Jack Quirk
In October of last year, Pope Francis met with a pilgrimage
of Catholics and Lutherans from Germany, and told them that he does not like
“the contradiction of those who want to defend Christianity in the West, and,
on the other hand, are against refugees and other religions.” The pope went on
to say that it is “hypocrisy to call yourself a Christian and chase away a
refugee or someone seeking help, someone who is hungry or thirsty, toss out
someone who is in need of my help,” and that if “I say I am Christian, but do
these things, I’m a hypocrite.” More…
Julia Smucker
In June 2015, days after white supremacist Dylann Roof shot
and killed nine people at a Bible study at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston,
South Carolina, the public response from surviving church members was
striking. One attendee of a prayer vigil
for the victims told the BBC World Service,
“What he was going to accomplish, he did the opposite. And so we’re smiling and laughing at him,
while yet praying for him. And he can’t
stop us from praying for him, and he can’t stop us from loving him. So he’s got to live with black people loving
white people, and white people loving black people. And I think that is hell for him.” More…
Jack Quirk
During the campaign, Donald Trump time and again expressed
his disapproval of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and early
signs are that he was serious. Plans are already in the works to renegotiate
the trade agreement with the leaders of Canada and Mexico. (He has also
withdrawn the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.)
From the American perspective, there are good reasons to
disapprove of NAFTA. While the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has found
that the “net overall effect of NAFTA on the U.S. economy appears to have been
relatively modest, primarily because trade with Canada and Mexico accounts for
a small percentage of U.S. GDP,” the fact remains that NAFTA has had a serious
and devastating impact on American workers. As the Economic Policy Institute
(EPI) points out, NAFTA “caused the loss of some 700,000 jobs as production
moved to Mexico. Most of these losses came in California, Texas, Michigan, and
other states where manufacturing is concentrated.” More…
Doran Hunter
Not even a month after Trump’s unexpected election victory,
the nature of his administration continues to reveal itself as more vicious and
dangerous, even sinister, than any other. His program is clearly an expression
of the will of America’s financial elite to enrich itself through all available
means: rolling back environmental regulations and labor protections, gutting
essential social programs, slashing corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthy,
embarking on a massive military build-up to threaten nations who stand in the
way, and, most ominously, waging war. As is plain to see in the appeals of the
administration to the military and police—Trump reportedly wanted to roll tanks
and other mechanized weaponry down the inaugural parade route—the massive
social opposition that has already begun to appear to the agenda, and will
surely intensify, will be met with police-state repression. More…
Louis Rose
I’m going to have to stop reading the news.
Apparently the Trump administration ordered the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) to remove the climate change page from its website. But
since that was too palpably Orwellian, they backed off. From this point,
however, before any mere scientist publishes his or her findings on the
question of climate change, the material will first have to be reviewed by
administration political apparatchiks. More…
Kirk G. Morrison
There has never been a modern Presidential candidate – and
now president – quite like Donald Trump. Even allowing for historical
differences in the depth and breadth of media coverage, we’ve never had a
mainstream party nominee who has made the kind of statements he has. For just a
few “highlights,” he said at his campaign kickoff that immigrants from Mexico
were criminals and rapists. That one comment alone may have ended many bids for
office right in the starting gate. But the brash celebrity real-estate
developer went on to opine that a recent standard bearer of the party for which
he sought the nomination was not a hero because he had been a prisoner of war. More…
Articles for submission and letters to the editor may be
sent to the attention of the editor at: [email protected]. The
icon of St. Joseph the Worker is by Daniel Nichols. Editor: Doran Hunter.
Publisher: Jack Quirk. Please go like us on Facebook here. Join
the discussion on Catholic social teaching here.