The Washington archbishop is facing backlash from Catholics for his scathing condemnation of President Trump's visit to the Saint John Paul II National Shrine, coinciding with an international religious liberty executive order Tuesday.
Wilton Gregory opposed the long-planned visit by Trump and first lady Melania Trump, who is Catholic.
"I find it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion that violates our religious principles, which call us to defend the rights of all people even those with whom we might disagree,” the archbishop said in a statement.
“Saint Pope John Paul II was an ardent defender of the rights and dignity of human beings. His legacy bears vivid witness to that truth," Gregory added. "He certainly would not condone the use of tear gas and other deterrents to silence, scatter or intimidate them for a photo opportunity in front of a place of worship and peace.”
I'm not sure how Gregory knows what John Paul II would have condoned in the circumstances, nor do I necessarily consider such hypotheticals to be determinative of anything. The shrine posted this statement:
6/2/2020 – Many are aware of a presidential visit to the Saint John Paul II National Shrine today. Here is a statement from the Shrine: “The White House originally scheduled this as an event for the president to sign an executive order on international religious freedom. This was fitting given Saint John Paul II was a tireless advocate of religious liberty throughout his pontificate. International religious freedom receives widespread bipartisan support, including unanimous passage of legislation in defense of persecuted Christians and religious minorities around the world. The Shrine welcomes all people to come and pray and learn about the legacy of Saint John Paul II.”
A number of well known Catholic intellectuals and pundits suggested that a certain measure of hypocrisy and, yes, partisan politics may have been involved in Gregory's harsh condemnation of Trump:
Edward N. Peters, a Roman Catholic canonist and professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary of the Archdiocese of Detroit, tweeted that Gregory's condemnation is "devoid of any sense of Christian sentiment."
Dwight Longenecker, a Catholic priest, shared an image of Gregory with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with the caption: "I find it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated."
Pelosi, a nominal Catholic, has long opposed Catholic moral teaching, yet presents herself to receive the Eucharist when it suits her for the purpose of partisan posturing. Gregory is happy enough to participate in that charade. Trump, by contrast, has (whatever Catholics might think of some aspects of his personal life) strongly supported notable principles of Catholic morality--including not only the need to protect the full spectrum of human life but also principles that are fundamental to our constitutional order. I think especially of the idea of rule of law but also those principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self evident ..."
NOTE: I've reverted to the original Blogger since the new version lacks many common features--such as the ability to embed images and videos.
When I think of Pope Francis and so many of these bishops and cardinals, I am reminded of Matthew 23:23-31.
ReplyDeleteCharlatans.
Have you been watching RR? Brian Cates says that he (Brian) was wrong and will do a mea culpa later today.
I am following Shem Horne on Twitter and it's quite disturbing.
Random thoughts.
ReplyDeleteMark Esper, D/DOD is publicly undermining the President. If he disagrees with him, he should say so privately. Telling the media I stay out of politics while talking about politics, is, well, politics. He also described the incident with George Floyd as murder and said we need to talk about racism. I'm tired of being lectured about racism.
RR is a weasel. Lindsey Graham is good at showboating. The only reason to even care if the Reps keeps the Senate is for Trump judges. Many Reps are useless. They're only in it for themselves.
Anyone defending the rioters and looting should be beaten by the rioters and have his house looted. Then he should be re-interviewed or retweet to see if he still thinks rioting and looting are defensible.
Earlier in the day I was optimistic. Right now, I'm feeling pretty pessimistic. What a difference a day makes sang Dinah Washington. Sometimes it's not even a day.
Judges is a very big reason.
DeleteJudges, e.g. the Bible book, locals, Sotomayer, Roberts,...?
Delete"...and said we need to talk about racism."
DeleteWhenever a public figure says that what they mean is, "We need to talk about YOUR racism, and I'll prove my virtue by beating the sin out of you." It's self-flagellation with a silken scourge. A grifters Indulgence.
Tom S.
And, this always refers to racism *by* whites, *never* at whites.
DeleteThat photo of Nancy with the archbishop is a sickmaker. Hypocrisy and partisanship indeed.
ReplyDeleteJoe, most of us haven’t the foggiest notion who Brian Cates is…
Just sign me
/s/Don'tDoPundits
Yes, sickening. Gregory has a history.
