"M23 is a Rwandan government-supported and tribally Tutsi group that has been engaged in more-or-less open incursions in the region since the end of the Rwandan genocide — which was perpetrated by that country’s then-dominant Hutu tribe, many of whose leaders and people fled over the border into the DRC and around Goma."
I just read a long form thing on Rwanda post-genocide and apparently they were killing Hutus in a neighboring country and weren't as forgiving as portrayed.
"I have been thinking a bit about the rumbling clash between the Trump-Vance administration and the USCCB, following the Veep’s comments last week, alleging that the conference was using federal grant money to pad its 'bottom line' and resettle 'illegal immigrants.'"
I think your missing the big picture here, Ed. I took Vance's point to be that the USCCB wants to keep the money flowing from the federal government (that is, the American taxpayer) to support the church's infrastructure costs. That's NOT a very Catholic reason to want taxes to go to the Church. How's that working out in Germany?
I think Ed's point is that bs on that point obscures the debate. First, there's no evidence that the federal funds touch infrastructure (if by that you mean parishes/chancery/seminary). On the contrary, in fact.
Second, the demonstrably untrue things make any underlying point all the more difficult to actually talk about and debate.
Sorry, JD, I was unclear. I consider parishes/chancer/seminary the opposite of infrastructure. The infrastructure I was referring to was the USCCB itself, and the nonsense coming out of Catholic Charities Milwaukee--things like that. Remember, money is fungible.
Re BS, I agree with Ed's point that in a perfect world we'd never hear BS from our politicians, but I think the larger point is that BS is always better than lies and dishonesty--and that is not coming from Vance.
I truly don’t understand this distinction; how is bs different than lying? Whatever you want to call it, when Vance talks like this, it makes me trust and believe him less. It is not an effective way of consolidating support for his position if the person doesn’t already agree with him.
Hi Rebecca. When a used-car salesman tells me the car he's selling is the best used-car in the county, he's BSing me. When he tells me it comes with a 3-year warranty when the warranty is actually only 2 years, he's lying to me.
I think people who can't tell BS from lies tend to be rather gullible (and probably pay too much for used cars).
Okay — if that’s the difference, how is Vance not lying? He’s wrong on the facts. As JD said above, that confuses the conversation about whatever bigger point you think he’s trying to make. To me it just looks like he has sufficiently coarsened his conscience to spin falsehoods as truth; whatever you want to call that, it’s a problem.
I will answer your question but first, may I ask you for some context: Did you vote for Trump/Vance, or did you vote for Harris/(the other guy whose name I already forget)? I will offer that I did vote for Trump/Vance.
I wrote someone in; my state went overwhelmingly for Trump so that I felt perfectly free to vote my conscience. I don’t see how that is necessary information for being able to tell whether Vance’s comments constitute lying, however.
Thanks for sharing that info, it does provide insight on what type of response would/would not appeal to you.
Now, to your original question, I don't see the lie. The larger point Vance was trying to make is that powerful people in the Church hierarchy want to see the money continue to flow (whether or not it helps the Church make a "profit"). Similarly, these same people/type of people protected McCarrick because he kept the money coming.
Whether you think a larger point Vance may have been making was true, what he actually said was false. The USCCB loses money in their work assisting refugees; it does the opposite of “padding their bottom line.” And whether you want to call that BS or lying, I think it is unbecoming in a Catholic politician and detrimental to our national conversation about immigration. I also think this is no longer a productive conversation. Have a good evening.
The real point Vance was making is that bishops should NOT support invasion, nor any other crime committing. The money comment should be taken as rhetoric.
I like Mark's request for context: I'll declare that I am not American, so I didn't vote for either.
Now, to your question, "how is it not lying?", you can certainly say that it is, but I might say it's NOT lying because he is making a statement about someone's motives as much as about facts. I think it is usually specious to make statements about other people's motives, and that is at least disrespectful or disingenuous towards them, but it may not be lying.
Believe it or not, "bullshit" is now a technical term in philosophy. It was introduced in a paper by Harry Frankfurt called "On Bullshit." You might be able to find it online.
In a nutshell, lying is saying something you believe to be false. (It may be more complicated than that, but that doesn't matter here.) BSing, by contrast, is saying something and not caring whether it's true or false.
People have different motives for BSing. It deserves reflection.
Frankfurt notes that, weirdly, liars care more about the truth than BSers do.
I voted for Trump, and I did so primarily because he appointed the three Supremes that were eventually responsible for overturning Roe, a seminal event in any lifetime one would have to say. On the other hand, I know he is an extreme BSer, or dare I say, worse than that. (eg., case in point, during his one debate with Kamala, he pointed towards the need to stop the war as millions were dying on both sides. Um, millions, really now?) But I still bend the knee to allow for what he has done to promote the Right to Life cause in the US. It is unparalleled and he deserves to be praised for it. After all, King David was a murderer, St Paul was a persecutor of Christians and Augustine was hell on wheels until he was 30 years of age.
I don’t think you’ve achieved “demonstrably untrue”, at least for the CBS interview. Vance made a statement that the USCCB receives a lot of money to resettle illegal immigrants and suggests that they're influenced by that money flow. The Pillar says “Vance is lying because USRAP beneficiaries are present legally and the USCCB makes a loss on its USRAP program, so the money can't be an influence.” Yet Vance's never mentioned the USRAP program. That program applied to about 100,000 refugees in 2024, compared to approximately 2 million illegal immigrants so IMO it’s obvious he’s not referring specifically to that program.
When someone says “US conference of bishops” you could narrowly take that to mean the legal entity called the USCCB, or less precisely as including the large collection of closely related organizations such as dioceses, parishes, affiliated orgs like Catholic Charities, NGOs like El Paso’s Annunciation House, foundations and the like, controlled directly or indirectly, wholly or in part, by the bishops. The Pillar’s analysis seems to assume the former, but I think most people, including the VP, think of the latter. The money flow into this much larger group of entities is far larger than $100M - especially if you adopt the government’s point of view that tax exemption is a form of government funding! (I do not agree with that but it’s a perspective adopted by many.) And the perspective in your article “Is migration padding the USCCB bottom line” is just dumb - profit is not a metric for non-profits, revenue and spending are, as several commenters pointed out.
The activities of that constellation of groups goes far beyond USRAP and is involved with a much larger fraction of the 2M who cross the border illegally annually. Many Catholic organizations take in people who cross the border illegally. They house, feed and clothe them - so far so good, Mt 25 in action, thumbs up. They also provide lawyers. This is legal but starts to get iffy morally - are the lawyers helping game the legal process? What about the NGOs and parishes who declare themselves part of the “resistance” and actively work to thwart legitimate law enforcement actions? What about donors duped into thinking they are giving to feed the hungry when in fact money is redirected to leftist lawyers? I could go on but let's stop there.
You could answer these questions various ways, but Vance’s pointed question to the bishops is not out of bounds given what we know about their activities such as the CCHD, a left wing political organization masquerading as an anti-poverty initiative. Or even their boss’s Peter’s Pence debacle where the money that donors thought was for the world’s poor was actually going mostly to Vatican bureaucrats’ salaries. (I fell for that one for years, it won’t happen again.)
BTW, I don’t actually think the bishops are motivated mostly by money in this case. I just don’t think that opinion is obvious. Today’s Starting Seven reports that the bishop of New Orleans wants the Second Harvest Food Bank to cough up $16M to help pay for sex settlement liabilities … so, literally taking food out of the mouths of the poor to cover the diocese’s misconduct expenses. Yeah, that Vance guy is pretty scurrilous to even hint that bishops might care a bit about money, they’re definitely all about the needy.
“I increasingly suspect, and friends in the Roman curia have told me as much, that when it comes to serious crimes and major churchmen, the Vatican’s leadership is much more motivated by negative coverage in the New York Times than by the interests of justice.”
And why should we not expect the same from US Bishops on the dime of federal government, trying to augment their Catholic communities with population due to their failure to evangelize the Gospel or support Catholic Schools that do? That’s the bottom line at stake. They have taken a page from the ‘Grand Inquisitor’s’ playbook, and aligned themselves with Caesar, claiming the mantle of “compassion” while dismissing and ignoring those who are firstly in their jurisdiction, while maligning the plight of those who are abetted in their illegality and illegitimacy. They contort ends and means, and conflate concepts at the expense of others. It is not a wonder that American Catholics listen very little to their Bishops but a majority will to Trump. They have made our faith irrelevant by their lack of teaching, leadership, witness, or investment, and so Americans are going to the next consequential area and making it their new religion: politics.
I’m not sure whether it’s true that the bishops are augmenting their local Catholic populations by importing immigrants, because I’m not sure I’ve seen any evidence that the resettled immigrants in question are, in fact, Catholic. However, to your last point, you’re not wrong. Politics is a tantalizing idol, no matter which ideology.
