Priests apologise for wearing clerical attire at Trump rally

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I have no issue with the priests wearing clerical attire while attending a Trump rally. In fact I am heartened by the support.

That said I defer to the bishop who is best placed to make the rules for the diocese.
 
KMG said:
I am sure the bishop would be just fine if this were Obama.
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I am sure you have evidence for that, and wouldn’t just make a baseless accusation against a bishop because he said something you don’t agree with.
 
I understand what you mean, the problem however is that by wearing clearicals to a political rally it gives the impression that the Church itself endorses the politician, and not the individual Priests, or even that they are just neutral spectators. This would be just as true if a couple Priests sat behind the podium at an Obama rally. The military operates the same way. A military member cannot wear a uniform to a political rally because it gives the impression that the military, not the individual, is endorsing something. This is also why doctors are asked to wear their white coats to political rallies- so everyone knows that “all doctors” support whatever medical law is being proposed.

The Bishop is merely asking his Priests to avoid havin such conclusions drawn.
 
Perhaps because I am a military brat, but I think it is inappropriate for priests to wear “uniforms” to any political rally.

And I would hope that those who support D’s would feel the same way about priests showing up at D rallies as well.
 
Annie said:
Perhaps because I am a military brat, but I think it is inappropriate for priests to wear “uniforms” to any political rally.

And I would hope that those who support D’s would feel the same way about priests showing up at D rallies as well.
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Exactly. I don’t care about the priests having individual political views. As US citizens, they can vote and they have every right to go to a public rally.

But showing up in a priest “uniform” makes it appear that the Church as an institution is supporting the particular candidate. In the USA this is grossly inappropriate, regardless of who the candidate is, and could end up causing all kinds of unpleasant legal consequences for the Church.
 
From reading the article, I got the impression that the problem was that the priests were right behind the podium. I don’t get the impression that them showing up at a Trump event in clerical garb was necessarily the problem.

That being said, I would think that the priests would have realized that the location they were seated in by the “individual they know well” was going to be problematic, and that they should move to a more inconspicuous location. As it happened, they didn’t do that.
 
This is a matter for the local bishop, but on a wider scale it certainly seems Catholic priests have no problem inserting themselves into politics or endorsing (by their presence) political positions. If this rule was uniformly enforced I’d have no problem with it.
 
All this was said about Jesus when he dined with tax collectors…
 
It’s like a time machine back to the worst days of the 70s/80s in American Catholicism these days.
 
Whatever the priests individual political leanings, I think they should be careful of giving the impression that the Church supports/endorses any particular candidate or office holder (and that goes for anyone who is in office.)
 
If only some of the bishops of the US cared more about what they knew about “Uncle Ted”'s behavior than about a priest in a collar a Trump rally.
 
KMG said:
If only some of the bishops of the US cared more about what they knew about “Uncle Ted”'s behavior than about a priest in a collar a Trump rally.
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If only they all cared about both.
 
For the Left, it’s separation of Church and State until it suits their agenda or serves as an opportunity to criticise their opponents.
The child separation thing magically made non-Christian left-wing commentators who demanded Christians to keep religion to themselves for years to suddenly ‘mix’ religion and politics. Where were they on gay ‘marriage’, abortion and euthanasia?
I placed scare quotes around ‘mix’ because in a democracy, all religious people have voices too and have the right to make their case. But clearly these ‘liberals’ don’t seem to understand how liberty works nor do they understand faith isn’t something that gets shoved aside, which is odd for people who always go around claiming they’re smarter than conservatives.
 
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