Vance attacks the church: "The US Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to look in the mirror a little bit & recognize that when they receive more than $100m to resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns or are they worried about their bottom line?" pic.twitter.com/YOoMrOtHxy
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 26, 2025
The criticism by rhe US Conference of Catholic Bishops is telling because it opposes punitive immigration policies for two reasons: 1) it is generally welcoming to immigrants; and 2) most of the immigrants affected are Catholic.
If most of the newcomers were not Catholic, the Church still would oppose the Trump Administration policy. However, the leaders of the faith are aware of three things: 1) most of the affected individuals are Catholic; 2) most of these Catholics are more committed to their faith then American Catholics are and 3) the Church, facing declining numbers, need these immigrants, their numbers and the vitality they bring.
This situation is simultaneously both fundamentally different and analogous to the Trump Administration's attack on immigration eight years ago. Campaigning for the presidency, Trump demanded "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." Once he took office, he "stopped nationals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from being allowed to travel to America for 90 days."
The day before President Trump retroacitvely left office in 2021, the ACLU recalled
When Trump implemented his first Muslim ban, the public response was immediate. Crowds of protesters flooded airports in support of Muslims and other impacted communities who were immediately being detained or turned away all over the country. Lawyers and immigrants’ rights organizations nationwide, including the ACLU, filed a series of lawsuits as court after court ruled to block the ban.
Despite the backlash, Trump issued new iterations of
the ban to circumvent the law and conceal its real purpose, which in his own
words was to block Muslims from entering the United States. Ultimately, the
Supreme Court allowed the third iteration of the ban to be implemented. The
Trump administration then further expanded the ban, explicitly targeting
Africans. As a result, people from 13 countries still remain barred from coming
to the U.S.
By contrast, the Administration crrrently is targeting individuals who entered the USA through our southern border. They are from Latin America and with a few exceptions, are not Muslim. They are not Jewish or Hindu. They are Christian- mostly Roman Catholic, with some evangelical Protestants.
Layered upon that, the Vice President has called out the Church with which most of them identify. Vance asks rhetorically "are they worried about humanitarian concerns or are they worried about their bottom line?"
Both, ovbviously, but there is no shame in doing well by doing good. Nonetheless, the Administration- if Vance was not talking out of his posterior- is hostile to the interests of the Church in building its numbers. Yet only last September
"They're anti-Christian, and it's driving people out," (Catholic League President Bill) Donohue said in a phone interview of Democrats, citing similar comments from former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who recently endorsed Trump. "And the guys I'm talking to, it's not even so much abortion. It's just they feel like they don't speak their language anymore. This whole idea of letting men compete against women in sports abuses the bathrooms, they think they've just gone off the deep end”….
"Kamala Harris hates Catholics and everything we hold sacred. We can’t pretend otherwise. Our institutions, families, culture and belief in the sanctity of all human life are the antithesis of her vision for America. Donald Trump and JD Vance — and now RFK — are the antidote to the ruling class that has destroyed our country," Brian Burch, president of conservative non-profit, CatholicVote, said in the Trump campaign’s press release.
It's time to turn the tables, for Democrats to point out that Republicans are trying to drive Catholics,or more generally Christians, out of the country. When it was Muslims, Democrats were apoplectic, especially outraged because Trump was singling out individuals based on their religion.
Now, the Administration is discrimating against Catholics and other Christians. Presumably, that's not by intent, though Vance's comments can be interpreted otherwise. It is, however, a blow against Christianity in effect.
However, if Democras truly wish to change their message, the President and the Vice President, the former by policy and the latter by words, have given them an opening. You can drive a Mack truck through that gaping hole. Unfortunately, Democrats may be waiting for an electric-powered vehicle to take that drive.
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