And lose the congregation?
Ah, ah!! Believe it or not, there is a large contingent out there of only-partly-engaged electorate that can be potentially scared because they are only paying attention to what’s immediate. These are the people who reacted badly to something just over the top like Trump being an utter ignorant ass AND then a pathetic sore loser making lunatic claims; or to something that literally personally hits them and their loved ones right in the lower abdomen like the repeal of Roe. But they can be a potential target to be told that while they were looking the other way, Really Bad Things are happening Somewhere Else, and that they need protecting from the Really Bad Things before they affect them. The GQP had high hopes in 2020 that these voters would be too scared to death of BLM and Antifa coming to burn their street, and before the Roe repeal that they’d be panicking over Critical Race Theory and Trans People turning their children into someone different from them (see: Virginia 2021 gubernatorial)… and they came &^%$# CLOSE to winning again on that. So of course they feel they should try keeping the base showing up AND rattling the cage of some who may be peripheral, maybe with a little tweaking they can make it work.
Not going to happen. The followers of the conservative movement have self-selected themselves. They’re people who will believe anything an authority figure tells them.
I dunno; a lot of folks have already decided that ignoring the Pope is a conservative value. They’ll say things like that Francis doesn’t actually have any authority; it’s the office of the Papacy that has authority. And since offices conveniently never say anything, it’ll never say anything that contradicts what they want to think.
Catholic Charities is not the Catholic Church.
It’s part of the Catholic Church.
That seems disingenuous. Where does the money come from, if not from tithing Catholics? Where does the mission come from, if not a Catholic understanding of religious values?
Last I looked about 3% comes from “tithing [sic] Catholics”. The vast majority of funding comes from Federal and State governments.
Well, I think I’ve demonstrated my credentials as a non-believer by mis-using the word “tithe.” 
Who knew it was ALREADY a verb? Not me, obviously.
Nonetheless, I don’t see how you can claim that Greg Abbott represents Catholicism, but Catholic Charities does not. What, exactly, supports such an argument?
And my second question remains unanswered - what values do Catholic Charities represent, if not those of the Church?
It seems almost as though a group of 72 million Americans includes a diverse range of opinions and beliefs. 
I concur with pulykamell, I have never seen an abortion cross display at a Catholic church in Chicago; there is one that has a tombstone for the “victims” in their lawn, but I’m guessing that’s been there quite a while. The areas Jophiel is describing are much more conservative in general, so it doesn’t seem surprising that the Catholics there are more conservative.
Anyway, Merry Abbottisadouchemas to all!
Just like Biden and Pelosi, who are Catholic and yet enthusiastically and stridently oppose their church’s teaching on abortion.
It’s almost as though Jesus and the scriptures take a backseat to placating the local political affiliations.
Which was my whole original point.
And then there are some organizations that reject things like the Vatican II reforms. The old joke about being “more Catholic than the Pope”? There are some Catholics who actually believe they are.
They are all examples of how little control the Catholic church has over the Catholic laity in general. Priests can be defrocked, as a rabid antiabortionist was just a week ago, but the Holy Mother Church has little to no control over who attends Mass or professes themselves Catholic, nor what they proclaim in the name of the church. Ain’t like the olden days.
Thank you, and a Happy DeSantissuckszaa as well.
Because let’s Remember the Reason For The Thread
Unless things have changed, you will get a nice letter back.
This is not to say that the Pope will even see your letter, but someone will have read it and responded.
Compassion for the less fortunate isn’t a specially Catholic value; it’s a human value. It doesn’t concern me that the actions of the governor of the second largest state are uncatholic. It concerns me because they are inhuman,
Yes, but it adds yet another level of hypocrisy. I was raised Catholic, and heard hymns that went on about, “They will know we are Christians by our love!”, as if they were so much more loving than everyone else. And yet, here, once again, they fail to live up to even the baseline, “I’m a human” levels of love and compassion.
Hell, I’m not all that compassionate myself on a personal level, but even I wouldn’t pull a stunt like this.
I know many intentional Catholics whose faith is expressed in deeds and political action for immigrants, the poor, and other disenfranchised and underrepresented groups. It’s impossible to characterize thr stance a worldwide religious community.
A pet theory I have is that before the invention of writing, or before most of humanity being able to read, the usual thing for religion was to change; slowly, but change with the times.
That was possible because the ones that would remember pious changes to original oral tales did eventually die. Once reading and writing were available to most people, the ones questioning authority became more numerous. It used to be that progress did follow in the near past because the contradictions led many to question injustices or leave the church (like me). But now that there is just a tad bit of progress coming from the leaders of the church, it is reaccionaries nowadays the ones that want to stop any changes.