian rite.

The Democrat was seen in the clip taking a Doritos chip out of a bag and placing it into the mouth of a kneeling liberal podcaster Liz Plank, before the video panned to the governor wearing a camouflage Harris-Walz hat. While Whitmer said the video was intended to spotlight the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act that allocated nearly $53 billion towards efforts to bring semiconductor supply chains back to the U.S., religious leaders saw it as a spoof of the sacrament of Holy Communion.

MICHIGAN GOV FEEDS KNEELING FEMALE PODCAST HOST DORITOS WHILE WEARING A HARRIS-WALZ HAT

"It is not just distasteful or ‘strange;’ it is an all-too-familiar example of an elected official mocking religious persons and their practices," Michigan Catholic Conference (MCC) President and CEO Paul A. Long said in a statement representing the views of Catholic leaders in the state.

The video was made as part of a viral TikTok trend where one person feeds another person, who is acting sexually, with the song "Dilemma" by Nelly and Kelly Rowland playing in the background before the first person stares uncomfortably into the camera.

MICHIGAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS CONDEMN WHITMER'S DORITOS VIDEO STUNT AS OFFENSIVE

Former Trump advisor Tim Murtaugh, for example, posted, "Let’s be clear what’s happening in this video. Gov. Whitmer of Michigan is pretending to give communion to an leftist podcaster on her knees, using a Dorito as the Eucharist while wearing a Harris-Walz hat. Do they want ZERO Catholic votes for Harris?"

Following the backlash, Whitmer apologized for the video and emphasized that the video was not meant to mock people of faith.

"Over 25 years in public service, I would never do something to denigrate someone's faith," the governor said in a statement to Fox 2. "I’ve used my platform to stand up for people’s right to hold and practice their personal religious beliefs."

"My team has spoken to the Michigan Catholic Conference," she continued. "What was supposed to be a video about the importance of the CHIPS Act to Michigan jobs, has been construed as something it was never intended to be, and I apologize for that." ________________________

[follow-up-news]

Catholic bishops sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over its abrupt halt to funding of refugee resettlement, calling the action unlawful and harmful to newly arrived refugees and to the nation’s largest private resettlement program. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says the administration, by withholding millions even for reimbursements of costs incurred before the sudden cut-off of funding, violates various laws as well as the constitutional provision giving the power of the purse to Congress, which already approved the funding. The conference’s Migration and Refugee Services has sent layoff notices to 50 workers, more than half its staff, with additional cuts expected in local Catholic Charities offices that partner with the national office, the lawsuit said.

[papapapo]

Cardinal Cupich: USAID freeze ‘Could actually cause death’

U.S. President Trump’s executive order halting congressionally appropriated foreign assistance effectively shut down the work of the U.S. Agency for International Development. The archbishop of Chicago reflects on this decision and on how it will jeopardize essential service for hundreds of millions of people.

By Cardinal Blase J. Cupich

Over the course of just a few weeks, the new administration suddenly halted foreign aid for 90 days, making dramatic cuts in funding and staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development. This has thrown the network of charities that administer our global humanitarian aid, including those funded by Catholics, into chaos. There is a human cost to acting so precipitously, which is partly why on Feb. 13, a federal judge ordered the administration to restore funding, given the “likelihood of a successful claim that the Executive’s actions violate the Constitution and statutes of the United States.”

While a government has the right and duty to ensure taxpayer funds are spent wisely, freezing that aid, even before any such review, adds to the suffering of people who are starving, homeless and threatened by disease. While the government announced that lifesaving aid work would be exempt, these exemptions are not being effectively implemented. A crippled USAID is not making timely payments for past and current work in these life-saving programs, perhaps causing permanent damage to the ability of humanitarian aid groups to save lives.

This is one of the reasons the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops filed suit against the administration on Feb. 18. “The conference suddenly finds itself unable to sustain its work to care for the thousands of refugees who were welcomed into our country and assigned to the care of the USCCB by the government after being granted legal status,” explained USCCB President Archbishop Timothy Broglio. The USCCB, which “spends more on refugee resettlement each year than it receives in funding from the federal government,” according to the lawsuit, is still waiting for reimbursements from the government totaling about $13 million for expenses prior to Jan. 24.

