Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Back in 2008, in the weeks leading up to the Obama-McCain presidential election, two young men visited me in Denver. They were from Catholics United, a group describing itself as committed to social justice issues. They voiced great concern at the manipulative skill of Catholic agents for the Republican Party. And they hoped my brother bishops and I would resist identifying the Church with single-issue and partisan (read: abortion) politics.
It was an interesting experience. Both men were obvious flacks for the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party — creatures of a political machine, not men of the Church; less concerned with Catholic teaching than with its influence. And presumably (for them) bishops were dumb enough to be used as tools, or at least prevented from helping the other side.
Yet these two young men not only equaled but surpassed their Republican cousins in the talents of servile partisan hustling. Thanks to their work, and activists like them, American Catholics helped to elect an administration that has been the most stubbornly unfriendly to religious believers, institutions, concerns and liberty in generations.
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I never saw either young man again. The cultural damage done by the current White House has — apparently — made courting America’s bishops unnecessary.
But bad can always get worse. I’m thinking, of course, of the contemptuously anti-Catholic emails exchanged among members of the Clinton Democratic presidential campaign team and released this week by WikiLeaks. A sample: Sandy Newman, president of Voices for Progress, emailed John Podesta, now the head of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, to ask about whether “the bishops opposing contraceptive coverage” could be the tinder for a revolution. “There needs to be a Catholic Spring, in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages [sic] dictatorship,” Newman writes.
Of course, Newman added, “this idea may just reveal my total lack of understanding of the Catholic church, the economic power it can bring to bear against nuns and priests who count on it for their maintenance.” Still, he wondered, how would one “plant the seeds of a revolution”? John Podesta replied that “We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this . . . likewise Catholics United” (emphasis added).
Another Clinton-related email, from John Halpin of the Center for American Progress, mocks Catholics in the so-called conservative movement, especially converts: “They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.” In a follow-up, he adds “They can throw around ‘Thomistic’ thought and ‘subsidiarity’ and sound sophisticated because no one knows what . . . they’re talking about.”
On the evening these WikiLeaks emails were released, I received the following angry email myself, this one from a nationally respected (non-Catholic) attorney experienced in Church-state affairs:
“I was deeply offended by the [Clinton team] emails, which are some of the worst bigotry by a political machine I have seen. [A] Church has an absolute right to protect itself when under attack as a faith and Church by civil political forces. That certainly applies here …
“Over the last eight years there has been strong evidence that the current administration, with which these people share values, has been very hostile to religious organizations. Now there is clear proof that this approach is deliberate and will accelerate if these actors have any continuing, let alone louder, say in government.
“These bigots are actively strategizing how to shape Catholicism not to be Catholic or consistent with Jesus’ teachings, but to be the ‘religion’ they want. They are, at the very core, trying to turn religion to their secular view of right and wrong consistent with their politics. This is fundamentally why the Founders left England and demanded that government not have any voice in religion. Look where we are now. We have political actors trying to orchestrate a coup to destroy Catholic values, and they even analogize their takeover to a coup in the Middle East, which amplifies their bigotry and hatred of the Church. I had hoped I would never see this day — a day like so many dark days in Eastern Europe that led to the death of my [Protestant minister] great grandfather at the hands of communists who also hated and wanted to destroy religion.”
Of course it would be wonderful for the Clinton campaign to repudiate the content of these ugly WikiLeaks emails. All of us backward-thinking Catholics who actually believe what Scripture and the Church teach would be so very grateful.
In the meantime, a friend describes the choice facing voters in November this way: A vulgar, boorish lout and disrespecter of women, with a serious impulse control problem; or a scheming, robotic liar with a lifelong appetite for power and an entourage riddled with anti-Catholic bigots.
In a nation where “choice” is now the unofficial state religion, the menu for dinner is remarkably small.
Thank you, Your Excellency, for standing up for truth and expressing clear Catholic church teachings with conviction!! It is clear that we must do everything we can to stop the hostility toward religious organizations, and especially stop the hostility to the threat of human life itself through abortion and euthanasia. We have always promoted candidates that promote the most basic right we have, the right to live. Thank you again, Archbishop Chaput.
As a Catholic woman who actually read Theology of the Body and other writings. I understand the beauty of Catholic teaching. I have seen the pain caused by the sexual revolution and contraception. The Church has had it right all along.
This information cannot be limited to just e-mails. It needs to be broadcast LOUDLY for ALL to know what is really happening to our basic beliefs. How can we get this on the airways instead of all the garbage that we have been bombarded with? The politicians are very clever in wording and presenting their ideas in such a way that people are buying what they are saying even though it goes against what our founding fathers wanted for this country. Our religious rights and beliefs are being attached! We cannot allow this to happen if we want to live wholeheartedly under the freedoms this country was founded on and we depend on. Our moral beliefs need to be upheld and respected.
I do beleve in the separatiom of church and state. I feel we have been mixing religion and politics for far too long. Our ancestors left the Old World to be free of a powerful state church that ruled from Rome. We are still backward in regard to women’s status in the modern day church. Sometimes the truth is hard to hear. But we should learn from those who see us from the outside and take their thoughts and concerns to heart and learn from them.
I do feel our church is very backward in regard to women and
If you call the demand for new thinking in our church or a new focus for our church a “Catholic spring”, count me in. The Catholic church needs dramatic change. After 16 years of Catholic schools and over two decades of hoping for our clergy leaders to fully reconcile for their collusive abuse of children, change is long overdue. I am glad to see inside and outside forces challenging our church to revisit Christ’s example. My suggested first change: puts the nuns in charge because the men don’t get it!
