Trumps rise and GOP economics may shift Catholic Churchs priorities

With the election of Donald Trump as president and a Republican congress threatening to privatize social services or do away with them, the U.S. bishops may be changing their list of priorities from moral issues such as abortion back to social issues like economic justice and immigration.



Cardinal Sean O’Malley, center, speaks with President of the AFL-CIO Richard Trumka, right, during the Erroneous Autonomy conference in Washington, D.C, on Jan. 10, 2017. (Photo courtesy of The Catholic University of America/Dana Rene Bowler.)

January 13, 2017
David Gibson
RELIGION NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON, D.C. - For much of its long history in the U.S., the Catholic Church was known as the champion of the working class, a community of immigrants whose leaders were steadfast in support of organized labor and economic justice - a faith-based agenda that helped provide a path to success for its largely working-class flock.

In recent decades, as those ethnic European Catholics assimilated and grew wealthier, and as the concerns of the American hierarchy shifted to battles over moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage, traditional pocketbook issues took a back seat.

Now, however, with the surprise election of Donald Trump and the Republican sweep of Congress signaling a new era of free-market and anti-immigration policies, the U.S. church and its bishops may be set to recalibrate their priorities.

The latest sign of such a shift came this week at a conference at Catholic University of America, co-sponsored by the AFL-CIO, that featured leading voices in the hierarchy and Catholic academia calling on the church to work together to confront what one bishop called “the growing imperialism of market mechanisms within American public life.”

https://cruxnow.com/rns/2017/01/13/trumps-rise-gop-economics-may-shift-catholic-churchs-priorities/