The decision to abruptly slash USAID funding brought swift responses from the international community, including the Holy See:

“Stopping USAID will jeopardize essential services for hundreds of millions of people, undermine decades of progress in humanitarian and development assistance, destabilize regions that rely on this critical support, and condemn millions to dehumanizing poverty or even death,” according to a statement from Caritas Internationalis, a confederation of 162 Catholic relief agencies, which operate in more than 200 nations and territories.

The effect of these funding cuts has been staggering for both small and larger charities, such as Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the foreign-aid program of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, founded in 1943.

Carolyn Woo, who ran CRS from 2012 to 2016, and once served as dean of the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, offers a chilling assessment: “The freeze [on foreign aid],” she told Our Sunday Visitor, “where it affects programs like this, really puts people’s health, livelihood on the line, and it could actually cause death.”

That’s because every year, CRS provides aid to about 210 million people across 120 nations — and, as Woo writes in a Feb. 7 piece in America, more than half of its budget has come from USAID contracts. Cut a charity’s budget in half, and you halve the amount of help it can provide.

What sort of help does CRS offer? Back to Woo: “USAID grants enable CRS to undertake emergency assistance and long-term transformational development. The work covers and integrates multiple areas for human flourishing: food, health, livelihoods, agriculture, education, water and sanitation, child development, access to capital and peace-building.”

This complex work is not simply a handout, but a hand-up. Woo recalls the story of Ernesto, a farmer who found himself destitute after years of costs outstripping returns on crop sales. With the help of CRS, the farmer learned to farm a new crop sustainably, and with that first return, he was able to set himself on the path to financial stability. Soon he began teaching other farmers these methods and even saved enough to send his children to college. This program was funded by a grant from USAID.

Some claim that hobbling USAID was necessary because it is “wasteful.” Woo addresses that, too, explaining that over the past three decades, global poverty has dropped from one-third of the population to one-tenth, made possible by international development aid. What’s more, Woo notes, “both maternal and infant-child mortality rates have dropped by 50 percent.” For anyone who prioritizes life issues, it’s hard to imagine a better return on an investment, considering that USAID counts for less than 1% of the federal budget.

But the humanitarian crisis occasioned by these unsparing cuts is also a crisis of trust — trust in the United States of America, in its ability to keep its word and honor its promises. Such a loss of trust could have dire consequences.

This was immediately highlighted by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, archbishop emeritus of Vienna. In a recent column referring to the cancellation of contracts, the cardinal writes, “What is currently happening in the United States is dangerous.”

“Contracts govern large parts of our lives,” the cardinal continues. “The rule of law thrives on the fact that treaties apply.” When agreements are broken, “the powerful dictate their will, no matter what is contractually agreed.”

 “Loyalty and faith, trust and security, and above all the weaker, poorer, and defenseless are falling by the wayside,” Cardinal Schönborn goes on, asking a simple but searing question: “Do we want that?”

The “we” of it matters. For any nation, foreign aid is an expression of strategic wisdom. A world with less human suffering is by definition a safer world. A world in which nations keep their agreements is one in which development has a better chance of success. The path to improving the human condition leads not inward, but rather out from ourselves, from our enclaves and nations, toward lasting international partnership and the authentic flourishing of the human family.

Finally, foreign humanitarian aid is also, more deeply, an expression of a nation’s values. American values still include caring for the less fortunate, standing up for the oppressed and building long-term peace through solidarity. The United States expressed American values when it helped Europe rebuild after the devastation of World War II — this is our legacy as a nation, and it is one we must never abandon.

 As Christians, we follow the Lord’s call to love our neighbor as ourselves, even when it’s hard. But there is a less spiritual calculus to consider: namely, that weakening the social safety net at home or abroad will eventually affect us all, as none of us is invulnerable to disease or misfortune, no matter how blessed with health or wealth. America would be wise not to overreach the extent of her power in a connected world. After all, we never know when we’ll need the help of a Good Samaritan.

