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Swiss_Guy
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Well, what I meant was that I became more liberal. I used to be an archconservative, so now I just am conservative/leaning conservative.
Bishops' immigration expert calls new policy a step in the right direction
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RobbyS
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I think Newt made a useful distinction. Those long settled here should be accommodated, those just arrived, should be sent home. With their families.
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RobbyS
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No welfare for their likes. The welfare burden has become unsupportable, the schools overflowing.
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RobbyS
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My problem is that I cannot easily distinguish where the USCCB speaks for the Church and where it speaks more like a special interest group. Their long alliance with the Democratic Party is obviously ending, as that party become more and more hostile to the Church or even religious faith. I wonder if Archbishop Gregory still thinks so highly of President Obama?
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pnewton
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I do not seem to have that problem. I count myself a Catholic first and politics are a distant second.
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RobbyS
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We are obligated to listen to the advise of the bishops, our own bishops first of course. The problem is that the bishop’s conference began as a liason with the Wilson administration. Benedict XV tried to enlist Wilson as an ally in his effort to end the Great War. I think it was Cardinal Gibbons who was his point man. But the pope was more serious than the president about an alliance. Key to the matter was Austria, and Wilson was indifferent to the fate of that country and its new emperor. All came to nought, of course, with the fateful decision by the Germans to resume unrestricted submarine warfare. Anyway, the connection had been made, and the Church became a power in the Democratic Party, as seen in the push in 1924 and 1928 to nominate Al Smith, partly as push back against the anti-Catholicism of the Klan. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the Klan was far more concerned about the Church than about either the Jews or blacks.
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Swiss_Guy
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I thought the reason the Church became a power in the Democratic Party was because they supported the working man (unions, higher minimum wage, etc.). And because many Catholics were a part of the working class, and because the Republican Party still had anti-Catholic ties from when it was formed, the Democratic party made a great fit.
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RobbyS
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Well,most Catholics were working class people and had always voted Democrat in the big cities. The Irish joined Tammany because that Democrats favored immigration and were against black abolitionism. Seward was the only Whig leader I can think of who was pro-immigrant. When that part broke up and part went to the Republicans and part went to the American Party, only some Catholics like Carl Schurz became Republican. I think Germans, including German Catholics, were split between the Republicans and the Democrats. One reason why the American Church became attached to the Democratic Party was because the Irish dominated the Hierarchy. But what I am talking about is the history of the USCCB. Because so many bishops came from Democratic families, they tended in that direction. But lest we forget, the Bryan wing of the Democratic Party was anything but welcoming to Catholics.
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Contarini
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Many people are. Some people, for instance, think that the bishops shouldn’t be involved in the highly politicized issue called abortion.
Clearly you disagree, as do I.
But apparently you aren’t willing to admit that anything going against “conservative” political orthodoxy in America can possibly be a legitimate concern of the Church.
Don’t you think this is a blind spot on your part?
As abortion shows, the two are not mutually incompatible. Your Church clearly teaches that immigration is a moral issue also. Yes, it’s complicated–so is abortion.
Edwin
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Swiss_Guy
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I didn’t know Irish were against black abolitionism
. But that makes sense for why the Irish and the USCCB were (and I’d say are for the Irish–look at Boston and Massachusetts) so united with the Democratic Party. The Germans were originally very Democratic (at least in Wisconsin) because the Democrats favored the immigrants and were for using German in schools (which the Republicans didn’t like). This helped the Democrats get Germans in national elections also. But later, it was relatively even, because Germans never were really that blue-collar. Although Germans still favored the Democratic Party.
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RobbyS
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The Irish hated the blacks because the blacks competed for the same low-level jobs that the Irish did. Hence the 1863 draft riots, where Irish mobs were lynching any black they could get their hands on. After Gettysburg the Union Army had to bring in a detachment of troops --Irish–to put down the riots.I didn’t know Irish were against black abolitionism
The Germans were much more diverse than the Irish. The "Forty-eighters,"liberals like Schurz supported the Republicans and were in favor of assimilation. Besides, a German from The Rheinland was very different from one from Silesia or Brandenburg. Someone from Berlin was a lot more different from someone from Munich than their descendants are today. And there was a big gap between city and town. Properly speaking they were German-speakers rather than Germans.
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pnewton
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Pardon me if I take this with a grain or more of salt. This tenuous and semi-conspiritoral tie of the two groups is irrelevant, as the teaching of the Catholic Church is based on a 2000 year old promise, long before Woodrow Wilson. The Catholic teaching on immigration is founded on a social justice that goes back as far, to the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 25. The idea that the Church is in bed with the Democratic Party belies the many areas of disagreement, also rooted in Catholic moral teaching.
