{"id":1044132,"date":"2021-11-22T12:43:40","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T17:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1044132"},"modified":"2021-11-22T12:43:44","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T17:43:44","slug":"texas-bishop-u-s-catholic-church-shouldnt-be-captive-to-a-political-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/texas-bishop-u-s-catholic-church-shouldnt-be-captive-to-a-political-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Bishop: U.S. Catholic Church Shouldn\u2019t Be \u2018Captive\u2019 to a Political Party"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftexas-bishop-u-s-catholic-church-shouldnt-be-captive-to-a-political-party%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1044132&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/pope-and-the-catholic-church-640x335-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">The Catholic Church should feel free to criticize the government when necessary and \u201cshouldn\u2019t be captive to one party or another,\u201d Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, said this week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Church has to have an independent voice to say we agree when we can agree, and when we can\u2019t agree we\u2019re going to say something,\u201d Bishop Flores <a href=\"https:\/\/cruxnow.com\/interviews\/2021\/11\/bishop-says-u-s-catholic-church-shouldnt-be-captive-to-a-particular-party\">told<\/a> Crux, an online Catholic news outlet.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cAnd that\u2019s the way it works. I mean, the church is free to speak, and we shouldn\u2019t be captive to one party or another,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Flores is the new head of the doctrine <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usccb.org\/committees\/doctrine\">committee<\/a> of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), which is charged with assisting the bishops \u201cin areas of faith and morals, providing expertise and guidance concerning the theological issues that confront the Church in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Catholic Church has long been affiliated with the Democratic Party in the United States and up until the 1960s Catholics could be reliably counted on to vote Democrat. The two Roman Catholic presidents to date have both run on the Democratic ticket, with John F. Kennedy taking 80 percent of the Catholic vote.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"8.6928104575163\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A group of progressive Catholic activists have written an \u201cOpen Letter to Catholic Voters\u201d urging them to vote for Joe Biden because \u201cPresident (Donald) Trump flouts core values at the heart of Catholic social teaching.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/SerxouptQT\">https:\/\/t.co\/SerxouptQT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BreitbartNews\/status\/1303779280413958148?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 9, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americamagazine.org\/issue\/674\/article\/past-without-future\">studies<\/a> published in the 1970s by Richard Jensen, Paul Kleppner and others, in the presidential elections of the late 19th century, \u201cCatholics of Irish, German and French background voted for the Democratic candidate at rates of 75 percent and higher.\u201d Catholics, especially the Irish, also formed the voting base of the Democratic political machines in big cities such as Boston, New York, and Chicago.<\/p>\n<p>Sometime after the presidency of John F. Kennedy, the old Catholic Democratic voter bloc began breaking up, a process that was consolidated after the Supreme Court\u2019s imposition of legal abortion in its <em>Roe v. Wade<\/em> decision in 1973.<\/p>\n<p>As the Democratic Party has become more and more aligned with Planned Parenthood and the abortion lobby, the percentage of practicing Catholics voting Democrat has plummeted and the old Catholic-Democrat alliance has all but disappeared.<\/p>\n<p>The Pew Research Center <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2019\/01\/24\/like-americans-overall-u-s-catholics-are-sharply-divided-by-party\/\">revealed<\/a> in 2019 that \u201c64% of Catholic Democrats and Democratic leaners say abortion should be legal in all or most cases\u201d and on balance, \u201cCatholic Democrats are more likely to favor legal abortion than to oppose it.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"9.4756554307116\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">CatholicVote President Brian Burch: &#8220;Leading members of the Democratic Party have fueled a climate of hate against Catholics, and these attacks have now led to acts of vandalism and violence.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/rmL4PhauOL\">https:\/\/t.co\/rmL4PhauOL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BreitbartNews\/status\/1291762525919498243?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 7, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This is an example, Pew found, of Catholic partisans expressing \u201copinions that are much more in line with the positions of their political parties than with the teachings of their church.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A 2020 poll <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecatholictelegraph.com\/survey-finds-correlation-between-catholic-mass-attendance-political-views\/69351\">conducted<\/a> by RealClear Opinion Research in partnership with EWTN News found a strong correlation between voting habits and religious practice among Catholics.<\/p>\n<p>Among all Catholics, sixty-eight percent said that Supreme Court appointments were a concern in the 2020 election, while 59 percent said the same about abortion \u2013 but \u201camong weekly Mass attendees, concern about abortion jumps to 70%.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"twitter-follow-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tdwilliamsrome?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" data-show-count=\"false\">Follow @tdwilliamsrome<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Catholic Church should feel free to criticize the government when necessary and \u201cshouldn\u2019t be captive to one party or another,\u201d Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, said this &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1044132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1044132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1044132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1044132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1044132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}