The dioceses here actively promote and propagandize illegals. They have for decades. They have even forced ‘bilingualism’ (aka linguamexicaca) into almost all of our Masses. There is no program for challenging and helping ‘immigrants’ to assimilate culturally, socially or legally. While the federal (aka, our) money may not wind up in official diocesan coffers, it does generously fund things like Catholic Charities (which is neither Catholic nor charitable).
As far as whether these so-called immigrants are Catholic, most of the recent arrivals imported by the Democrat party obviously are not. Many are known terrorists.
The “BS” (Brouhaha Shouting”) can be seen as typical of political rhetoric. E.g., if I say “I’ve told you a million times … “, that’s not “lying”, it’s making a point rhetorically.
The VP’s comment - as other contributors here are pointing out - is calling the USCCB out on the subject. Cardinal Gregory illustrates the need for this. As do Cupich, McElroy and Martin.
Stephen, Spanish-speaking Catholics (indigenous, Mexican, and of European ancestry) have lived, ranched, and cultivated the beautiful soils of California for hundreds of years; long before the first waves of (largely Protestant or Mormon) settlers flooded in from the U.S., generations of families were praising the Lord in the Spanish tongue. California - my beloved homeland - was built by immigrants: first from Spain, then from Mexico, then from 1824-1848 by the "Californios", then from Ireland, China/Japan, and the United States. I would humbly ask you to show the slightest bit more charity when discussing the cultures of the men and women who are blessed to live alongside you.
I know all of what you posted here. I am a Californian by birth also. As is my wife - who is hispanic. She had to correct our Mexican (i.e., citizen of) priest / pastor who referred to her as Mexican simply because of her maiden name. She pointed to him that her parents, uncles, aunts and cousins are all American - for generations. (That priest later fled back to Mexico after stealing tens of thousands of dollars from at least one parish.). My Irish American father and my Spanish Indigenous American father in law both served in WW2.
For clarification, I am against invasion, not immigration, and am charitable toward - even the invaders. I am NOT "discussing the cultures" of anyone.
I have spent decades risking my life in defense of other lives (as my brother has also), and our sons have followed suit. My nephews are Irish / Hispanic.
The discussion here in this thread has centered around our VP's comment about the USCCB and its apparent support of illegals (invaders). I have seen first hand how this works out in our diocese. It is often ugly.
Waving your country's flag in your country on your country's Independence Day is patriotic. Waving your country's flag on your country's Independence Day in ANOTHER country - uninvited - is crude, and rude, nationalism. And that rude crudity we here have often been subjected to.
My foreign born U.S citizen friends - who 'stood in line' and came here legally (from Poland, China, Taiwan, Laos, Viet-Nam, Cambodia, Africa., the Middle east and all over South America - enrich us (and are opposed to invasion, by the way). I was delighted to read in the Catechism when it came out that "immigrants must love their country of adoption more than their country of birth". Invaders don't.
You might humbly show courtesy to those who disagree with you by sticking to the subject rather than posting ad hominems.
Sidestepping the heated feelings for second, I--a former teacher of logic, apologetics, speech and rhetoric--can definitely say that what Jeanatan C wrote was not an ad hominem in the slightest. If she had called you names, or impugned your intrinsic character, or falsely associated you with evil, or something like that, it would have been an ad hominem. What she wrote was merely a request to show more kindness and gentleness in your approach. You can take or leave the request, but it's a rhetorical dishonesty to try to cast her request as an ad hominem. We're better than that.
The inference in her post was that I am not “charitable” toward my neighbors … so yes, it was not incorrect to call it ad hominem, though that may not have been her intent.
Of course, the flip side of that fallacious coin is the ‘appeal to my authority’ (I’m right because I say so). Like beginning your comment with your background. Your critique would have been better without that.
To the contrary, appeal from authority is a fallacy that says, "Because this respectable person says so, then it's true." Essentially--the claim that *because* person A says it's true, it *therefore* is true. That's not what I was doing. Rather, I was establishing credibility through expertise--essentially: "I am not just a random person making a claim about rhetoric, but in fact I have a background." That's not a fallacy.
What is a fallacy is false equivalency though, demonstrated well here: "Because appealing to credentials is often part of a fallacy of appeal to authority, and in this moment you are appealing to your credentials, you therefore are committing the fallacy of appeal to authority." It's a false syllogism.
"Tu quoque" as well: "By claiming that you have committed an error, it therefore exculpates or otherwise justifies that I committed an error."
But let's not play this game. It won't be fun for anybody. The fact of the matter is, whether it reflects what's in your heart or not your commentary on the Spanish language (and surrounding topics) communicates a lack of charity. Nobody calls other people or their language "caca" with charity, and it's intellectually dishonest to claim it. And, if we really want to split hairs, Jeanatan did not ask you to *be* more charitable (a matter of who you are/your character), but to *show* more charity (a matter of quality of actions and behaviors). A perfectly reasonable request!
Still - this misses the point: invasion is wrong. What Mexican nationals (and those from other countries) who have invaded our country have done and are doing is evil. It seems that the lecturing about how we refer to criminals is almost always aimed at those who oppose crime.
I don’t recall seeing any posts from either of you to those here who have referred to people who voted for Trump as “__________s” ( fill in the blank with their name calling). Even if I accept your critiques (I don’t) I would still say that I was merely flattering the invaders and their supporters with imitation.
For years, decades actually, I and other Americans (including my wife and our children) have been subjected to vicious name calling.
I stick to issue discussion, but do retort in kind when condescendingly treated. My ‘rules of engagement’ practice is: someone shoots at me I shoot back (that’s a metaphor by the way, which as a logician I’m sure you know). You don’t like it, don’t ‘shoot’ at me - and stay out of the crossfire if someone else does.
And in a thread that had “bullshit” prominently used, it’s disingenuous (and racist) to object to my using “caca”. Suck it up, tough it out, and move on.
🤷♂️ Listen, I wasn't trying to pick a fight. I was trying to stand up for another commentator who made a reasonable request. It appears that I have upset you, and I am sorry that our exchange became heated. I wish you well, and I hope you have a lovely weekend.
"trying to augment their Catholic communities with population due to their failure to evangelize the Gospel or support Catholic Schools that do"
That's a crazy idea. Many immigrants, refugees, etc., don't register their existence with the parish through parish registration, which is the predominant way that parishes keep track of the number of families. In addition, I have yet to attend a parish or serve on a finance council where there was a disproportionate amount of donations coming from the immigrant, refugee, etc., community. Instead, it seems that the non-immigrants are the disproportionate financial supporters for the parish. Finally, there does not appear to be a surge of vocations coming from that same said immigrant/refugee/etc. community.
So... in what way are the bishops augmenting their Catholic communities? It doesn't appear to be with identifiable population, nor with money, or with administrative support. So I don't see it.
Some bishops and dioceses evangelize their region and support their Catholic schools and some don't. A look at which dioceses have more new priests and seminarians might be relevant in discussing this issue.
Indeed! The three adjacent dioceses to mine are in the top 20 most successful in recruiting seminarians and supporting Catholic Schools - perhaps there’s more than a correlation…
But the US, as a conference, is not leading the faithful to enough replacement population via its evangelical efforts nor its support for reproduction. We’re too busy focused on the works of Social Teaching, that we’ve dismissed why they exist in the first place. Fr. O’Malley, SJ said that if we don’t live the transcendent life of Christ, then we are just social workers with Crosses on our hats. The call is to incarnate Christ, not simply “do good works.” Rather, we must do ALL that he commanded, including personal morality. It’s why we lose so many Catholics to Pentecostals (First Things article).
That the US Bishops are not listening to Paprocki nor Cordileone, let alone Nauman and Conley should give the US Catholics pause. We now have evidence of what works, and yet it is ignored.
The majority seem more interested in managing the decline of a spiritual museum rather than cultivating convictional Catholicism.
According to Vatican II the laity are supposed to be the evangelizers of the world, with the clergy as support for them. I would suggest inviting friends to adoration as a means of evangelization.
Arguing that Vance's remarks (and the decisions of the new administration) are unsupported because the migrants are "already cleared by the USRAP" is splitting hairs and unhelpful because it doesn't matter, the point this administration has been making is that America's immigration systems are broken. This is in line with the point Vance was making on TV when he pressed a journalist: "Vetted? The guy who was activelty planning terrorist attacks in our country was supposedly 'vetted' too." What does it matter if the people served are "cleared by government agencies" if those same agencies and processes are broken and hamstringed by the previous administration? "Cleared" means absolutely nothing, and I would've imagined Ed would've understood that. And so, the USCCB's and CC's work only further incentivizes illegal migration and trafficking and further fuels these problems. Honestly, I just don't care, Ed.