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Swiss_Guy
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Hate’s a strong word. And I don’t think there was actually that much of a difference between a person from the Rhineland and Silesia or (east, not west) Brandenburg, at least in politics. Both were conservative as far as I know. But yeah, Berlin and Munich immigrants were different. But still, at least in Wisconsin, Germans were consistently Democrat for a while, because of their immigration and prohibition stances. Today, they are more Republican than Democrat, at least from this: my.firedoglake.com/inoljt/tag/german-americans/
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RobbyS
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The association between the Church and the Democratic Party was an alliance, not a conspiracy. Until the radicals took over the Democratic Party, they did share many common teachings.The Church say many of its ideas realized with the Great Society. The rupture came over the issue of abortion. Until 1976, of course, the Republicans were the pro-abortion Party.Gerald Ford and his wife were cheer-leaders for Planned Parenthood. Then the Hyde Amendment became part of the Republican Plank, and Jimmy Carter, who had seemed to be pro-life, equivocated on the issue. Cathoilcs pols, such as the late Senator Kennedy now became pro-choice. As time goes on the Republicans equivocate on the issue, but the Democratic become more and more pro-abortion.
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RobbyS
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The Germans who settled in places Cincinnatti et al. were people who for the first time in their lives had any real contact with those from different parts of Germany. The uneducated had some difficulty talking to each other. Someone from the Rheinland- Pflaz spoke a dialect that was very different from that of the Pfalz region near the border of Bohemia. Not until they got to America did these people end up speaking the same form of German. And for the first time, they were all under the same government.
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pnewton
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For the record, I totally reject your theory that there was an alliance. What existed is the same thing that exists today between the Catholic Church and the Republican Party: a shared moral belief. The Catholic Church sides with the Republican Party today on many moral issues, just as it does with the Democratic Party. If in the past there were more shared goals with the Democratic Party, that was a passing coincidence, not an alliance. The idea that the Bishop’s policy on immigration is based on ties to the Democratic Party more than the words of Jesus is illogical, even Chick-ish. It ignores the moral teachings of non-Americans, like Pope Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate.
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Swiss_Guy
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I thought the Republicans were until '72.
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Swiss_Guy
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I agree with this, but the I didn’t think his posts indicated that the Bishop’s policy on immigration is based on their relationship with the Democratic party. If so, he is wrong. It was just that for so many years, the Democrats were closer to Catholic teaching, which made it easier for them to side with the Democrats, which I think you agree with.
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RobbyS
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I suggest you do a little research on Msgr. John Ryan. But before that we have the support that Catholics gave to Al Smith in 1924-28.
Take a look at the rise of the KKK after WWII, with its xenophobia, its antisemiticism, its negrophobia, and most significantly, its anti-Catholicism. It bitterly opposed the candidacy of Smith, as did the Bryan faction of the Democratic Party. In 1928, Smith got his turn, but in the face of the (ap arant) prosperity of the country, Hoover defeated him in a landslide. Smith lost several Southern states, the first time a Democrat has lost these states since the civil war. Smith represented the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in which the unions were prominent.
In 1932 FDR got the nomination with the support of a wide range of interests, including labor unions in which Catholics were deeply involved. Catholics had long been prominent in the urban machines. The machines, the unions, the South and–discordantly, the Communists (but not the Socialists) helped form the New Deal coalition. Father Ryan was a leading player in this alliance.
You know that Harry Truman came from the Pendergast machine. He had been the captain of a largely Catholic artillery company, and he got along famously with Catholics although he was a Baptist. In 1944, the VERY progressive (read-pinko) Henry Wallace was forced out of the vice-presidency by conservatives who did not like his pro-Soviet bent. Jimmy Byrnes, an ex-Catholic was blocked out by his divorce. Into this vaccuum Bob Hannegan the head of the National Committee pushed the nomination of Truman. Harry Truman was a strong New Dealer but the major clue was his undoubted anti-Communism
The Vietnam War opened a breech between Catholics and the radicals in the Democratic Party. Talk about coincidence: the rise of the McGoverites and Roe. V. Wade together left less and less room in the Party for observant Catholics. The Bernardin Catholics tried to minimize that breech but we finally end up with the exclusion of Bob Casey, a strong social justice AND pro-life Democrat from leadership in the party. Since 1992, abortion has become a party shibboleth. In my state, Texas, two recent Democrats might have won high office in the state, except that they could not get funding from the national party except they proclaim themselves pro-choice. In Texas today, except in Austin, that is a losing position. Texas has become too important for the party to write it off just to placate radical feminists like Pelosi.
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pnewton
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There is no such order. Perhaps a branch of the Secret Illuminati under control of the Black Pope of the Jesuits?
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