This article was reprinted with permission from Chicago Catholic, the English language newspaper of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

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[cosmicmote]

combine

today I watched the river cats play

in the park. it was a lovely day most everywhere

& this evening over dinner I got to reflecting

more on how the last three years have been one

of abundant and much needed cord cuttings

around here; it all felt like an anniversary of sorts, although

I felt no need to check the dates.

we intuit and always have.

original painting created using Black Ink, with additional photograph layered in. because it's been awhile.

graphic and words ©spacetree 2025

truth crushed to the ground shall rise again, regardless of how many object and sputter:

The broadcast was, however, canceled after a promo trailing the report caused a public backlash.

the hannibal directive can only be ignored for so long, conveniently.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Robert Mackey at The Guardian:

After years of sympathetic and inclusive comments from Pope Francis, LGBTQ+ Catholics expressed concern on Thursday about hostile remarks made more than a decade ago by Father Robert Prevost, the new Pope Leo XIV, in which he condemned what he called the “homosexual lifestyle” and “the redefinition of marriage” as “at odds with the Gospel”. In a 2012 address to the world synod of bishops, the man who now leads the church said that “Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel – for example abortion, homosexual lifestyle, euthanasia”. In the remarks, of which he also read portions for a video produced by the Catholic News Service, a news agency owned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the cleric blamed mass media for fostering so much “sympathy for anti-Christian lifestyles choices” that “when people hear the Christian message it often inevitably seems ideological and emotionally cruel”. “Catholic pastors who preach against the legalization of abortion or the redefinition of marriage are portrayed as being ideologically driven, severe and uncaring,” Prevost added. He went on to complain that “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children are so benignly and sympathetically portrayed in television programs and cinema today”. The video illustrated his criticism of the “homosexual lifestyle” and “same-sex partners and their adopted children” with clips from two US sitcoms featuring same-sex couples, The New Normal and Modern Family.

The cleric also called for a “new evangelization to counter these mass media-produced distortions of religious and ethical reality”. After some of the comments were reported by the New York Times, American LGBTQ+ Catholic groups expressed alarm but also cautious optimism that the papacy of Francis had moved the whole church forward. “We pray that in the 13 years that have passed, 12 of which were under the papacy of Pope Francis, that his heart and mind have developed more progressively on LGBTQ+ issues, and we will take a wait-and-see attitude to see if that has happened,” said Francis DeBernardo, the executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ+ Catholic group, in a statement. “We pray that as our church transitions from 12 years of an historic papacy, Pope Leo XIV will continue the welcome and outreach to LGBTQ+ people which Pope Francis inaugurated.”

Pope Leo XIV’s comments about LGBTQ+ people have caused some alarm among LGBTQ+ Catholics and their allies.

See Also:

HuffPost: The New Pope Faces Scrutiny On LGBTQ+ Rights

LGBTQ Nation: American bishop Robert Francis Prevost decried the “homosexual lifestyle.” He was just elected pope.

The Advocate: U.S. Cardinal Robert Prevost becomes Pope Leo XIV. Here's what he's said about LGBTQ+ people

[mariacallous]

When the American Jewish Committee began working with U.S. bishops years ago to educate Catholics about antisemitism, they didn’t anticipate a global spike in the hatred they were trying to combat.

Nor did they know that just weeks before they would ultimately publicize their work, Pope Francis would suggest that Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza.

But when Rabbi Noam Marans and Bishop Joseph Bambera came together last week to launch a glossary of antisemitic terms, annotated by Catholic commentary, that was the context. Marans described the glossary as a “milestone” ahead of the 60th anniversary of the church’s landmark declaration that Jews did not kill Jesus. And he noted that while relations between Catholics and Jews have massively improved from centuries past, they’re facing new stresses.

“It’s easy to lose perspective on an event like this, which was surely unimaginable to my grandparents in Bialystok, Poland,” Marans said at the launch event on Wednesday. “This has been a complete transformation in the relationship that has benefitted both communities.”

Referring to the Jewish blessing to mark significant occasions, he said, “It’s a shehechiyanu moment.”

Then he added, “And even shehechiyanu moments have flies in the ointment.”

In the document published last week, the AJC’s “Translate Hate” ongoing glossary — which has around 60 entries on antisemitic terms — has been appended with Catholic commentaries on 10 of those entries. The commentaries were written by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, which Bambera chairs.

