High-ranking Catholic clergy are beginning to speak out against President Donald Trump's agenda, denouncing it as a threat to the vulnerable in America, reported The Bulwark on Tuesday.
In particular, Trump has drawn ire from prominent bishops over his "big, beautiful bill" of tax breaks, for cutting over $1 trillion from Medicaid and food assistance. The Trump administration, which previously denied the bill included cuts to Medicaid at all, is now speculating about forcing tens of millions of lower-income Medicaid recipients into farm labor to replace deported agricultural workers.
"As House and Senate Republicans advanced a budget that ripped some cords out from the social safety net while giving ICE, the federal government’s masked police force, the kind of money that could stand up another nation’s military, religious sisters from more than 60 congregations protested inside and outside the Capitol," reported Joe Perticone. "Bishops, meanwhile, sent letters pleading with lawmakers to reject the budget on the grounds that it harshly punished the poor and undocumented."
Meanwhile, the report continued, Cardinals Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C., and Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, proclaimed in a letter of interfaith signatories that the bill will “sow chaos in local communities,” “be used to target faith communities,” and “harm the poor and vulnerable in our nation, to the detriment of the common good.” McElroy went further and proclaimed on CNN that the bill “is simply not only incompatible with Catholic teaching, it’s inhumane, and it’s morally repugnant.”
Despite the Catholic Church's more conservative leanings on a number of social issues, the institution has long supported programs that serve the welfare of the poor, as well as immigrants and refugees.
Trump, who often presents himself as a supporter of religious freedom when discussing conservative Christian denominations, frequently attacked the late Pope Francis, who not only espoused these teachings but sought to move the church in a more liberal direction generally.
After his passing, he was succeeded by Leo XIV, the first American to hold the papacy, who has largely signaled intent to carry on in the direction of his predecessor.