The USCCB, and the various Catholic Charities of the Southwest, openly receive piles of government cash and oodles of federal funding on this issue. It's been exposed for a while now that, at the very least, CC knowingly turns a blind eye to human trafficking or at worst intentionally aids and abets the same (a la undercover reporting from Okeefe Media Group).
+Dolan's comments about Vance were so stupid and reckless; you'd think he could read the room, but he goes and puts his foot in his mouth. Good on Vance for publicly name-dropping the concept of "Ordo Amoris" on X, totally eviscerating the superiority complex among the bishops who think they're the only people who know anything about the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, and coming out swinging: "I can play ball on this Catholic stuff, too"
Agreed. It is Condon and Flynn who show themselves to be "bullshitters" par excellence on the subject of illegal immigration. It's a subject as far outside their competence as the USCCB's. As Phil Lawler of Catholic Culture points out, the USCCB receives more than half its revenues from the federal government; he who pays the piper calls the tune. See https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/vance-vs-bishops-on-immigration-part-i/ (and the remaining parts of the series). That the already deficit-ridden USCCB nevertheless spends beyond its means tells us all we need to know about the quality of their stewardship of resources provided them by others in good faith.
The USCCB is a pack of Father Drinans -- leftist, ignorant, hubristic, and greedy and grasping for power outside their wheelhouse. They willfully flout Christ's teaching to "Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's," preferring the self-satisfaction and social cachet (bestowed largely by anti-Catholic quarters) that comes from making an unholy mess of the two. God help us.
Mm, you're very good at judging the hearts and minds of everybody, arentcha?
In all seriousness, though, watch that. I struggle too with presuming the hearts and intentions of others, and if I'm not careful it'll wreck me. I'd hate for the same to happen to you too.
Indeed. I live in terror of James 1:26: "If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless." I think a great number of commentators here at the Pillar, myself included, would be well-advised to take that passage as an admonishment.
One needn't be "religious" to be concerned about the USCCB's self-serving collusion with an immigration policy that has for four years willfully ignored existing immigration law, the enforcement of which could have prevented the loss of more than 300,000 children to human traffickers, the deterioration of a sovereign nation into a borderless land mass, and the spread of deadly drugs and crime that that take their heaviest toll on the poorest and most vulnerable among us -- citizens and migrants alike. One would, however, have to be irreligious indeed (not to mention cold and uncompassionate) to bridle his tongue in the face of such evil.
Yes, *and* do you know what is the most effective - perhaps the *only* effective - thing that you personally can do about it?
Log out and pray. Let's all log out of the internet for 24 hours and spend at least 30 minutes in silence (in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament if possible[1]) asking God "please make me a saint; You know You want to and the only thing that has been standing in Your way is me."
[1] in this case also ask for a plenary indulgence for the poor souls in purgatory.
I don’t think it’s splitting hairs. The programs under the Office of Refugee Resettlement were, at the time I worked on these issues, distinct from immigration policy and enforcement related to people crossing the border at will. I worked for a governor who was apoplectic about the “hoards of migrants” coming over the border and the Obama Administration’s alleged efforts to deliver them into unwilling states. So this official called meetings with relevant state agencies and with Catholic Charities with the intention of axing the funding for CC and “fixing” the problem.
Yeah. Turns out the Office of Refugee Resettlement wasn’t giving money to CC to rehouse and rehome millions of people who broke the law crossing the border illegally. As Ed documented, they received money to house and care for a specific number of migrants **legally** permitted to be in the country for a specific reason. In my state’s case, the supposed hoards Catholic Charities was bankrolling were fewer than 30, perhaps fewer than 20, people coming to the United States mostly for political asylum. Most were from Honduras or Guatemala. The next largest percentage were from Cambodia. Some were from Africa. One was from Laos, and one or two were from South America.
Nicole, would you be willing to name the state in which you worked on these issues? Is it a state at our southern border, ie Texas, California, Arizona, Florida which addresses a much larger number of people coming into the US or somewhere that deals with a much smaller, ie fewer than 30 people?
Updated to add: the number of refugees served by the program in a given state in a given year doesn’t change the basic dynamics of the conversation: clarifying that the USCCB receives funding to resettle people legally classified as refugees is a very different thing than saying this vs JD Vance’s implication that the USCCB is using taxpayer funding to support illegal immigration is all the same basic thing and differentiating is splitting hairs. One is apples, one is not apples. And Vice President Vance is incredibly intelligent and ought to be be incredibly well informed enough to speak intelligently instead of muddying the waters on an important issue while attacking the Church. If he’s that poorly informed on basic elements of federal policy he already needs a new staff.
"Legally classified as refugees" is the trap phrase. Healthy, well clothed, well fed, military aged males are "refugees"!??? That's the problem - the Obamoidal-Bidenian regime renamed illegals 'refugees'. Having some Bishops 'bless' that sophistry does not change the fact. Vance is well aware of that. And, since his comments have 'gone viral' (at least here) people are openly discussing it. Which might have been what an "incredibly intelligent" and "incredibly well informed" VP might have intended.
How the United States determines and grants legal refugee status I don’t remember from my working days and whether any prior administration changed the legality of how the term is applied or just bandied it about recklessly for political purposes I also do not know. Regardless, “refugee” is a status that comes with some degree of legal protection and isn’t something invented by the USCCB or caused by their acceptance of federal money to aid people with that status. That was the vice president’s assertion, and he either knows better, which I believe to be the case based on his demonstrable intelligence, or he is an uninformed rube, which is less likely though possible but, in a humble person would be accompanied by a clarification and, in a very public person might at least be papered over by some sorr of adjustment in rhetoric. A “walk back” if you will. I usually assume ignorance not malice, because I have experienced a shocking amount of ignorance and poor thinking in government, but the vice president is sharp of mind and policy awareness. I believe he either knew at the time or at least now knows the error he made and, thus far, has done nothing to correct it.
I agreed completely with your other post, Stephen, but must disagree here, to the extent of pointing out that the problem with our immigration laws is that they have not been enforced for 4 years, in a willful violation of Biden's oath of office to faithfully execute the laws.
Splitting hairs? There's a pretty big ass difference between "The bishops are taking money to settle illegal immigrants" and "The bishops are working to resettle refugees at the government's request." One of these is a CRIME.
There is no such thing as "MAGAtruth". Truth, by definition, is conformity of mind with reality.
Not being a member of any political party, I cast my ballots in favor of reality.
E.g., the reality is what you refer to as MAGA are against the baby butchering bigotry of the Neo-nazi holocaust of abortion. Your Democrats are rabidly in favor of it.
For the Vatican to address the societal impact of AI without directly confronting its theological implications seems short-sighted. If we accept the Christian belief that God is omniscient and omnipresent, then AI—like all human advancements—exists within God’s knowledge and providence. The key question is why God is allowing its development, particularly if it leads to the economic turmoil that many predict.
One perspective is that AI is an extension of human creativity, a gift from God that, like all technology, can be used for good or ill. This aligns with the Catholic understanding of free will—humanity is responsible for ensuring that its innovations serve the common good. However, if AI leads to mass displacement, ethical crises, and social upheaval, it could also be seen as a moment of reckoning, forcing humanity to grapple with the moral consequences of its creations.
If the Vatican limits its focus to AI’s practical impact—on work, economics, and governance—without exploring its theological significance, it risks treating AI as a purely secular development rather than a phenomenon that must be understood in light of divine providence. This would leave unaddressed critical questions: Is AI part of God’s plan for human flourishing, or is it a sign of humanity overstepping its role in creation? Is this a new chapter in human progress, or a modern Tower of Babel moment?
The Vatican should be at the forefront of these discussions. AI is not just a technological shift—it challenges fundamental ideas about intelligence, creativity, and human purpose. Without a theological framework, society risks navigating this transformation with only secular answers to profoundly spiritual questions.
Dennis, you may be interested to know that the Vatican Centre for Digital Culture put together an AI Research group some years ago, who recently published a book grappling with exactly the sorts of questions you (very correctly) identify. I've been fortunate enough to read and talk with some of the folks who contributed to this volume, and I can confidently say they are the best and brightest to be doing this work. https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/faculty_books/614/
"It’s a grotesquely cynical economy of speech, and especially noxious because it feeds a general assumption among us that anything anyone says that you disagree with is probably made up, at least in part."
"hardening into a general cynicism about everything and everyone, a disposition to which I am already too prone."
-Call me a cynic, but I don't believe anything at first blush anymore. Even after the contrasting points have been talked to death I am still left with an unease that I still don't have a full understanding as each side continues to march along blowing the trumpets of triumph. Oh look, something new just came up to fight about! Let's forget anything we just learned and man the battle stations!
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to my right. Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.
Do the Bishops not understand that these immigrants are here ILLEGALLY? Isn’t there an order of charity that begins with your family and extends through the citizens of your country BEFORE you take on illegal immigrants? Helping foreigners and making them welcome is one thing but a country’s first obligation is to its own citizens.