The entries with commentary range from “Blood libel” to “From the river to the sea,” a common chant at pro-Palestinian rallies that the AJC and other Jewish groups say is a call for Israel’s annihilation.

For example, in the entry on “Blood libel,” the canard that Jews kill Christian children and use their blood for ritual purposes, the Catholic gloss notes that the church has long rejected the idea, but that it still pops up in some Catholic discourse.

“Today, this charge may disguise itself in less traditional forms that must also be disavowed, such as the idea that the Jewish people support abortion as a means of ritualistic child sacrifice, or that Jews are intent on spilling the blood of their enemies for its own sake,” it says.

The entry on “From the river to the sea” says the church endorses the two-state solution and “encourages Catholics to understand and respect the deep religious connection Jews feel towards Israel.”

And in the entry on “philosemitism,” the Catholic commentary notes that the church has advised against seders that appropriate Jewish tradition. “The best way for Christians to experience the Seder meal is to observe it by invitation from a Jewish family or organization that welcomes non-Jews to this central celebration of Jewish life,” the commentary says.

The guide comes at a time when, perhaps awkwardly, the topic of Catholic antisemitism could hardly be more topical.

The adherence of J.D. Vance, the U.S. vice president-elect, to a strain of traditional Catholicism has renewed attention to varieties of Catholic belief. (Vance has weighed in on church debates, saying, for example, that while he is “not a big Latin Mass guy,” he did not support the church’s recent effort to restrict the traditional liturgy that prays for Jews to convert to Christianity.) Both Marans and Bambera said antisemitism exists in the traditionalist wing of the church but portrayed it as a fringe attitude.

Meanwhile, a series of recent statements by Pope Francis has provided a case study in the way Catholic values and scriptural citations can grate on Jewish ears.

Last month, Francis cited experts saying “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide,” and called for the charge — which Israel strenuously rejects — to be “carefully investigated.” Then, this month, he attended the inauguration of a nativity scene at the Vatican that positioned baby Jesus on a keffiyeh, or Palestinian scarf — a nod to activists who have identified Jesus, a Jew born in Roman times, as a Palestinian. Both incidents drew outcry from Jewish groups, and the nativity scene has since been removed.

Earlier, in a letter to Middle Eastern Catholics on Oct. 7, the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack, Francis denounced “the spirit of evil that foments war,” and quoted a passage from the Gospel of John to call it “murderous from the beginning” and “a liar and the father of lies.” The quote raised eyebrows because, in the New Testament, it is spoken by Jesus to a group of Jews, whom he calls children of the devil.

The word choice drew criticism from Philip Cunningham, a theology professor specializing in Jewish-Catholic relations at St. Joseph’s University.

“It is perilous to cite polemical words out of context, particularly words that have consistently sparked enmity toward Jews for centuries,” he wrote in America, a Jesuit magazine. “There is also something peculiarly surreal about this in a letter dated Oct. 7.”

A considerable portion of Wednesday’s event was taken up with Marans and Bambera discussing — and not quite seeing eye to eye — about Francis’ recent comments. (The pope has also issued statements condemning antisemitism, including during the current Gaza war.) Marans, AJC’s director of interreligious affairs, said in an interview that Francis has demonstrated his opposition to antisemitism — but added that his conduct has precipitated a “crisis” borne of “a lack of proper attention to Catholic-Jewish relations.” The genocide accusation, Marans said, was the most problematic.

“Whimsical use of the word ‘genocide’ against the Jewish people is dangerous because it characterizes the only Jewish state in a way that is grist for the mill of Jew-haters — which Pope Francis is absolutely, unequivocally not,” Marans said. “How does one rationalize those disappointments in speech and action with that overwhelming commitment to opposing antisemitism?”

For Bambera, the pope’s statements are simply expressions of the Catholic emphasis on the value of peace and human life. Francis’ statements stem from his concern for “the dignity of the human person,” the bishop said, including both Palestinians and Israelis.

“When he reflects upon the suffering of people who are victimized by terrorism and war, whether it be the Jewish people or countless others around the world, he will always speak of the value of human life and the need to preserve and protect it,” Bambera said at the event. He also reiterated Francis’ opposition to antisemitism.

