The MAGA Hat Issue

In something of a late hit against the poor Covington schoolboys, and as part of a liberal pushback against the exposure of the hoaxer Nathan Phillips and his enablers, Bp John Stowe of Lexington, KY, wrote an op-ed in which he implied that the kids sorta-kinda brought it on themselves for wearing MAGA hats, which meant they weren't good Catholics anyhow:

Without engaging the discussion about the context of the viral video or placing the blame entirely on these adolescents, it astonishes me that any students participating in a pro-life activity on behalf of their school and their Catholic faith could be wearing apparel sporting the slogans of a president who denigrates the lives of immigrants, refugees and people from countries that he describes with indecent words and haphazardly endangers with life-threatening policies.

This echoes the earlier views of Fr Edward Beck of CNN:

Lastly, I don't think the boys should have been permitted to wear MAGA hats to the March for Life event they attended. The "Make America Great Again" slogan has become political code for an agenda that is often in opposition with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

. . . The Catholic Church's pro-life teaching encompasses a panoply of issues such as: abortion, immigration, capital punishment, the environment and climate change, sex trafficking, and the inequitable distribution of the world's resources.

This seems to be a variant of the "seamless garment" theory promoted by Cardinal Bernardin. The teachings of the Catholic Church actually support many of the agenda items on which President Trump won the 2016 election. For instance, CCC 2241 says

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.

As far as I'm aware, the Catechism makes no reference to climate change, and there is no entry for "climate" in its index. Offhand remarks by Pope Francis on the subject carry no particular teaching authority. As far as I'm aware, President Trump did not run on a platform in favor of sex trafficking. In fact, his position is that uncontrolled immigration fosters sex trafficking, which is common sense. The Church's position on capital punishment has changed since the 2016 election, and I don't believe President Trump has expressed any position on this pro or con.

But a recent article at LifeSite News raises questions about Bp Stowe's position on other Church teachings:

Stowe is famously a voice for progressive causes within the Catholic Church – even those which go against Catholic teaching.

He is one of five bishops who endorsed pro-gay Fr. James Martin, S.J.’s book, “Building a Bridge,” and was also a featured speaker in 2017 at a conference for the dissident group New Ways Ministry. The gathering was titled “Justice and Mercy Shall Kiss: LGBT Catholics in the Age of Pope Francis.”

New Ways Ministry was condemned in 2010 by then-president of the USCCB, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, and in 2011 by Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl, USCCB chairman of the Committee on Doctrine. In 1999 the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “permanently prohibited” the group’s co-founders “from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons,” after ruling that their teaching was “erroneous and dangerous” and “doctrinally unacceptable.”

In July 2018, a spokesperson for the Diocese of Lexington said it was “up to each parish” whether to promote homosexuality.

Michael Voris in today's Vortex addresses a broader question about the liberal bishops' acceptance of Church teaching on abortion:

See, a large number of U.S. bishops are still stuck in the 1970s and earlier, when most Catholics were Democrats — before the Democrats morphed into the Party of Death.

. . . Few bishops anywhere in the United States during those years from 1964 to 1984 said much about the direction the Democratic Party was heading. Right smack in the middle of that 20 years, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its immoral ruling in Roe v. Wade.

. . . As you know, the boys were wearing MAGA hats, which for most of the U.S. bishops is like kryptonite, so closely are they allied with their Democratic Party buds.

Actually, it isn't completely clear when the boys put the MAGA hats on. They were wearing the hats after the March, and so far, nobody has shown them wearing them during the March itself. They were waiting for the bus after a period of free sightseeing time between the end of the March and their departure. As such, they were representing only themselves. And as a self-identified never-Trump commentator puts it:

If you attend a march in Washington, D.C., while wearing a cheap red hat that can be purchased at any gift shop or souvenir stand in the city, there's every chance you'll be branded a racist for maintaining your composure while complete strangers scream at you and pound drums in your face. And even when irrefutable video evidence proves you've done nothing wrong, a pack of bigots with press passes will still blame you for angering them.

But it's worth repeating that Trump won the 2016 election with a majority of the Catholic vote. Catholics are getting smarter.