That's the debate, though, isn't it? The bishops state that these people are her LEGALY under refugee/asylum status. Vance still considers them illegal immigrants.
The so called "permission" was not for them to be here, but for a future court date - which they and the Bidenians both knew would not be complied with. It was a shell game to get them in and try to avoid public backlash.
When it was done properly - and with the corrupt NGOs and an even more corrupt Biden admin it was NOT done properly.
Besides, well fed, well clothed, healthy military aged males from terrorist spawning septic pit hell hole countries are NOT “refugees” - no matter what the Bidenians claim.
Do you have evidence for this claim, or are you just inferring it based on the obvious ways in which the Biden administration was untrustworthy (such as hiding the president's cognitive decline from the country)?
Sigh….Maybe just take a look at the invaders swarming our borders.
That, to me, is evidence. Here in California we’ve been subjected to this invasion for decades. In the past couple of days invaders have been blocking freeways while waving their sponsor countries’ flags, and shrieking anti-American epithets (again - it is done in every invader demonstration).
I hear that you're frickin' outraged and support decisive actions of all kinds, direct and indirect, to address an urgent situation. At the same time, that's of course not evidence that refugee vetting, specifically, was not done properly. And accuracy matters if we're going to sort this mess out in our country.
No, not “outraged” (though that would be understandable). In law enforcement we’ve been seeing these actions, hearing these mexivader speeches (and even sermons in Catholic parishes) for decades.
Regarding “vetting”, and your apparent refusal to acknowledge the obvious lack of it in recent very public evidence (Tren de agua taking over apartment buildings in Colorado!?), I’m reminded of what St. Thomas Aquinas wrote about those without Faith: they are like someone standing in the noonday sun with their eyes closed screeching “I want to see”. The Saint said all they have to do is open their eyes.
The refugees that are helped by these programs are in fact here legally. This is where Vance’s rhetoric is not just unhelpful but truly detrimental to having a worthwhile conversation about immigration reform.
Bingo. People are conflating one portion of immigration programming and funding with all of it, and bullshitting elected officials (and yes I voted for them after much discernment and reading from Cardinal Burke and yes I still think they are gigantic bullshitters, one of whom is openly hostile to the Church to score political points) are using that obfuscation to their political advantage all while at least one of them is more than intelligent enough to understand the game he is playing. That makes a bullshitter a shithead and a manipulative one to boot.
Healthy, well fed, well clothed. military aged males are NOT "refugees". They're invaders. Our immigration system is actually one of the best in the world - WHEN THE LAWS ARE OBEYED. We need criminals to reform, we don't need to reform the immigration laws. Just enforce them.
You realize the headline shows up in the iPhone alerts, right? You may have 100 little Beavises out there, going, “heh heh … heh heh .. bullshit .. bullshit ..”
When JD Vance said "If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do," he was not saying he was fabricating the story, just that he wanted to get the story out. He said his source for the story was a local resident.
Yes, that is correct. He didn't say he was making it up whole cloth. When asked to clarify he said: "Dana, it comes from first-hand accounts of my constituents," Vance said. "I say that we're 'creating a story,' meaning we're creating the American media focusing on it." Now, people might still say that amplifying a local story for one's own ends is still BS. And others might say that not charitably interpreting something someone said because it doesn't further their point is also BS. Let each come to their own conclusion.
Here's the problem: when you amplify a story from a local resident and it turns out not to be true, it behooves you to do a public mea culpa and call off the dogs, so to speak. He said it was a first-hand story from a constituent...plenty of misunderstandings and outright lies are told first-hand. Vet your stories before you run with them. The fact that he sidestepped the question of whether or not the story was true is the real problem.
Not sure, Ed, how you can characterize the USCCB immigrant resettlement work as a charitable endeavor. Government contract work is more like it. Government grants pays the USCCB to do certain tasks, including subcontracting, oversight, staffing, paperwork, etc. Any NGO could bid for the work, if it wished to do so and could demonstrate some competency.
So if you are just an arm of the government, you are a political entity and can’t claim any special ministry or church status when the critics come for you.
I'm a bit shocked by some of the comments above that seem to be rationalizing the deliberate manipulation of facts for the sake of political power. In other contexts, that's called lying. Color me old-fashioned.
Now I suppose one could justify the Trump-Vance behavior as a type of performance art, but is that where we really want to be as a country? And if we are there, then should Catholics be participating in it?
There IS such a thing as rhetoric, but there are limits to what counts as GOOD rhetoric. The ancient Greek tradition, as I understand it, considered people SOPHISTS who used words instrumentally without believing what they argue. They were derided because they cared nothing for the truth, only for producing a particular reaction in the hearers.
I think we as Catholics have to stand for something better. And I think it's shameful that Vance is picking a fight with the bishops over the immigration issue rather than reaching out to them to work with them. Vance is the one with the upper hand, so he's the one more responsible for seeking peace and a constructive way forward.
I'm with you father right up to the last paragraph.
In this situation, which party is supposed to be the one with moral authority? From the election up to today, what has been the outreach, as seen by the public, been?
Once the Trump policy positions became clear, I think that the USCCB and Vatican took the exact wrong approach. The Vatican took a swing by giving +McElroy DC when Brian Burch (a supporter of Trump and Vatican critic) was nominated, when humility would have suited best. The USCCB took a swing in white paper and across the media (re: see +Dolan et al. as they reacted to the immigration Executive Orders) instead of getting ahead of a policy they knew was coming by engaging the VP in person, publicly through the media.
Then came VP Vance's comments about ordo amoris, and the Catholic internet becomes abuzz as partisan actors like Fr. Thomas Reese and S.J., Michael Sean Winters made it their mission to nitpick his understanding and application, rather than celebrate that Augustine's teaching is gaining a new foothold with people who have never heard it articulated before.
The entire state of communication between the Church and the Trump Admin needs a complete reset. I contend that it is those who claim the mantle of spiritual and moral authority that need to extend a laurel and hearty handshake first.
I could ( and DO) just say “Amen” to your post; but I would add that on this thread Vance is taking a pretty good “smack-down”. Would that some comments here be more conciliatory given he’s a “newbie Catholic”. After all, convert might be a noun but converting is a verb. So, the “upper hand” reference of your predecessor ( Fr BJ) is debatable IMHO.
The bishops started this, not Mr. Vance. And this pope didn’t engender dialogue with his scurrilous comments about Mr. Trump (and Americans in general).
Was it ok for the Lord to say:
“You family of venomous snakes!”
“Better for that man to have never been born, or to be hurled into the sea with a huge stone collar tied around his neck!”
Or referring to the Samaritan woman as a dog.
Sometimes, sometimes, ya gotta get people’s attention. For their sake.
and then the Pharisees said "oh! we're sorry and we'll try to do better"
> “Better for that man to have never been born, or to be hurled into the sea with a huge stone collar tied around his neck!”
and then Judas changed his mind and did not betray his very good friend who, also, he knew to be God
Your examples are "1 for 3" (the Samaritan woman, arguably, was trying to get the attention of *Jesus* rather than the other way around, but I'll allow it) - so I would say it's not a very effective technique even though God is *of course* permitted to address His creatures in any way He wants to.
The lady’s response to Our Lord was quick witted, honest and from her heart. I have often imitated her in prayer by thanking God for whatever crumbs of His Love He deigns to give me.
As for “it not being a very effective technique” - that depends on the recipient. Hard heads like me actually like bluntness. As for the hard hearted, it just might ‘verbally jack hammer’ some sense into them. We in law enforcement, when confronting evil-doers in the act of committing a crime don’t have time to convene a process meeting to come to a consensusfulness that what the criminal is doing isn’t nice and then twittertweet “please stop”.
We just bluntly tell them, “Stop or else!” Sometimes God tells us in that way. Sometimes so must we.
// I think we as Catholics have to stand for something better. And I think it's shameful that Vance is picking a fight with the bishops over the immigration issue rather than reaching out to them to work with them. Vance is the one with the upper hand, so he's the one more responsible for seeking peace and a constructive way forward. //
Vance has *an* upper hand. The bishops also have one. And I believe that one of Vance's points was that the bishops are themselves being obstructionist rather than trying sincerely to find "a constructive way forward."
It is a fact that the USCCB has chosen this fight, which represents hundreds of millions of dollars to them , while remaining virtually silent for 4 years regarding the “intrinsic evil” promoted by the previous administration, fully staffed by so-called Catholics.
“We as Catholics have to stand for something better.” Right. How about the millions of abortions, fentanyl, murders, rapes, child traffickings? Maybe that’s “something better” to stand against.
Ed or JD: my friend is from this region in DRC and is getting updates from her family. She and her family is part of the Neocatechumenal Way. I don’t know if she could be a source, but she has certainly requested an outpouring of prayers. Thank you so much for highlighting what is happening there.