But while Bambera and Marans read Francis’ words differently, they agreed on the path forward: more dialogue.

“I absolutely understand and appreciate the reaction of the Jewish community, the concern, perhaps the hurt, perhaps a worry about what this says about our relationship,” Bambera said in an interview. “One of the most significant things about the relationship that we have established, and that quite frankly Pope Francis supports and encourages, is the fact that we Jews and Catholics alike can talk candidly about this.”

The AJC has promoted Catholic-Jewish dialogue for more than half a century. It was active in shaping the 1965 church declaration that rejected antisemitism and said the Jews did not kill Jesus, called “Nostra Aetate” and adopted as part of Vatican II. The group consulted on the document, bringing on Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel as an adviser.

Marans said the relationship has only improved since then. He added that — even in light of the pope’s statements on Israel — Catholic attitudes toward Israel are in a better place than those of some liberal Protestant denominations that have weighed divestment from Israel.

“It is a different universe on the Catholic side because there is such commitment to Catholic-Jewish relations,” he said. “It is a given of the Catholic Church today that it is supportive of Catholic-Jewish relations wholeheartedly.”

The AJC touted plans to translate the Catholic edition of its glossary into more languages, including Spanish and Polish, and hopes to use it as a model both for Protestant denominations and other religions. Holly Huffnagle, the AJC’s U.S. director for combating antisemitism, said the group’s core goal is to teach people what antisemitism is and how to recognize it.

“People are more likely to listen to those they know, those they trust,” she said. “If you are Catholic, you’re more likely to listen to your priest than a Jewish leader.”

Working with interfaith partners, she said, has become especially important as those ties have frayed recently, in a moment where protest of Israel’s actions, and antisemitism, have been on the rise.

“The Christian space is a natural partnership,” she said. “What does it look like to go to other faiths and figure out how to do this project jointly? We have to take a step back in this moment, as we’ve seen real relationships decline.”

Both Bambera and Marans said the key to success in this project would be Catholic leadership using the glossary and imparting its message to the rank-and-file. Bambera said the archbishop of a major American archdiocese asked if he could distribute it to his clergy — which he took as a good sign.

He added that he hopes to have “more conversations about hard questions” between Catholics and Jews.

“Those hard questions shouldn’t stop the dialogue,” he said. “They should be able to grow because the dialogue is rooted in mutual respect and understanding.”

[cheerfullycatholic]

“As pastors, we see the suffering of so many couples experiencing infertility and know their deep desire to have children is both good and admirable; yet the Administration’s push for IVF, which ends countless human lives and treats persons like property, cannot be the answer,” reflected Bishop Daniel E. Thomas, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop Robert E. Barron, chairman of the Committee for Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order calling for policies to make in vitro fertilization (IVF) less costly and more available. “The IVF industry treats human beings like products and freezes or kills millions of children who are not selected for transfer to a womb or do not survive. Tuesday’s executive order promoting IVF is thus fatally flawed and stands in regrettable contrast to the promising pro-life actions of the Administration last month. “Every human person is a precious gift with infinite dignity and worth, no matter how that person was conceived. People born as a result of IVF have no less dignity than anyone else. It is our moral responsibility to uphold the dignity of their brothers and sisters who are never given the chance to be born. “For the sake of couples trying to bring precious new life into the world, we look forward to working with the Administration to expand support for restorative reproductive medicine that can help ethically treat often-overlooked root causes of infertility. However, we will strongly oppose any policy that expands destruction of human life, or forces others to subsidize the cost.”

[rostekhorn]

RIP Pope Francis

"Fuck the bishops. They're all Republicans anyway." - John F. Kennedy, first Catholic to be President of the United States

When Benedict XVI resigned, my views and expectations for the Catholic Church were pretty much at rock bottom. More than anything else, I fucking hated the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. They were exactly the kind of charlatans Jesus chased out of the temple: furiously ignoring every aspect of Catholic doctrine that wasn't about abortion or gay marriage, lest they have to field awkward questions from all their Republican friends at their next dinner party at the country club. It had been that way for years but was getting more and more ridiculous, especially all through 2009 and 2010 when the biggest argument in politics was about health care (something Catholic teaching considers a universal right), and the bishops spent all of that time more and more awkwardly ignoring it, and then finding some way to weasel out of endorsing health care reform when the plan finally did come out.

