Prelates of the Welfare State

Donald Trump has scared the devil out of America’s Catholic bishops. They have supported the Democrat agenda for so long – global warming, amnesty, raising the minimum wage, and national health care – that they can’t seem to let go.

As a result, with few exceptions, these prelates have blithely ignored Trump’s defense of moral principles supported by the Church – on abortion, on religious freedom, on radical federal judges, and on education.

Given Trump’s reversals of Obama’s pernicious policies, why aren’t Catholic bishops cheering? Why haven’t they told the faithful and the public that at last we have a president who defends the rights of the unborn, who defies the United Nations bureaucrats, global warming, and population control, and who will put families, and not bureaucrats, back in charge of their children’s schools?

In various ways I have asked countless bishops this question, and none of them will answer. In fact, only one responded at all. He wrote: “I do not have time to answer your question.”

Seriously.

Current Prices on popular forms of Gold Bullion

In the meantime, Obamanite attacks on the Church continue. In the last week alone, two Billionaire Blogs have featured anti-Catholic tirades. The Washington Post, owned by Amazon founder and internationalist Jeff Bezos, and the New York Times, funded by Mexican favorite Corrupto pal Carlos Slim, oozed with vengeance and ignorance as they railed against Catholic political intrigues and “fascist” cardinals in Rome.

Unfortunately, millions of Americans garner what little they know about the Catholic Church from these Deadwood Media, as well as late-night “comedy” shows and liberal politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden. Ignorance reigns supreme.

And yet, for some reason America’s Catholic bishops refuse to respond to these attacks and answer simple questions about their political agenda. So those questions persist, as they should. They deserve an answer.  Here are some of them:

Aristotle and Aquinas tell us that a virtuous act must be voluntary. Is paying your taxes “voluntary”?

According to Saint Paul, charity is the highest virtue. Is government funding really “charity”?

Speaking of government funding, Catholic bishops and their welfare agencies receive a billion dollars a year from the taxpayer. Do the bishops ever give credit to the taxpayer for this largesse? Or do they save their gratitude and praise for their generous government paymasters?

Catholic hospitals, universities, and welfare agencies routinely solicit “charitable contributions” from the Catholic laity.  Yet they don’t tell prospective donors that they already “gave at the office” through their taxes. Why the silence?

Federally-funded Catholic institutions quickly leap to obey each new government regulation and bureaucratic directive, while ignoring or even defying Catholic moral teaching and practices in their operations. How did this come to pass?

Leading bishops confirm the Pew Trust’s finding that thirty million Americans today call themselves “ex-Catholics.” Why have so many millions left? Do the bishops care if they lose thirty million more?

Mexico’s endangered Catholic bishops parrot the slanders of their country’s Corrupto elites, condemning Americans as selfish bigots, xenophobes and racists. America’s bishops, instead of defending their fellow citizens, join in, accusing them with the same vile epithets. Why?

For all practical purposes, America’s bishops and their intricate network of “independent” welfare agencies actually operate as mere subsidiaries of the federal government. For instance, they receive hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars a year to harbor aliens, both legal and illegal, as well as Moslem “refugees” sent by the United Nations. Could the bishops’ support of amnesty and their sustained opposition to Trump possibly be motivated by fear of losing those taxpayer dollars when the president terminates those programs?

Since so many Catholics have left the American Church, those who remain in the pews are increasingly Hispanic, especially among the young. Does the bishops’ advocacy of massive immigration, amnesty for illegal aliens, and welfare funding for immigrants imply that they have virtually given up on everybody else?

Like most advocates of the liberal “social justice” agenda, America’s Catholic bishops were stunned (and many were horrified) by the results of the presidential election. They were comfortably prepared for Hillary Clinton’s policies on immigration, welfare spending, global warming, racial preferences, and funding for their welfare agencies. When they recover from their shock – if they recover at all – these questions will still be around.

And so will Donald Trump.

[This is the fifth of a series on the role of the Catholic Church in the decline and fall of the Republic Here are the first, the second, the third, and the fourth.]

The post Prelates of the Welfare State appeared first on LewRockwell.