Catholic bishop challenges Trump’s pro-life claims

President Donald Trump’s pro-life claims have been analysed and found wanting.

An American church leader, Bishop John Stowe of Kentucky challenged Trump’s pro-life claims in a recent webinar. He told his audience that rather than being pro-life, Trump was actually anti-life.

“For this president to call himself pro-life, and for anybody to back him because of claims of being pro-life, is almost willful ignorance.”

“He is so much anti-life because he is only concerned about himself, and he gives us every, every, every indication of that,” Stowe said.

“Pope Francis has given us a great definition of what pro-life means,” Stowe explained.

“He basically tells us we can’t claim to be pro-life if we support the separation of children from their parents at the U.S. border, if we support exposing people at the border to COVID-19 because of the facilities that they’re in, if we support denying people who have need for adequate health care access to health care, if we keep people from getting the housing or the education that they need, we cannot call ourselves pro-life.”

Trump’s alleged pro-life stance deliberately seeks to win over Catholic voters, Stowe said.

“Every unborn child is a precious gift from God,” he said at the 2018 March for Life in Washington.

Stowe says being truly pro-life must include efforts towards racial, social and environmental justice.

“We have to be concerned for the unborn children, it’s foundational for us.”

While the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Conference often criticizes Trump administration, environmental and immigration policies, Stowe’s critique is unusual in criticism of Trump himself.

The webinar, which was about the church’s future after 2020, was hosted by the International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs.

The other two speakers on the webinar panel were Shannon Dee Williams, the Albert LePage assistant professor of history at Villanova University, and Michael Bayer, the former director of evangelisation and adult formation at St. Clement Parish in Chicago.

Speaking about the future of the church, they addressed the importance of racial and social justice advocacy.

“The church has to take leading roles in campaigns that are working to protect Black lives [and] working to dismantle white supremacy,” said Williams.

In her view, the church needs to address inequities in health care access and outcomes, end mass incarceration and secure police reform and accountability.

“Where are our hierarchy on this? Why aren’t we planning a million-person march in Washington, D.C. for immigrants?” Bayer asked.

“I’ve been in those marches protesting the assault on pre-born life. Where are our mass Washington, D.C. [efforts to] show up and protest the assault on Black and brown life?”

The webinar, which was about the church’s future after 2020, was hosted by the International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs.

Source
National Catholic Reporter
Image: National Catholic Reporter

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