DeleteMust have been scrubbed. Only black mark at his Wiki page is his use of a $2.2 million bequest to build a home for himself, as archbishop, in Atlanta. He apparently aims to be a cardinal...
DeleteCardinal huh, well he has officially reached buzzard, so he has a ways to go.
DeleteRob S
Bebe,
ReplyDeleteBrian Cates is a journalist and he tweets. I mention him because Mr. Wauck has previously, if my memory serves, referenced his work in his (Mr. Wauck) own posts. Cates has been recentlymentioned in this blog's comments section, too.
Cates was a believer that RR was a clandestine 'white hat' or mole who was going to expose the Deep State. Now Cates is saying that he was wrong about RR.
I mention Cates because I leaned towards Mr. Wauck's view of RR, but wondered, based on Cates, if RR could turn out to not be so much of a weasel but a man who found himself in a tough spot and made the wrong choices. Cates' mea culpa supports Mr. Wauck's position.
Rosenstein has been an obviously weak man from the beginning. Many of us have followed him and his actions for years, not months.
DeleteI understand that some follow various persons and other writers and their tweets. And others follow the commenters at CTH. It is my observation that those writers and commenters follow the same news that we do - some in depth, some superficially - and use their own reasoning powers to cast their opinions. I try to do my own research rather than getting it through someone else’s filter…
The Epoch Times, which publishes Cates’s “commentaries” identifies him as a “writer" based in Texas. His writings are his opinions.
Everyone handles the news and their opinions differently
Agreed.
DeleteBebe,
DeleteI agree. I do my own research and make my own opinion. RR was one of the few that I was unsure about. I came to the same conclusion as you, i.e., that he is weak. But it took me a while to reach that conclusion.
If the GOP loses Congess they’ll impeach Trump for sure. We better have 34 solid Senators.
ReplyDeleteThe presidential election down ticket and the off year election have always been critical. Too many uninformed, underinformed, or just plain lazy voters fail to understand this. I’m not sure they even get it when the Congress - or either house - goes to the Dems.
ReplyDeleteI visited the doctor's office this morning and got there a minute late. I explained to the technician that I was having a hard time pulling away from Rod Rosenstein's testimony on TV. The tech looked confused. I asked him whether he knew who Rosenstein is.
ReplyDeleteHe said, "No."
In testimony before Tillis, RR won't say that McCabe lied to him. Why is he protecting this guy?
ReplyDeleteFast forward to Richard Blumenthal who is saying that today's hearing is "to rehash a set of allegations that are of no consequence." I believe that's verbatim.
We record this stuff and watch slightly delayed. That way we can fast forward through Blumenthal et al. They always say the same things, making one wonder if it involves chips implanted in their brains.
DeleteSen Kennedy asks RR why he and his colleagues didn't ask harder questions. Why didn't they find out about the lies about Flynn, that the Steele Dossier was unadulterated BS, and the FISA applications were filled with lies? Why?
ReplyDeleteRR repeats his belief that the investigation was 'properly predicated'.
I suspect that Barr and Durham disagree.
Strongly.
Sen Blackburn was worth waiting for.
ReplyDeleteShe gets to the very heart of it.
She says there was a quiet insurrection within the DOJ and FBI which RR did not uncover or stop. He claims he didn't know.
Was he therefore a stooge?
He says "I don't believe Robert Mueller was trying to get rid of the President. I was not trying to get rid of the President".
I don't believe him.
Of course we shouldn't believe him, or any of them.
DeleteWhat a pity, that it took the last Senator to go anywhere of real significance.
Odds are, most of them (aside from, say, Marsha, Kennedy, and Grassley) were complicit in it.
If Barr can't get big busts, it's time for Heartland America to secede, rather than wait for the Dems/ D.S. to pick us all off, one by one.
I think of Rosenstein as the shifty guy at court who was always skulking around the throne, head full of skullduggery and raging ambition… plotting…manipulating...
Delete"RR repeats his belief that the investigation was 'properly predicated'."
ReplyDeleteDid any Senator press him on this?
I saw none, tho w/ Fox cutting in and out, I may've missed key stuff.
Not really.
DeleteI liked Marcia Blackburn the best. She was the last interviewer and she asked, in essence:
Mr R. This was a 'quiet' attempted overthrow. Didn't you figure this out? Why didn't you do anything about it?