"M23 is a Rwandan government-supported and tribally Tutsi group that has been engaged in more-or-less open incursions in the region since the end of the Rwandan genocide — which was perpetrated by that country’s then-dominant Hutu tribe, many of whose leaders and people fled over the border into the DRC and around Goma."
-I had never thought much about the Rwandan Genocide until I listened to Jimmy Akin's episodes about Our Lady of Kibeho (https://sqpn.com/2022/02/our-lady-of-kibeho-marian-apparition/ and https://sqpn.com/2022/02/our-lady-of-kibeho-and-the-rwandan-genocide/). I have an awful feeling seeing these flames being fanned again.
May our mother Mary intercede in this conflict and put a halt to the anger and hurt that is driving this madness.
I just read a long form thing on Rwanda post-genocide and apparently they were killing Hutus in a neighboring country and weren't as forgiving as portrayed.
"I have been thinking a bit about the rumbling clash between the Trump-Vance administration and the USCCB, following the Veep’s comments last week, alleging that the conference was using federal grant money to pad its 'bottom line' and resettle 'illegal immigrants.'"
I think your missing the big picture here, Ed. I took Vance's point to be that the USCCB wants to keep the money flowing from the federal government (that is, the American taxpayer) to support the church's infrastructure costs. That's NOT a very Catholic reason to want taxes to go to the Church. How's that working out in Germany?
I think Ed's point is that bs on that point obscures the debate. First, there's no evidence that the federal funds touch infrastructure (if by that you mean parishes/chancery/seminary). On the contrary, in fact.
Second, the demonstrably untrue things make any underlying point all the more difficult to actually talk about and debate.
Sorry, JD, I was unclear. I consider parishes/chancer/seminary the opposite of infrastructure. The infrastructure I was referring to was the USCCB itself, and the nonsense coming out of Catholic Charities Milwaukee--things like that. Remember, money is fungible.
Re BS, I agree with Ed's point that in a perfect world we'd never hear BS from our politicians, but I think the larger point is that BS is always better than lies and dishonesty--and that is not coming from Vance.
I truly don’t understand this distinction; how is bs different than lying? Whatever you want to call it, when Vance talks like this, it makes me trust and believe him less. It is not an effective way of consolidating support for his position if the person doesn’t already agree with him.
Hi Rebecca. When a used-car salesman tells me the car he's selling is the best used-car in the county, he's BSing me. When he tells me it comes with a 3-year warranty when the warranty is actually only 2 years, he's lying to me.
I think people who can't tell BS from lies tend to be rather gullible (and probably pay too much for used cars).
Okay — if that’s the difference, how is Vance not lying? He’s wrong on the facts. As JD said above, that confuses the conversation about whatever bigger point you think he’s trying to make. To me it just looks like he has sufficiently coarsened his conscience to spin falsehoods as truth; whatever you want to call that, it’s a problem.
I will answer your question but first, may I ask you for some context: Did you vote for Trump/Vance, or did you vote for Harris/(the other guy whose name I already forget)? I will offer that I did vote for Trump/Vance.
I wrote someone in; my state went overwhelmingly for Trump so that I felt perfectly free to vote my conscience. I don’t see how that is necessary information for being able to tell whether Vance’s comments constitute lying, however.
Thanks for sharing that info, it does provide insight on what type of response would/would not appeal to you.
Now, to your original question, I don't see the lie. The larger point Vance was trying to make is that powerful people in the Church hierarchy want to see the money continue to flow (whether or not it helps the Church make a "profit"). Similarly, these same people/type of people protected McCarrick because he kept the money coming.
Whether you think a larger point Vance may have been making was true, what he actually said was false. The USCCB loses money in their work assisting refugees; it does the opposite of “padding their bottom line.” And whether you want to call that BS or lying, I think it is unbecoming in a Catholic politician and detrimental to our national conversation about immigration. I also think this is no longer a productive conversation. Have a good evening.
The real point Vance was making is that bishops should NOT support invasion, nor any other crime committing. The money comment should be taken as rhetoric.
I like Mark's request for context: I'll declare that I am not American, so I didn't vote for either.
Now, to your question, "how is it not lying?", you can certainly say that it is, but I might say it's NOT lying because he is making a statement about someone's motives as much as about facts. I think it is usually specious to make statements about other people's motives, and that is at least disrespectful or disingenuous towards them, but it may not be lying.
Believe it or not, "bullshit" is now a technical term in philosophy. It was introduced in a paper by Harry Frankfurt called "On Bullshit." You might be able to find it online.
In a nutshell, lying is saying something you believe to be false. (It may be more complicated than that, but that doesn't matter here.) BSing, by contrast, is saying something and not caring whether it's true or false.
People have different motives for BSing. It deserves reflection.
Frankfurt notes that, weirdly, liars care more about the truth than BSers do.
Actions not words are the key.
BTW, what 'lie' did he tell?
I voted for Trump, and I did so primarily because he appointed the three Supremes that were eventually responsible for overturning Roe, a seminal event in any lifetime one would have to say. On the other hand, I know he is an extreme BSer, or dare I say, worse than that. (eg., case in point, during his one debate with Kamala, he pointed towards the need to stop the war as millions were dying on both sides. Um, millions, really now?) But I still bend the knee to allow for what he has done to promote the Right to Life cause in the US. It is unparalleled and he deserves to be praised for it. After all, King David was a murderer, St Paul was a persecutor of Christians and Augustine was hell on wheels until he was 30 years of age.
This is an honest disclosure, Kenneth, and I appreciate your candor.
I don’t think you’ve achieved “demonstrably untrue”, at least for the CBS interview. Vance made a statement that the USCCB receives a lot of money to resettle illegal immigrants and suggests that they're influenced by that money flow. The Pillar says “Vance is lying because USRAP beneficiaries are present legally and the USCCB makes a loss on its USRAP program, so the money can't be an influence.” Yet Vance's never mentioned the USRAP program. That program applied to about 100,000 refugees in 2024, compared to approximately 2 million illegal immigrants so IMO it’s obvious he’s not referring specifically to that program.
When someone says “US conference of bishops” you could narrowly take that to mean the legal entity called the USCCB, or less precisely as including the large collection of closely related organizations such as dioceses, parishes, affiliated orgs like Catholic Charities, NGOs like El Paso’s Annunciation House, foundations and the like, controlled directly or indirectly, wholly or in part, by the bishops. The Pillar’s analysis seems to assume the former, but I think most people, including the VP, think of the latter. The money flow into this much larger group of entities is far larger than $100M - especially if you adopt the government’s point of view that tax exemption is a form of government funding! (I do not agree with that but it’s a perspective adopted by many.) And the perspective in your article “Is migration padding the USCCB bottom line” is just dumb - profit is not a metric for non-profits, revenue and spending are, as several commenters pointed out.
The activities of that constellation of groups goes far beyond USRAP and is involved with a much larger fraction of the 2M who cross the border illegally annually. Many Catholic organizations take in people who cross the border illegally. They house, feed and clothe them - so far so good, Mt 25 in action, thumbs up. They also provide lawyers. This is legal but starts to get iffy morally - are the lawyers helping game the legal process? What about the NGOs and parishes who declare themselves part of the “resistance” and actively work to thwart legitimate law enforcement actions? What about donors duped into thinking they are giving to feed the hungry when in fact money is redirected to leftist lawyers? I could go on but let's stop there.
You could answer these questions various ways, but Vance’s pointed question to the bishops is not out of bounds given what we know about their activities such as the CCHD, a left wing political organization masquerading as an anti-poverty initiative. Or even their boss’s Peter’s Pence debacle where the money that donors thought was for the world’s poor was actually going mostly to Vatican bureaucrats’ salaries. (I fell for that one for years, it won’t happen again.)
BTW, I don’t actually think the bishops are motivated mostly by money in this case. I just don’t think that opinion is obvious. Today’s Starting Seven reports that the bishop of New Orleans wants the Second Harvest Food Bank to cough up $16M to help pay for sex settlement liabilities … so, literally taking food out of the mouths of the poor to cover the diocese’s misconduct expenses. Yeah, that Vance guy is pretty scurrilous to even hint that bishops might care a bit about money, they’re definitely all about the needy.
“ profit is not a metric for non-profits, revenue and spending are, as several commenters pointed out.”
Well put. The head of CC gets close to one $mm per year. How much “profit’ they make or don’t make is a straw man.
“I increasingly suspect, and friends in the Roman curia have told me as much, that when it comes to serious crimes and major churchmen, the Vatican’s leadership is much more motivated by negative coverage in the New York Times than by the interests of justice.”
