Former White House Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon blasted U.S. Catholic bishops for their long-standing support for open-borders and illegal aliens, the Washington Times reports.
“The bishops have been terrible about this,” said Bannon, a self-identified Roman Catholic who has returned to his post running Breitbart News. The bishops are “unable to really to come to grips with the problems in the church, they need illegal aliens.
"They need illegal aliens to fill the churches. That’s — it’s obvious on the face of it. That’s what — the entire Catholic bishops condemn [the president]. … They have — they have an economic interest. They have an economic interest in unlimited immigration, unlimited illegal immigration.
”The criticism comes after President Trump announced he will phase out Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a constitutionally dubious amnesty-like program President Obama created during his time in office. DACA shielded about 800,000 young illegal aliens claimed to have been brought to the country as minors. The comments were made in a “60 Minutes” interview scheduled to air on CBS this Sunday evening.
In the interview, Bannon specifically takes aim at the archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
“The bishops have been terrible about this,” Bannon said. They’re “unable to really to come to grips with the problems in the church, they need illegal aliens. They need illegal aliens to fill the churches. That’s — it’s obvious on the face of it. That’s what — the entire Catholic bishops condemn [the president]. … They have — they have an economic interest. They have an economic interest in unlimited immigration, unlimited illegal immigration.”
Cardinal Dolan trashed President Trump’s decision on a Sirius XM radio program, declaring that getting rid of DACA was “certainly not Christian” and arguably “not American.” The U.S. Catholic Bishops tweeted Tuesday that “#DACA youth are woven into the fabric of our country and of our Church, and are, by every social and human measure, American youth.”
In the CBS segment, Bannon disputed the criticism that he is being too “tough” on the Church.
“As much as I respect Cardinal Dolan and the bishops on doctrine, this is not doctrine,” he said. “This is not doctrine at all. I totally respect the pope and I totally respect the Catholic bishops and cardinals on doctrine. This is not about doctrine. This is about the sovereignty of a nation. And in that regard, they’re just another guy with an opinion.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Campaign for Human Development have long been part of the community-organizing, activist Left. I wrote a long profile of CCHD in 2009. Read the whole thing here.
Here is a short excerpt:
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CCHD is the grant-making arm of USCCB, which acts on behalf of the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops, a group widely assumed to be conservative defenders of traditional morality. However, CCHD and ACORN share a left-wing ideology that puts a premium on aggressive community organizing.
It is an error to think of CCHD as an ordinary charity. In fact, it is an extreme left-wing political organization whose ties stretch back to the “father” of community organizing himself, Saul Alinsky, and to Barack Obama in his community-organizing days in Chicago.
And unbeknownst to most Catholics, almost no CCHD grants actually provide direct relief to the poor. […]