God bless you Archbishop Chaput ! Your moral courage, insights and strong arguments upholding true Catholic teaching are an inspiration to me!!!!
The Catholic Church needs to be training up statesmen within their ranks. Pope Pius IX in his Syllabus of Errors stated the kind of opposition that the church would be receiving and that it would be an aggressive attack against the Scriptures and the Church and all that is held dear. This would be a great addition to the content needed to train up a generation of statesmen!
Catholics must continue to be true to the religious teaching of the Catholic Church and be willing to speak out explaining them even when there is hostile environment. This is no time for private views and public views. Following Christ’s teachings is what it is all about.
I have always contended that God is ultimately in charge. I’ve heard that all authority comes from God, when God’s chosen people in the Old Testament obeyed and prayed they received good leaders, when they didn’t they received the opposite. My prayer is that God will send us a leader that we need and not one we deserve. Since the platform on one side is so diametrically opposed to many major Catholic issues, what we need is clear to me.
Archbishop Chaput, bless you for your work for the faithful. I send my effusive thanks and support for your courageous letter.
I am appalled at the actions of these political people to distort the Church’s mission and confuse and deceive faithful Catholics. We must pay attention to what is going on in our country in order to preserve our Catholic traditions. While there are forces at work that would try to silence our teaching of Catholic faith, there is still time for us to throw off these destructive forces.
Catholics of faith want to defend our Church and our traditions!
If the Catholic Church is silenced by political persecution, I fear not only for our community but for the moral foundation of our nation. I am doing my best to your letter with my friends and faithful of other denominations.
I pray that Our Lord Jesus will renew our harts and minds. This I pray so the person of true faith will get in. Our country needs the Sheid of Jesus real bad. God bless!
Ask that everyone get on their knees and pray God he gives this country a second chance to open no
Thank you, Bishop please remind everyone to get on their knees and ask God for a second chance for this country
This is my fourth attempt to offer a comment to Bishop Chaput article above.
The othrs went off into cyberspace somewhere. I’m always impressed how he
can hit the nail on the head. October 15, 2016 was the day Catholics were
to come together to pray the Rosary in the public square. A beautiful crowd
showed up at our local town square at noon Saturday and did so, –even though the weaather was uncooperative in Michigan. Our nations problems are far
beyond any human solution, as Good is called evil and evil is called Good.
Thank you again, Archbishop Chaput.
weather was un-cooperative in Michigan.
I think it’s belittling to Hillary Clinton to not even mention her more “Christian” works like her creation on the CHiP which insurances 8 million of the countries poorest children, her anti-death (only in cases of terrorism) stance, her desire to continue to continue Obamacare which has insured millions of our poorest families, her pro-family/anti-wall immigration plan, and her advocacy for educating girls in some of the world’s most desolate areas.
I understand some of those who worked with her emailed belittling comments about Catholics and certainly the Cardinal would never advocate for a pro-Choice candidate, but don’t reduce her career to two emails she didn’t even write. In the name of fairness the woman has done some good work that should be taken into account when Catholics are voting – even if she is “robotic.”
Bravo! This should be read from every pulpit. Unfortunately, the so called Catholic vote resembles the vote of the general population.
If all Catholics were guided by their faith when voting, we would not be in such a mess: trying to choose between two lousy candidates for president. I will hold my nose and vote for Trump, since not voting will bolster Clinton’s chances and her anti-Catholic agenda.
Dear Archbishop Chaput:
There is an alternative explanation for the Clinton team analysis: they have correctly identified a major failing in the contemporary Catholic Church. By not allowing women to become priests, by being opposed to artificial contraception (even though a large majority of parishioners use it), by not being open to the LBGT community, and by covering up decades of sexual abuse, the church has not allowed its self to fully embrace Jesus’ teachings. For this reason educated people in the U.S. continue to leave the church.
This is deeply alienating. Those of us who grew up Catholic but cannot reconcile our desire for gender equality, for example, with the church’s teachings, feel deeply disappointed and removed from the body that once sustained us. As the priesthood attracts ever more conservative men who are more shut off from the world, we grieve. We grieve the loss of an open church that moved with its parishioners instead of against them, one that was open and embracing of all.
Dear Archbishop Chaput,
Catholics have faced bigotry in the past from the “Know Nothing” party and other nativist movements. One of the strengths of the Catholic community is that it is not an American institution but a universal (catholic) community that can stand as a witness sometimes with but also against a particular cultural phenomenon. Thanks for expressing clearly Catholic teaching in an environment that is becoming more and more hostile to the Catholic community. I sometimes feel that the last group of people in the US that can be attacked without apology are those of us in the Catholic Church. But Jesus has reminded us that we are not to put a light on a lampstand, only to cover it over. Thank you again and as Francis said “pax et bonum..”
Al Sagel
Your Excellency. Thank you for the response! You are the only one out of our shepherds!
I need to ask a very tough question. As I understand, Mr John Podesta is a Catholic.
Would you, for the sake of Christ, and the salvation of Mr John soul, excommunicate him (refused to give the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ) if he presented himself for the Eucharist? I hope you would do, so Mr Podesta could make decision what is more important – eternal life or eternal damnation. I hope he would choose the first one. Now, he is not confronted with this. It would be the only charitable to do that.
Thank you for your COURAGE !!!!!!!!!!!
Although some say Trump is a “boorish lout”, I could NEVER conceive of voting for a serial liar (under oath) like Hillary Clinton that has no interest in and, in fact, has pure hatred for the Christian faith in general and Catholics in particular. Trump would be a welcome change from what we have endured for the past eight years and, I assure you, It is only will get progressively worse. God help us if she wins because the Supreme Court will become another arm of the effort to destroy religion and what is left of our Constitution.