Cardinal Timothy Dolan says claims by Steve Bannon that US Catholic bishops are only advocating for immigrants “for economic benefit and to fill pews” are “preposterous and rather insulting.”
Bannon, who is a former adviser to president Trump, says he believes the church has been “terrible” to Mr. Trump on the issue of immigration.
He was commenting on the bishops’ response to Trump’s cancellation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme.
DACA protects nearly 800,000 immigrants who came to the U.S. as children from being deported because they have no documents.
In his view the bishops are just supporting immigrants out of “economic interest” and because they are “unable to really come to grips with the problems in the church.
“To come to grips with the problems in the church, they [the bishops] need illegal aliens — they need illegal aliens to fill the churches,” Bannon says.
“They have an economic interest in unlimited immigration, unlimited illegal immigration.
“As much as I respect Cardinal Dolan and the bishops on doctrine, this is not doctrine.
“I totally respect the pope, and I totally respect the Catholic bishops and cardinals on doctrine. This is not about doctrine, this is about the sovereignty of a nation and, in that regard, they’re just another guy with an opinion.”
Saying Banon might be right about just being “another guy with an opinion”, Dolan says he was “rather befuddled” about his claim that the church’s need for immigrants is economically motivated.
“I don’t really care to go into what I think is a preposterous and rather insulting statement, that the only reason we Bishops care for immigrants is for the economic because we want to fill our churches and get more money,” Dolan says.
“That’s insulting and that’s just so ridiculous that it doesn’t merit a comment.”
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