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OPINION

Cardinal Gregory Suddenly Silent on Presidential Policy

Cardinal Gregory Suddenly Silent on Presidential Policy
(Photo by FABIO FRUSTACI / POOL / AFP) (Photo by FABIO FRUSTACI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Tom Basile By Tuesday, 16 February 2021 11:19 AM EST Current | Bio | Archive

For four years, they grinned through their teeth as President Donald Trump fulfilled his promise over and over to govern as a pro-life and pro-religious-liberty president.

For those within its highest ranks, the Church’s support for the Trump administration was tepid at best.

The Archbishop of Washington, now Cardinal Wilton Gregory, a vocal supporter of the Marxist Black Lives Matter movement, blasted Trump for his handling of last summer’s riots.

However forced and ill-advised Trump’s awkward photo-ops in front of Washington, D.C.’s Saint John’s Church and the John Paul II Center may have seemed, Gregory’s criticism was sensationalistic if not blatantly partisan.

Today, the nation has its first Catholic president since John F. Kennedy and if the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ fawning statement in response to Biden’s inauguration is any sign, they were quite pleased with this new dispensation.

Whether they just harbored an excessive loathing for Trump, or were suffering from some kind of pathological optimism, the chasm between Biden and the Church leaves Cardinal Gregory with a profound choice to make.

In his first weeks in office, President Biden has taken executive actions that are diametrically opposed to Christ’s teachings.

He has denied both the God-given truth and science behind the differences between men and women. The new president has also reinstated taxpayer funding for abortion services overseas, and remains unclear about funding abortion in America. 

These actions seek to normalize radical, dangerous, and deadly social policies.

President Biden has promoted programs that drive divisive and discriminatory practices, such as critical race theory, and has used reckless language concerning race.

It is a near certainty that the president’s loyalty to the agenda of the teachers unions will hinder efforts to promote school choice and parochial education.

According to canon law as the president’s bishop, it falls under the jurisdiction of Cardinal Gregory to articulate both privately and publicly the Church’s views on these and other matters.

Yet we’ve heard not a word of criticism pass the Cardinal’s lips.

Secular Catholic leaders like Biden don’t get to hide behind their office while ignoring bright line Church values. Clergy likewise shouldn’t hide behind their political views to justify ignoring biblical truth.

Joe Biden should be taken at his word that he is a believer in Christ and a man who has turned to both his Church and his faith during difficult moments in his life.

But the real measure of faith is whether or not one commits to actions that place the word of God first even, or especially, when it’s not personally expedient.

Both Biden and Gregory are failing this test miserably.

Biden must know in his soul that killing an unborn child is a grave sin in the eyes of God. Forcing those opposed to the abhorrent practice to pay for it is arguably worse.

He also must know that gender differences are not a social construct but a biblical principle.

Cardinal Gregory surely recognizes that it’s wrong to be silent or shirk his important role as spiritual leader to the leader of the free world and his larger flock.

A president who attends a Catholic Church isn’t necessarily a boon for Catholicism.

Yet a Church that sticks to its principles and values in the face of opposition, even from one of its own, will increase the strength of an institution that offers spiritual guidance to more than 75 million Americans.

Cardinal Gregory needs to be asked if he has spoken to President Biden about his actions in office.

Catholics should demand as vocal a response from Gregory during this administration as he summoned for the previous occupant of the Oval Office.

Christians believe in the power of redemption, but if Cardinal Gregory doesn’t step up, Biden won’t be the only one in need of penance.

Tom Basile is the host of ‘America Right Now’ on Newsmax Television, Saturday’s from 11:00 am- 1:00 pm eastern. Basile has been part of the American political landscape from Presidential campaigns to local politics for more than two decades. He has served in government at the local, state and federal level including in the administration of George W. Bush in various capacities. He was an advisor to the provisional government in Iraq from 2003-04. From 2009-2011 he was the Executive Director of the New York State Republican Party. A columnist, commentator and former radio how, his new book "Let it Sink In: The Decade of Obama and Trump" provides a look back at the 2010s to prepare Americans to defend freedom in the 2020s. His critically-acclaimed book, "Tough Sell: Fighting the Media War in Iraq,” chronicled his time in Baghdad fighting media bias and driving coverage of the Iraq war. In 2011, he was featured in Time Magazine's Person of the Year spread about political activism around the world. Basile is an adjunct professor at Fordham University and runs a New York-based strategic communications firm. He is a member of the New York Bar and sits on a number of academic and philanthropic advisory boards. Learn more about him at TomBasile.com or follow him on Twitter @Tom_Basile. Read Tom Basile's Reports — More Here.

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TomBasile
A president who attends a Catholic Church isn’t necessarily a boon for Catholicism.
catholic, church, cardinal gregory, presidential
859
2021-19-16
Tuesday, 16 February 2021 11:19 AM
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