And why should we not expect the same from US Bishops on the dime of federal government, trying to augment their Catholic communities with population due to their failure to evangelize the Gospel or support Catholic Schools that do? That’s the bottom line at stake. They have taken a page from the ‘Grand Inquisitor’s’ playbook, and aligned themselves with Caesar, claiming the mantle of “compassion” while dismissing and ignoring those who are firstly in their jurisdiction, while maligning the plight of those who are abetted in their illegality and illegitimacy. They contort ends and means, and conflate concepts at the expense of others. It is not a wonder that American Catholics listen very little to their Bishops but a majority will to Trump. They have made our faith irrelevant by their lack of teaching, leadership, witness, or investment, and so Americans are going to the next consequential area and making it their new religion: politics.
I’m not sure whether it’s true that the bishops are augmenting their local Catholic populations by importing immigrants, because I’m not sure I’ve seen any evidence that the resettled immigrants in question are, in fact, Catholic. However, to your last point, you’re not wrong. Politics is a tantalizing idol, no matter which ideology.
Haven’t been to California, have you?
The dioceses here actively promote and propagandize illegals. They have for decades. They have even forced ‘bilingualism’ (aka linguamexicaca) into almost all of our Masses. There is no program for challenging and helping ‘immigrants’ to assimilate culturally, socially or legally. While the federal (aka, our) money may not wind up in official diocesan coffers, it does generously fund things like Catholic Charities (which is neither Catholic nor charitable).
As far as whether these so-called immigrants are Catholic, most of the recent arrivals imported by the Democrat party obviously are not. Many are known terrorists.
The “BS” (Brouhaha Shouting”) can be seen as typical of political rhetoric. E.g., if I say “I’ve told you a million times … “, that’s not “lying”, it’s making a point rhetorically.
The VP’s comment - as other contributors here are pointing out - is calling the USCCB out on the subject. Cardinal Gregory illustrates the need for this. As do Cupich, McElroy and Martin.
"linguamexicaca"
Wow, both Christian and classy in our approach!
Stephen, Spanish-speaking Catholics (indigenous, Mexican, and of European ancestry) have lived, ranched, and cultivated the beautiful soils of California for hundreds of years; long before the first waves of (largely Protestant or Mormon) settlers flooded in from the U.S., generations of families were praising the Lord in the Spanish tongue. California - my beloved homeland - was built by immigrants: first from Spain, then from Mexico, then from 1824-1848 by the "Californios", then from Ireland, China/Japan, and the United States. I would humbly ask you to show the slightest bit more charity when discussing the cultures of the men and women who are blessed to live alongside you.
I know all of what you posted here. I am a Californian by birth also. As is my wife - who is hispanic. She had to correct our Mexican (i.e., citizen of) priest / pastor who referred to her as Mexican simply because of her maiden name. She pointed to him that her parents, uncles, aunts and cousins are all American - for generations. (That priest later fled back to Mexico after stealing tens of thousands of dollars from at least one parish.). My Irish American father and my Spanish Indigenous American father in law both served in WW2.
For clarification, I am against invasion, not immigration, and am charitable toward - even the invaders. I am NOT "discussing the cultures" of anyone.
I have spent decades risking my life in defense of other lives (as my brother has also), and our sons have followed suit. My nephews are Irish / Hispanic.
The discussion here in this thread has centered around our VP's comment about the USCCB and its apparent support of illegals (invaders). I have seen first hand how this works out in our diocese. It is often ugly.
Waving your country's flag in your country on your country's Independence Day is patriotic. Waving your country's flag on your country's Independence Day in ANOTHER country - uninvited - is crude, and rude, nationalism. And that rude crudity we here have often been subjected to.
My foreign born U.S citizen friends - who 'stood in line' and came here legally (from Poland, China, Taiwan, Laos, Viet-Nam, Cambodia, Africa., the Middle east and all over South America - enrich us (and are opposed to invasion, by the way). I was delighted to read in the Catechism when it came out that "immigrants must love their country of adoption more than their country of birth". Invaders don't.
You might humbly show courtesy to those who disagree with you by sticking to the subject rather than posting ad hominems.
Bravo, Stephen ! Thank you for saying that, I commend you !
Thank you for your response, and for your service. I am grateful that you shared more about yourself with this community.
Sidestepping the heated feelings for second, I--a former teacher of logic, apologetics, speech and rhetoric--can definitely say that what Jeanatan C wrote was not an ad hominem in the slightest. If she had called you names, or impugned your intrinsic character, or falsely associated you with evil, or something like that, it would have been an ad hominem. What she wrote was merely a request to show more kindness and gentleness in your approach. You can take or leave the request, but it's a rhetorical dishonesty to try to cast her request as an ad hominem. We're better than that.
The inference in her post was that I am not “charitable” toward my neighbors … so yes, it was not incorrect to call it ad hominem, though that may not have been her intent.
Of course, the flip side of that fallacious coin is the ‘appeal to my authority’ (I’m right because I say so). Like beginning your comment with your background. Your critique would have been better without that.
P.S., I too have taught logic.
To the contrary, appeal from authority is a fallacy that says, "Because this respectable person says so, then it's true." Essentially--the claim that *because* person A says it's true, it *therefore* is true. That's not what I was doing. Rather, I was establishing credibility through expertise--essentially: "I am not just a random person making a claim about rhetoric, but in fact I have a background." That's not a fallacy.
What is a fallacy is false equivalency though, demonstrated well here: "Because appealing to credentials is often part of a fallacy of appeal to authority, and in this moment you are appealing to your credentials, you therefore are committing the fallacy of appeal to authority." It's a false syllogism.
"Tu quoque" as well: "By claiming that you have committed an error, it therefore exculpates or otherwise justifies that I committed an error."
But let's not play this game. It won't be fun for anybody. The fact of the matter is, whether it reflects what's in your heart or not your commentary on the Spanish language (and surrounding topics) communicates a lack of charity. Nobody calls other people or their language "caca" with charity, and it's intellectually dishonest to claim it. And, if we really want to split hairs, Jeanatan did not ask you to *be* more charitable (a matter of who you are/your character), but to *show* more charity (a matter of quality of actions and behaviors). A perfectly reasonable request!
Still - this misses the point: invasion is wrong. What Mexican nationals (and those from other countries) who have invaded our country have done and are doing is evil. It seems that the lecturing about how we refer to criminals is almost always aimed at those who oppose crime.
I don’t recall seeing any posts from either of you to those here who have referred to people who voted for Trump as “__________s” ( fill in the blank with their name calling). Even if I accept your critiques (I don’t) I would still say that I was merely flattering the invaders and their supporters with imitation.
For years, decades actually, I and other Americans (including my wife and our children) have been subjected to vicious name calling.
I stick to issue discussion, but do retort in kind when condescendingly treated. My ‘rules of engagement’ practice is: someone shoots at me I shoot back (that’s a metaphor by the way, which as a logician I’m sure you know). You don’t like it, don’t ‘shoot’ at me - and stay out of the crossfire if someone else does.
And in a thread that had “bullshit” prominently used, it’s disingenuous (and racist) to object to my using “caca”. Suck it up, tough it out, and move on.
🤷♂️ Listen, I wasn't trying to pick a fight. I was trying to stand up for another commentator who made a reasonable request. It appears that I have upset you, and I am sorry that our exchange became heated. I wish you well, and I hope you have a lovely weekend.
"trying to augment their Catholic communities with population due to their failure to evangelize the Gospel or support Catholic Schools that do"
That's a crazy idea. Many immigrants, refugees, etc., don't register their existence with the parish through parish registration, which is the predominant way that parishes keep track of the number of families. In addition, I have yet to attend a parish or serve on a finance council where there was a disproportionate amount of donations coming from the immigrant, refugee, etc., community. Instead, it seems that the non-immigrants are the disproportionate financial supporters for the parish. Finally, there does not appear to be a surge of vocations coming from that same said immigrant/refugee/etc. community.
So... in what way are the bishops augmenting their Catholic communities? It doesn't appear to be with identifiable population, nor with money, or with administrative support. So I don't see it.
Some bishops and dioceses evangelize their region and support their Catholic schools and some don't. A look at which dioceses have more new priests and seminarians might be relevant in discussing this issue.
Indeed! The three adjacent dioceses to mine are in the top 20 most successful in recruiting seminarians and supporting Catholic Schools - perhaps there’s more than a correlation…
But the US, as a conference, is not leading the faithful to enough replacement population via its evangelical efforts nor its support for reproduction. We’re too busy focused on the works of Social Teaching, that we’ve dismissed why they exist in the first place. Fr. O’Malley, SJ said that if we don’t live the transcendent life of Christ, then we are just social workers with Crosses on our hats. The call is to incarnate Christ, not simply “do good works.” Rather, we must do ALL that he commanded, including personal morality. It’s why we lose so many Catholics to Pentecostals (First Things article).
That the US Bishops are not listening to Paprocki nor Cordileone, let alone Nauman and Conley should give the US Catholics pause. We now have evidence of what works, and yet it is ignored.
