Leo XIV, immigration, and conservative cafeteria Catholics — plus Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ cafeteria Catholics!

If you're politically awake and not under a rock, you probably heard last week about the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, nearly unanimously (five noes, three abstentions) passing a sternly written policy statement about humane treatment of immigrants and explicitly rebuking ICE thuggery.

Per that piece, the statement was pushed by the new pope, Leo XIV, himself. Links at the Substack piece include the National Catholic Reporter as well as mainstream media.

Let us go to that NCR piece, skipping Hale's intermediary, in part for reasons at the bottom. Here's the nut graf:

"We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care," the bishops said. "We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status. We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools. We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones."

And, read on as you desire. 

With that, off to the second half of the header.

What ARE "conservative cafeteria Catholics," you might ask?

Nothing other than the flip side of "liberal cafeteria Catholics."

You'll note there is no such thing in world as "cafeteria Catholic" without the political adjective qualifier. I have written extensively before about mainstream media getting this wrong.

That's because many of the people playing "gotcha" on liberal cafeteria Catholics like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, etc. on abortion and birth control fail to follow the official Vatican line on the death penalty and are therefore ...

"Conservative cafeteria Catholics," period and end of story.

There are a few who walk the Catholic walk on both. 

At the national level, I am only aware of Bob Casey, recently voted out as one of two U.S. Senators from Pennsylvania, and Dan Kildee, Congressman from Flint. So was his uncle, Dale Kildee, whom I know personally.

Within the state of Tex-ass, obviously, Gov. Strangeabbott is a conservative cafeteria Catholic. I have, in fact, called him out before. So is former state Legiscritter Drew Springer. (If you're a Catholic in a death-penalty state, and haven't pushed a bill to repeal it, you're a CCC. And, that's not FDR's CCC.) 

And, I've called out hypocrisies of conservative cafeteria Catholics on the abortion issue before, too. 

How the USCCB will play out in the conservative cafeteria Catholic heartland, with which I am familiar, either among laity or among priests in pulpits, I have no idea. That said, given that on many social issues (I'll cover this more at my other site) these people have become more and more like conservative evangelical Protestants on many issues, this may go over at least halfway like a lead balloon. 

This all said, let us not hold Christopher Hale up as some sort of saint. Beyond things like The Bulwark, bad enough, his "follows" on Substack include Bari Weiss's odious, genocide-supporting Free Press, a bunch of Obamiac / BlueAnon accounts, but not a single pro-Palestinian one. (He does have one piece about Leo condemning Israel's actions, that's paywall truncated.

Also, Hale doesn't talk about the rest of the policy document, like on "gender-affirming," or sex-affirming, health care. That's because it doesn't fit his agenda, which apparently is the ConservaDem wing of BlueAnon. That's also going to be part of the discussion at my other site. The problem there is, per the 19th website, is that Catholic hospitals are one of six in the nation, and in many smaller towns (not just "rural") the only option. That site doesn't mention that Catholic hospitals are also barred from surgical birth control, like tubal ligations, that prevent "implantation." That that said, there's way more than two sides on that issue.

Let me add that — as a secularist — I loathe people who selectively exploit religious statements for political reasons. To tie the last couple of paragraphs above together? Leo's predecessor, Pope Francis, called for an investigation as to whether or not Israel was committing genocide. On the other hand, he never went beyond a call for "investigation." And, Leo himself is a weasel-shit on this. Hey White Sox bubbe, we have international organizations that have already called it a genocide.

Also, earlier, Francis said that NATO had been "badgering" Russia, which I'm sure Hale also ignores, whether Catholic or not. (He does have a post about Leo calling for peace in Ukraine.) And, since he IS Catholic, and worked for Dear Leader, we're going to invent a new version of this label: Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ Cafeteria Catholic. Beyond ignoring Francis on foreign policy, and refusing to go beyond Francis and Leo on Gaza, he's also a sheepdogging cafeteria Catholic. This is even more true since he's written for sites like National Catholic Reporter himself.

And, Hale actually LIKED a longer version of this, mashed up with part of what I'll have this week ahead on my other site, about the religious angle of the rest of the bishops' statement and Catholics vis a vis Protestants. SMH.