As far as I'm concerned RR is playing the 'by the book defense'. He's (kinda) sorry for all the trouble, but he did nothing wrong.
And the answer is: Of course he figured it out. He told the committee he had that figured out by August at the latest (actually, long before that). Total weasel.
DeleteIn Dec 2019, in an exclusive interview with NBC News, Attorney General William Barr said he believes the FBI may have operated out of "bad faith" when it investigated whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, and he contended the FBI acted improperly by continuing the investigation after Donald Trump took office.
DeleteIn the interview, Barr took issue with the findings of the Justice Department's inspector general that there was no evidence of political bias in the launching of the Russia probe, saying that John Durham is investigating.
"I think our nation was turned on its head for three years based on a completely bogus narrative that was largely fanned and hyped by a completely irresponsible press," Barr said. "I think there were gross abuses …and inexplicable behavior that is intolerable in the FBI."
"I think that leaves open the possibility that there was bad faith."
Rosenstein was utterly silent about Barr's views regarding all of these matters which occurred just before or on his watch. And which were investigated under his supervision.
Taking the Eichmann defense "I was just so busy making the trains run on time that I couldn't possibly know what they were carrying" mixed with "Those FBI types just talk so fast I had no idea what they were saying."
DeleteBe careful calling him a weasel. We'll have weasel's rioting too.
Tom S.
@Cassander, a salutary reminder.
DeleteFrom ATL- we were so glad to get rid of Wilton Gregory as our Archbishop. He started out here by renovating a mansion in the poshest area of town, and couldn't understand why it might be perceived as inappropriate that he wanted a $6.5MM mansion to live in. One of my Grandpa's favorite jokes was the Devil telling Jesus he was going to ruin His Church...Jessus said, "nonsense, if the bishops haven't succeeded in ruining it in 2,000 year, you'll never do it."
ReplyDeleteGregory directed a $2.2 million bequest to the Atlanta Church to that mansion...
DeleteThere was one very odd exchange. In one of the intervals between committee members, Lindsey Graham made a remark to Rosenstein about Robert Mueller’s investigators. Rosenstein retorted, saying that they were not Mueller’s investigators. That when he was appointed, he inherited (my word = I can’t remember RR’s) the investigators. Graham came back with “Strzok and Page?”, and RR hastened to agree. Strzok and Page were not Mueller’s investigators. Andrew Weissman and the rest of the special team were the investigators. There were also FBI investigators (40?) engaged by the Mueller team at some point. I believe RR slipped and Lindsey misunderstood - then gave him a back door out….
ReplyDeleteI’d be interested to know if anyone else heard that...
I didn't hear that but it makes sense. Strzok was a manager at FBIHQ, and Page was more or less a legal adviser to McCabe. So even though Strzok opened and supervised the investigation he wasn't strictly an investigator, even though he did engage in some investigative activity (interviewing Flynn, for example).
DeleteI got lost in my own words. The point was that by the time Mueller was appointed the investigators for him as special counsel were already in place. Sidney Powell, among others, believed that Andrew Weissman was actually the head of what became the Special Counsel’s team. That they had all been selected by him and were in place when Rosenstein appointed Mueller Special Counsel aka the figurehead. Sidney Powell, who made Andrew Weissman the centerpiece of her first book, said - when the Mueller report was released - that it sounded like Andrew Weissman’s writing. Having had years of experience with him, she recognized his writing style. That would also explain Mueller’s pathetic bumbling in the hearing called for him to explain his report. It wasn’t his report.
DeleteI believe RR slipped today and disclosed Mueller’s appointment came after the “team” was in place. Something many suspected.
From the sort of Wayback Machine on the Special Counsel’s investigation, and the team of prosecutor/investigators:
DeleteRobert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, has marshaled prosecutors, F.B.I. agents and other lawyers to investigate Russia’s 2016 election interference and whether any Trump associates conspired. The team has secured indictments against dozens of people and three companies, one trial conviction and a handful of guilty pleas in the highest-profile political inquiry in a generation.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/30/us/mueller-investigation-team-prosecutors.html
RR’s slip - a correction to something Graham said - pretty well blew the idea that Mueller had “marshalled” anyone. The team was in place. He was the high profile name placed by RR as its figurehead.