The majority seem more interested in managing the decline of a spiritual museum rather than cultivating convictional Catholicism.
According to Vatican II the laity are supposed to be the evangelizers of the world, with the clergy as support for them. I would suggest inviting friends to adoration as a means of evangelization.
Arguing that Vance's remarks (and the decisions of the new administration) are unsupported because the migrants are "already cleared by the USRAP" is splitting hairs and unhelpful because it doesn't matter, the point this administration has been making is that America's immigration systems are broken. This is in line with the point Vance was making on TV when he pressed a journalist: "Vetted? The guy who was activelty planning terrorist attacks in our country was supposedly 'vetted' too." What does it matter if the people served are "cleared by government agencies" if those same agencies and processes are broken and hamstringed by the previous administration? "Cleared" means absolutely nothing, and I would've imagined Ed would've understood that. And so, the USCCB's and CC's work only further incentivizes illegal migration and trafficking and further fuels these problems. Honestly, I just don't care, Ed.
The USCCB, and the various Catholic Charities of the Southwest, openly receive piles of government cash and oodles of federal funding on this issue. It's been exposed for a while now that, at the very least, CC knowingly turns a blind eye to human trafficking or at worst intentionally aids and abets the same (a la undercover reporting from Okeefe Media Group).
+Dolan's comments about Vance were so stupid and reckless; you'd think he could read the room, but he goes and puts his foot in his mouth. Good on Vance for publicly name-dropping the concept of "Ordo Amoris" on X, totally eviscerating the superiority complex among the bishops who think they're the only people who know anything about the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, and coming out swinging: "I can play ball on this Catholic stuff, too"
Agreed. It is Condon and Flynn who show themselves to be "bullshitters" par excellence on the subject of illegal immigration. It's a subject as far outside their competence as the USCCB's. As Phil Lawler of Catholic Culture points out, the USCCB receives more than half its revenues from the federal government; he who pays the piper calls the tune. See https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/vance-vs-bishops-on-immigration-part-i/ (and the remaining parts of the series). That the already deficit-ridden USCCB nevertheless spends beyond its means tells us all we need to know about the quality of their stewardship of resources provided them by others in good faith.
The USCCB is a pack of Father Drinans -- leftist, ignorant, hubristic, and greedy and grasping for power outside their wheelhouse. They willfully flout Christ's teaching to "Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's," preferring the self-satisfaction and social cachet (bestowed largely by anti-Catholic quarters) that comes from making an unholy mess of the two. God help us.
Mm, you're very good at judging the hearts and minds of everybody, arentcha?
In all seriousness, though, watch that. I struggle too with presuming the hearts and intentions of others, and if I'm not careful it'll wreck me. I'd hate for the same to happen to you too.
The conduct speaks for itself.
Indeed. I live in terror of James 1:26: "If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless." I think a great number of commentators here at the Pillar, myself included, would be well-advised to take that passage as an admonishment.
One needn't be "religious" to be concerned about the USCCB's self-serving collusion with an immigration policy that has for four years willfully ignored existing immigration law, the enforcement of which could have prevented the loss of more than 300,000 children to human traffickers, the deterioration of a sovereign nation into a borderless land mass, and the spread of deadly drugs and crime that that take their heaviest toll on the poorest and most vulnerable among us -- citizens and migrants alike. One would, however, have to be irreligious indeed (not to mention cold and uncompassionate) to bridle his tongue in the face of such evil.
🤷♂️ I tried.
Yes, *and* do you know what is the most effective - perhaps the *only* effective - thing that you personally can do about it?
Log out and pray. Let's all log out of the internet for 24 hours and spend at least 30 minutes in silence (in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament if possible[1]) asking God "please make me a saint; You know You want to and the only thing that has been standing in Your way is me."
[1] in this case also ask for a plenary indulgence for the poor souls in purgatory.
I don’t think it’s splitting hairs. The programs under the Office of Refugee Resettlement were, at the time I worked on these issues, distinct from immigration policy and enforcement related to people crossing the border at will. I worked for a governor who was apoplectic about the “hoards of migrants” coming over the border and the Obama Administration’s alleged efforts to deliver them into unwilling states. So this official called meetings with relevant state agencies and with Catholic Charities with the intention of axing the funding for CC and “fixing” the problem.
Yeah. Turns out the Office of Refugee Resettlement wasn’t giving money to CC to rehouse and rehome millions of people who broke the law crossing the border illegally. As Ed documented, they received money to house and care for a specific number of migrants **legally** permitted to be in the country for a specific reason. In my state’s case, the supposed hoards Catholic Charities was bankrolling were fewer than 30, perhaps fewer than 20, people coming to the United States mostly for political asylum. Most were from Honduras or Guatemala. The next largest percentage were from Cambodia. Some were from Africa. One was from Laos, and one or two were from South America.
Nicole, would you be willing to name the state in which you worked on these issues? Is it a state at our southern border, ie Texas, California, Arizona, Florida which addresses a much larger number of people coming into the US or somewhere that deals with a much smaller, ie fewer than 30 people?
I did not work in a border state.
Updated to add: the number of refugees served by the program in a given state in a given year doesn’t change the basic dynamics of the conversation: clarifying that the USCCB receives funding to resettle people legally classified as refugees is a very different thing than saying this vs JD Vance’s implication that the USCCB is using taxpayer funding to support illegal immigration is all the same basic thing and differentiating is splitting hairs. One is apples, one is not apples. And Vice President Vance is incredibly intelligent and ought to be be incredibly well informed enough to speak intelligently instead of muddying the waters on an important issue while attacking the Church. If he’s that poorly informed on basic elements of federal policy he already needs a new staff.
"Legally classified as refugees" is the trap phrase. Healthy, well clothed, well fed, military aged males are "refugees"!??? That's the problem - the Obamoidal-Bidenian regime renamed illegals 'refugees'. Having some Bishops 'bless' that sophistry does not change the fact. Vance is well aware of that. And, since his comments have 'gone viral' (at least here) people are openly discussing it. Which might have been what an "incredibly intelligent" and "incredibly well informed" VP might have intended.
How the United States determines and grants legal refugee status I don’t remember from my working days and whether any prior administration changed the legality of how the term is applied or just bandied it about recklessly for political purposes I also do not know. Regardless, “refugee” is a status that comes with some degree of legal protection and isn’t something invented by the USCCB or caused by their acceptance of federal money to aid people with that status. That was the vice president’s assertion, and he either knows better, which I believe to be the case based on his demonstrable intelligence, or he is an uninformed rube, which is less likely though possible but, in a humble person would be accompanied by a clarification and, in a very public person might at least be papered over by some sorr of adjustment in rhetoric. A “walk back” if you will. I usually assume ignorance not malice, because I have experienced a shocking amount of ignorance and poor thinking in government, but the vice president is sharp of mind and policy awareness. I believe he either knew at the time or at least now knows the error he made and, thus far, has done nothing to correct it.
I agree, except to the idea that our immigration system is broken. It is not. Our immigration laws are what are broken - and that is the problem.
Those who think it ok to break our laws about coming here generally think it ok to break all our laws once they are here.
I agreed completely with your other post, Stephen, but must disagree here, to the extent of pointing out that the problem with our immigration laws is that they have not been enforced for 4 years, in a willful violation of Biden's oath of office to faithfully execute the laws.
That is exactly what I meant. Sorry for not making it clearer.
When I said “our immigration laws are broken” I meant broken by entering our country illegally.
Splitting hairs? There's a pretty big ass difference between "The bishops are taking money to settle illegal immigrants" and "The bishops are working to resettle refugees at the government's request." One of these is a CRIME.
Blues Brothers, Colbert, Spinal Tap — the references today are wearing gold-plated diapers, baby!
instead of the generic term "b*lls*t" , I would suggest a more specific term for what is coming out of our federal government these days.
" MAGAtruth " . The truth is whatever the MAGA Republicans say is truth.
Nah.
There is no such thing as "MAGAtruth". Truth, by definition, is conformity of mind with reality.
Not being a member of any political party, I cast my ballots in favor of reality.
E.g., the reality is what you refer to as MAGA are against the baby butchering bigotry of the Neo-nazi holocaust of abortion. Your Democrats are rabidly in favor of it.
Bullshit is an adequate term. Bullshit is non-partisan.
Bullshit is what it is.
Here’s hoping that God can use the bullshit I produce as manure for the good soil for the word of God to grow.
For the Vatican to address the societal impact of AI without directly confronting its theological implications seems short-sighted. If we accept the Christian belief that God is omniscient and omnipresent, then AI—like all human advancements—exists within God’s knowledge and providence. The key question is why God is allowing its development, particularly if it leads to the economic turmoil that many predict.
