… and is much more respectful than Pope Francis is to those who disagree.
Mr. Tancredo makes an important point that our Catholic bishops ignore: their authority lies in the area of the Church’s “magisterial” teaching – that is, the truths of the Faith that are unchangeable and handed down from generation to generation for 2000 years.
When it comes to political issues on which good people (and good Catholics) can disagree, a bishop’s opinion is no more authoritative than anyone else’s.
Moreover, when a bishop pretends that his political opinion **is** authoritative, he commits the objective wrong called “clericalism.” That has two consequences:
1) it dilutes his true authority (and indeed, most of our bishops are silent on the tough moral truths that are so unpopular in today’s secular culture.
2) it drives people away from the Church and to denominations that preach the Gospel, not politics (this is also the case in Latin America).
One more comment: Mr. Tancredo is much more gracious to Pope Francis and the bishops than the bishops are to those who disagree with them: for them, we are bigots, nativists, xenophobes – even “Pharisees and hypocrites.”
That is hardly the language of love and evangelization.
8:51 am on September 19, 2017