I think I would've soured on the Catholic Church regardless sooner or later; their teachings on women's rights and LGBT rights just aren't defensible. But the amount of corruption, hypocrisy, and elite cliqueishness on display, the way the U.S. Catholic Church was determined to be just another arm of the Republican Party, sure as shit helped push me out the door faster.

Given that background, Pope Francis ended up being a mildly pleasant surprise. Not all that much has changed in the Church. But it's amazing what a breath of fresh air it felt like having leadership that at least believes in the good parts of Catholic teaching (immigration, economic justice, the environment) as well as the bad, even if they still preach the bad. And it's been really nice having a Vatican that's willing to smack down its members, especially the Americans, who're all-in on the sort of "Republican first, Christian second" ethos that drove me away. Francis whacked down a plan by the American bishops to blanketly deny communion to all pro-choice politicians, placed more restrictions on the Latin masses that've been turning into a breeding ground for far-right Vatican-skeptical preachers, and removed various priests, bishops, and cardinals preaching far-right views from their positions.

TL/DR: it's true that even Francis' version of the Catholic Church is one that I have a lot of problems with. But we're talking about an institution of a billion and a half human beings that's existed for two thousand years. It's there and it's not going anywhere any time soon. Knowing that that's true, man, did I prefer having someone like Francis in charge, instead of his two more reactionary predecessors and their even more deranged fans today. Hopefully, whatever comes next will be more him and less... the other thing.

[darkmaga-returns]

World Relief operates nationwide, not just in Chicago. It is an arm of the National Association of Evangelicals and one of 10 NGOs that contract directly with the U.S. State Department to resettle refugees in the U.S., a list that also includes the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops doing business as “Catholic Charities,” Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, Episcopal Migration Ministries, Church World Services, and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

Many of the refugees being resettled by these agencies come from countries that hate us — Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Uzbekistan, etc.

These NGOs receive tens of millions of dollars each year from the federal government to distribute foreign refugees into American cities and towns. Many of them are put to work in meatpacking plants and other undesirable jobs. The Chobani yogurt plant in Boise, Idaho, has filled out roughly 30 percent of its workforce with refugee labor supplied over the years by the U.S. federal government working in partnership with the United Nations.

What we are talking about here is a legalized human-trafficking operation, the root of which starts at the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM). The IOM, under the leadership of former Biden aide Amy Pope, coordinates the flow of refugees from the Third World to the Western nations it seeks to topple.

[disgruntledexplainer]

This somehow managed to completely miss my radar:

[pscottm]

Today marks an important step on the road to medical transparency.

A new Colorado law has now gone into effect, requiring all hospitals to tell the public up front what procedures they won’t perform for non-medical reasons. That’s especially important for Catholic hospitals, which now have to be open and honest about the limitations of their offerings.

Here’s why this matters.

Suppose you’re giving birth and having a C-section. You might decide that you’re also done having kids and you’d like to have your tubes tied so there are no unplanned pregnancies in your future.

The doctor is already performing surgery, so performing a tubal ligation actually lets you kill two birds with one stone. It’s a safe procedure. Medical professionals even say that if you want to get your tubes tied, doing it during a C-section is a good idea because it doesn’t require an additional surgery. Nearly 30% of married adult women in the U.S. have had the procedure done. Not a big deal!

But what if you’re at a Catholic hospital?

Doctors there will perform a C-section, no problem, but they will not perform a tubal ligation. Why not? Because their directives don’t come from medical professionals, but rather the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. And since anything involving contraception is forbidden in the faith, even a normal procedure like tubal ligation isn’t permitted. This rule applies even if future pregnancies would put the woman’s life in danger.

By and large, and with very few exceptions, the USCCB does not allow Catholic hospitals to perform any procedures that violate Catholic doctrine. Hospitals that violate those rules risk getting shut down. Even if the doctors and nurses who work there know that a procedure is necessary for the health of the patient, their expertise takes a backseat to the whims of religious leaders.

Fucking Christian version of the Taliban.