Tag: robert mcelroy

I haven’t received much. I have in the past received criticisms about politics, but not particularly, no. For us in the church, it’s part of morality and the social teaching of the Catholic Church, and so when people are suffering, we have to speak to that question. Major political issues often have moral dimensions.

No, I didn’t have reservations because the types of words you are pointing to are two different dimensions. One is words that describe reality. For example, the word of crackdown and assault. Those are questions of what is going on.

The second dimension of it, the justice and moral issues, are the evaluative issues. How do we say that these actions do not represent what we as people, as a nation historically, have stood for, and we must stand up for that.

No, because for the Catholic Church, this isn’t precisely a political issue. The church has no political role. It has a moral role in speaking to the moral dimensions of political questions, in terms of defending others, especially the poor and the vulnerable and those who are being oppressed.

There will be other moral issues that arise in the political actions, both Democratic and Republican actors in Washington, in the years that I’m here, I’m sure. But the focus I have at this moment is really on the issue of immigrants, the undocumented, who have lived here for so many, often generations, and have built up wonderful lives and contributed to our society; and now find themselves uprooted and being tossed out of our society and separated from their families.

I would certainly welcome such an opportunity. I’ve met with a number of other individuals in the administration for lengthy discussions that have been productive discussions.

No. If those discussions are to have any substance, you can’t discuss the individuals we met with, what they’re saying, that impedes good discussion.

Well, it’s part of the larger question of violence in our society and of guns in our society. We have been facing the terrible moral reality for so many years that children in our schools can’t go to school and be safe, and now we face it in our churches.

It’s a terrible moment for us as a society to step back and face it on the questions of violence and what propagates it, and the question of guns and how they are utilized in our society to kill people, and this anger in our society. We are in a moment of great political, divisive anger, and we need to come to a way of dialoguing on these issues, because that road we’re headed on is very dangerous. It already is dangerous.