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Cardinal Timothy Dolan.Steve Jalsevac / LifeSiteNews.com

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 30, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Liberal Catholic opinionators are aghast that Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York warmly welcomed President Trump to a live-streamed Mass from St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Sunday after having participated in a teleconference between Catholic leaders and the president the day before. Not only that, but they are horrified that Dolan then spoke highly of Trump in a Fox News interview the next day. 

The very liberal National Catholic Reporter (NCR) editorial board called Trump’s Saturday phone call with over 600 U.S. Catholic leaders, including prominent prelates, a “cringe-worthy exchange” where the bishops were “masterfully manipulated.”

NCR’s editors lamented, “The capitulation is complete.” 

“Without a whimper from any of his fellow bishops, the cardinal archbishop of New York has inextricably linked the Catholic Church in the United States to the Republican Party,” they wrote, “and, particularly, President Donald Trump.”

The 1,200-word tirade concluded, “The Catholic voice, capable of a priceless contribution to the public conversation, has been sold for cheap to political hucksters.”

They have forgotten that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), headquartered in Washington, D.C., frequently churns out statements critical of this president, which often sound as if they have been ghostwritten by staff at the Democratic National Committee.

Trump-supporters are ‘un-Catholic’

Sean Michael Winters, star writer at the NCR, wrote a snarky parody to voice his disapproval. He began:

The archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, announced he was resigning as the spiritual leader of the “capital of the world” in order to dedicate all his energies to his new position as co-chairman of the Committee to Re-elect the President. The resignation has yet to be accepted by Pope Francis, but there is little doubt the Supreme Pontiff will grant Dolan's request to be relieved of his spiritual duties.

Sources close to the campaign said they had intended to announce the job shift by the 70-year old prelate later in the year. But it became obvious over the weekend, after a phone call between Catholic leaders and the president, followed by an ingratiating homily by the cardinal Sunday morning, that the news was likely to leak any moment.

When Winters attempted to shift his piece back to reality, he wrote, “[T]he fact that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is being roped into the president's reelection efforts is now obvious and it is not a parody.”

“The U.S. bishops have become like Neville Chamberlain,” continued Winters, “convinced that they can bend the tyrant to their purpose with sweet reasonableness and good intentions.

“The alignment of conservative white Catholics with Trump not only parallels dislike for Pope Francis, the two are linked in all manner of unhealthy, un-Catholic ways,” said Winters, who proceeded to tell the entire U.S. prelature what to do:

I have a bit of advice for the U.S. bishops: Stay away from the president. Avoid getting mentioned in any article that mentions him[.] … His moral framework is reptilian and any association with him will end up burning you.

Spitting mad, hysterically anti-Trump Catholic libs

“Left-wing pundits, and the media in general, are so hysterically anti-Trump that their credibility is shot,” declared Catholic League president Bill Donohue, commenting on the aftermath. 

“Worse, some of them have turned into bullies,” wrote Donohue. “When it comes to Catholic leaders, their game plan is one of intimidation, hoping to deter them from saying anything kind about the president. Looks like they will be very busy over the next six months.”

Donohue zeroed in on America Magazine’s commentary: 

Michael O’Loughlin, writing for the Jesuit publication, America, criticized Dolan for his TV interview, noting that he appeared on “the president’s favorite news channel.” Perhaps O’Loughlin is unaware of Trump’s criticism of the Fox News Channel. More important, does O’Loughlin think that Dolan would refuse to appear on CNN or MSNBC? Maybe he should call the Trump-bashing stations and ask them why they don’t invite him on more often.

In his article, O’Loughlin rolls out statements by left-wing Catholics who are critical of Trump. So what? What does that have to do with the propriety of Dolan’s remarks? O’Loughlin also said, falsely, that Trump and Clinton “split the Catholic vote in 2016.” Exit polls, not polls taken before and after an election, are what counts. Among Catholics, Trump beat Hillary Clinton 52 percent to 45 percent.

It’s no wonder liberal Catholic media and pundits aligned with Democrats are spitting mad. Crux, which had obtained a recording of Saturday’s call, characterized President Trump’s comments as “attempting to paint a stark contrast between his administration and what a Democratic presidency could mean for Catholics.”

[T]he president’s most frequented theme in his opening remarks was that of his commitment to pro-life cause, saying that it has “been at a level that no other president has seen before, according to everybody.”

“I’m just saying what everybody is saying,” he said, citing the fact that he was first sitting president to address the March for Life in person in January, the annual event in protest of the legalization of abortion by the Supreme Court in 1973. …

[The president said] Democrats “want abortion and they want it now and they want it to go up to the end of the ninth month and beyond,” and referenced the comments of Virginia Democratic Governor Ralph Northam who faced backlash last year for his support of third trimester abortion. …

“I hope that everyone gets out and votes and does what they have to do,” he then said of the November election. “You’re going to have a very different Catholic Church,” he warned if he is defeated.

So what if President Trump told the Catholic leaders during Saturday’s teleconference that he’s “the best [president] in the history of the Catholic church”? A strong case can be made that this is true

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Doug Mainwaring is a journalist for LifeSiteNews, an author, and a marriage, family and children's rights activist.  He has testified before the United States Congress and state legislative bodies, originated and co-authored amicus briefs for the United States Supreme Court, and has been a guest on numerous TV and radio programs.  Doug and his family live in the Washington, DC suburbs.