This is discouraging. It is true, however, that the doctrinal language is very similar for the sins of abortion and of not helping refugees. It is all about siding with 'the least", the powerless. I would have to dig through an online version of the Catechism to get you a cite as I no longer own a copy.
How doctrine plays out in current cultural politics is a different animal.
The political slant of the body of Catholics in the US nearly exactly parallels that of the US population in general. Including about abortion (as many Catholic women have had abortions as have the rest of us. Evangelicals it is quite a bit higher because of the emphasis on keeping young women ignorant. Same with teen marriage, and divorce). The US bishops are markedly more rightwing than that, having been stocked by the previous pope.
And as mentioned, in their info bubble, that is exactly the narrative they will be putting out regardless of what actually happened. Ask any of their “base” and s/he will tell you that was what really happened and what was really proven.
And when the influx taxes the public resources in the destination cities, they’re going to tell you that proves arrival of numerous migrants plus liberal policies equas blight and crime
I don’t know when you left the Church, but in my lifetime I’ve seen plenty of that. The previous pastor of my church (before he succumbed to cancer) had a number of arrests on his record, all for standing up for the rights of immigrants, and he actually got a law license while a priest, to be better able to stand up for their rights.
I’m talking about the actions of the church in the last several years, not what they were doing in 1933. The church’s silence how immigrants were being treated by the Trump administration is deeply shameful and reveals a great hypocrisy.
In any event, what would prove me wrong here is when I see little cages along the roadside calling attention to these sins with the same fervor as their right-wing pandering.
I’ve seen a few examples on an individual basis. They make the news and we hear about Father Pfleger in Chicago because what he is doing is rare and noteworthy and he’s getting pushback for it. If the church as a whole felt like he does, I’d know the names of my local suburban parish officials as well as I know his.
The only time I ever see little white crosses by the roadside is to memorialize people who died in a car accident at that spot. And if you’re seeing ones in protest of something else, how can you tell what they’re in protest of? Maybe some of those crosses you’re seeing are to protest mistreatment of immigrants-- It’s not like a cross is particularly connected to any specific issue.
No, very obviously about abortion. Complete with sign saying each cross equals X abortions since Roe and the little “I knew you in the womb” scripture on the sign board. I’ve seen it outside numerous Catholic churches in the Chicago area. At one point (during the Trump immigration fiasco, hence my then noticing) I was driving past four churches daily with this going on during my work commute.
Honestly, I live in the same area as you, and I’ve never seen it, but it doesn’t surprise me as the tenor of the Catholic church very often reflects the tenor of the neighborhood. My own church is pretty liberal for a Catholic church, so much so they had “BLACK LIVES MATTER” on their marquee in 2020, and their intentions often include prayers for immigrants, but I could see in, say, some more conservative Southwest Suburban areas, for instance, seeing something like this (though I haven’t seen that there, either.) Catholic churches, in my experience, are pretty smack dab in the middle of the political spectrum. and I have been to masses like at a church in Chippewa Falls during the Obama-McCain race where I wanted to walk out (the homily, while not naming names, was very clearly pushing one candidate) to others like St. James (where I volunteer at the food pantry) or my parish that both do push social justice openly, and don’t really talk about abortion, and whose school even includes preferred pronouns in their teacher bios. (But this is not to say all the parishoners agree with it, of course.) It’s a rather mixed bag.
Would have been in the Plainfield, Naperville, Oswego area with a fourth up near Sugar Grove and Elburn. That said, there really isn’t a “that explains it” excuse that makes it right.
(Just looked at the closest to me, St Mary’s Immaculate in Plainfield, was doing abortion cross displays as recently as throughout the entire month of October)
All and well still, I got this feeling. y’know, call me crazy, that Abbot is not doing this shit because or in spite of that he’s Catholic or having sought endorsement as such. He’s doing it because he’s a cruel Reactionary putz and in the case of dumping people in front of the VP’s home because she has the gall to be a nonwhite female liberal in a position of power whom POTUS named to take lead on border issues (the latter a separate discussion).
I believe they’ve solved that problem by simply lying about what happens, and concocting bullshit stories about how the refugees they shipped away were treated terribly by those evil Demoncrats.
Also: https://catholiccharitiesny.org/ Has a large wing that is focused on helping immigrants legally and otherwise. Catholic Charities is the second largest provider of social services safety nets, after the US government.
Yep. They are now living in the streets and in subway stations and engaging in crime (or else they are forcing the hometown homeless to be the ones who do so, by taking over all the shelters), making all the city libs run away to become suburban Republicans. And those fed on the bubble will believe it.
Today’s American “Christian” fascists would have sent Mary and Joseph away to freeze to death.
Do they even know the Christmas story even a little bit? Do they think Jesus was born to a couple of wealthy parents in a mansion, and laid to rest in a gold plated cradle and then they all took off in the corporate jet for a holiday in Cancun?
There was a television commercial on yesterday during the football games that professed just that. (The Jesus birth story and not being a dick to immigrants.)
But then again, saying something is different than doing something. Not to shit on all Catholics, but as I mentioned last night, the people shipping these migrants around like game pieces are Christians. So they say.
If there’s one thing I don’t understand about the conservative mindset, it’s the desperation to constantly believe that they have “owned the libs”. They really believe and congratulate themselves that sending busloads of migrants to the Naval Observatory has Kamala Harris and her liberal comrades pulling their hair out and gnashing their teeth in seething frustration over getting “got” by this clever maneuver. They herald it as a triumph on Fox News. Yet the only people that suffer any cost from this are obviously the migrants themselves, and the taxpayers and/or conservative donors who are paying for this stunt.
But that’s part of my point - the only people who will believe this narrative are those already in the bubble. There’s no way this is going to grow their base, and their base is already shrinking, as the recent midterm elections demonstrate. Doubling down on this cannot possibly help them, and probably hurts them.
Sure, people like MTG are too stupid to understand this, but DeSantis? Isn’t he supposed to be the smart one?
We’ve seen Catholic clergy speaking out against politicians over abortions. Maybe these clergymen need to start speaking out against politicians who are disobeying all of the other things Jesus said.