One perspective is that AI is an extension of human creativity, a gift from God that, like all technology, can be used for good or ill. This aligns with the Catholic understanding of free will—humanity is responsible for ensuring that its innovations serve the common good. However, if AI leads to mass displacement, ethical crises, and social upheaval, it could also be seen as a moment of reckoning, forcing humanity to grapple with the moral consequences of its creations.
If the Vatican limits its focus to AI’s practical impact—on work, economics, and governance—without exploring its theological significance, it risks treating AI as a purely secular development rather than a phenomenon that must be understood in light of divine providence. This would leave unaddressed critical questions: Is AI part of God’s plan for human flourishing, or is it a sign of humanity overstepping its role in creation? Is this a new chapter in human progress, or a modern Tower of Babel moment?
The Vatican should be at the forefront of these discussions. AI is not just a technological shift—it challenges fundamental ideas about intelligence, creativity, and human purpose. Without a theological framework, society risks navigating this transformation with only secular answers to profoundly spiritual questions.
To focus on sociology to the detriment of actual theological analysis is nothing new with the current management.
// For the Vatican to address the societal impact of AI without directly confronting its theological implications seems short-sighted. //
Unfortunately, this Vatican seems to me far too much engaged in secular politics.
Dennis, you may be interested to know that the Vatican Centre for Digital Culture put together an AI Research group some years ago, who recently published a book grappling with exactly the sorts of questions you (very correctly) identify. I've been fortunate enough to read and talk with some of the folks who contributed to this volume, and I can confidently say they are the best and brightest to be doing this work. https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/faculty_books/614/
"It’s a grotesquely cynical economy of speech, and especially noxious because it feeds a general assumption among us that anything anyone says that you disagree with is probably made up, at least in part."
"hardening into a general cynicism about everything and everyone, a disposition to which I am already too prone."
-Call me a cynic, but I don't believe anything at first blush anymore. Even after the contrasting points have been talked to death I am still left with an unease that I still don't have a full understanding as each side continues to march along blowing the trumpets of triumph. Oh look, something new just came up to fight about! Let's forget anything we just learned and man the battle stations!
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to my right. Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.
All I have to say is, it's a good era of human society and the Church alike to become a hermit.
I couldn’t agree more! 😃
Beautiful newsletter. I agree with every word and am proud to be a paying subscriber.
Do the Bishops not understand that these immigrants are here ILLEGALLY? Isn’t there an order of charity that begins with your family and extends through the citizens of your country BEFORE you take on illegal immigrants? Helping foreigners and making them welcome is one thing but a country’s first obligation is to its own citizens.
That's the debate, though, isn't it? The bishops state that these people are her LEGALY under refugee/asylum status. Vance still considers them illegal immigrants.
He considers them so because they are here illegally.
If the government has given permission for someone to be here, where is the illegality?
The so called "permission" was not for them to be here, but for a future court date - which they and the Bidenians both knew would not be complied with. It was a shell game to get them in and try to avoid public backlash.
Didn't work, as the election demonstrated.
You're confusing asylum seekers with refugees. Refugees do have prior permission (after a quite extensive vetting process) to come. https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum
When it was done properly - and with the corrupt NGOs and an even more corrupt Biden admin it was NOT done properly.
Besides, well fed, well clothed, healthy military aged males from terrorist spawning septic pit hell hole countries are NOT “refugees” - no matter what the Bidenians claim.
I’m not confused at all.
Do you have evidence for this claim, or are you just inferring it based on the obvious ways in which the Biden administration was untrustworthy (such as hiding the president's cognitive decline from the country)?
Sigh….Maybe just take a look at the invaders swarming our borders.
That, to me, is evidence. Here in California we’ve been subjected to this invasion for decades. In the past couple of days invaders have been blocking freeways while waving their sponsor countries’ flags, and shrieking anti-American epithets (again - it is done in every invader demonstration).
I hear that you're frickin' outraged and support decisive actions of all kinds, direct and indirect, to address an urgent situation. At the same time, that's of course not evidence that refugee vetting, specifically, was not done properly. And accuracy matters if we're going to sort this mess out in our country.
No, not “outraged” (though that would be understandable). In law enforcement we’ve been seeing these actions, hearing these mexivader speeches (and even sermons in Catholic parishes) for decades.
Regarding “vetting”, and your apparent refusal to acknowledge the obvious lack of it in recent very public evidence (Tren de agua taking over apartment buildings in Colorado!?), I’m reminded of what St. Thomas Aquinas wrote about those without Faith: they are like someone standing in the noonday sun with their eyes closed screeching “I want to see”. The Saint said all they have to do is open their eyes.
The refugees that are helped by these programs are in fact here legally. This is where Vance’s rhetoric is not just unhelpful but truly detrimental to having a worthwhile conversation about immigration reform.
Bingo. People are conflating one portion of immigration programming and funding with all of it, and bullshitting elected officials (and yes I voted for them after much discernment and reading from Cardinal Burke and yes I still think they are gigantic bullshitters, one of whom is openly hostile to the Church to score political points) are using that obfuscation to their political advantage all while at least one of them is more than intelligent enough to understand the game he is playing. That makes a bullshitter a shithead and a manipulative one to boot.
Well put, thank you.
Healthy, well fed, well clothed. military aged males are NOT "refugees". They're invaders. Our immigration system is actually one of the best in the world - WHEN THE LAWS ARE OBEYED. We need criminals to reform, we don't need to reform the immigration laws. Just enforce them.
You realize the headline shows up in the iPhone alerts, right? You may have 100 little Beavises out there, going, “heh heh … heh heh .. bullshit .. bullshit ..”
Ok that made me laugh
When JD Vance said "If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do," he was not saying he was fabricating the story, just that he wanted to get the story out. He said his source for the story was a local resident.
Yes, that is correct. He didn't say he was making it up whole cloth. When asked to clarify he said: "Dana, it comes from first-hand accounts of my constituents," Vance said. "I say that we're 'creating a story,' meaning we're creating the American media focusing on it." Now, people might still say that amplifying a local story for one's own ends is still BS. And others might say that not charitably interpreting something someone said because it doesn't further their point is also BS. Let each come to their own conclusion.
Here's the problem: when you amplify a story from a local resident and it turns out not to be true, it behooves you to do a public mea culpa and call off the dogs, so to speak. He said it was a first-hand story from a constituent...plenty of misunderstandings and outright lies are told first-hand. Vet your stories before you run with them. The fact that he sidestepped the question of whether or not the story was true is the real problem.
Not sure, Ed, how you can characterize the USCCB immigrant resettlement work as a charitable endeavor. Government contract work is more like it. Government grants pays the USCCB to do certain tasks, including subcontracting, oversight, staffing, paperwork, etc. Any NGO could bid for the work, if it wished to do so and could demonstrate some competency.
So if you are just an arm of the government, you are a political entity and can’t claim any special ministry or church status when the critics come for you.
Read Michael Pakulak's article in the Catholic Thing https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2025/01/30/lay-responsibilities-and-the-order-of-charity/
"Who wouldn't want a flow-through stream of $100 million?"
Thank you for posting this! I was planning to offer this article for information as well.
Phil Lawler’s recent three articles over at Catholic Culture are worth a read too.
I'm a bit shocked by some of the comments above that seem to be rationalizing the deliberate manipulation of facts for the sake of political power. In other contexts, that's called lying. Color me old-fashioned.
Now I suppose one could justify the Trump-Vance behavior as a type of performance art, but is that where we really want to be as a country? And if we are there, then should Catholics be participating in it?
There IS such a thing as rhetoric, but there are limits to what counts as GOOD rhetoric. The ancient Greek tradition, as I understand it, considered people SOPHISTS who used words instrumentally without believing what they argue. They were derided because they cared nothing for the truth, only for producing a particular reaction in the hearers.
I think we as Catholics have to stand for something better. And I think it's shameful that Vance is picking a fight with the bishops over the immigration issue rather than reaching out to them to work with them. Vance is the one with the upper hand, so he's the one more responsible for seeking peace and a constructive way forward.
Thank you for this, Father.
I'm so glad I waited to respond to the rationalizing comments you mentioned, Fr., because you nailed on the head way better than I could!
I'm with you father right up to the last paragraph.
In this situation, which party is supposed to be the one with moral authority? From the election up to today, what has been the outreach, as seen by the public, been?
I think that what you've written in the past (https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/cupich-steps-out-on-immigration-will/comment/87815827) is reflective of my same thoughts on the matter (https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/bonus-joe-biden-and-the-freemasons/comment/89514196).
Once the Trump policy positions became clear, I think that the USCCB and Vatican took the exact wrong approach. The Vatican took a swing by giving +McElroy DC when Brian Burch (a supporter of Trump and Vatican critic) was nominated, when humility would have suited best. The USCCB took a swing in white paper and across the media (re: see +Dolan et al. as they reacted to the immigration Executive Orders) instead of getting ahead of a policy they knew was coming by engaging the VP in person, publicly through the media.
Then came VP Vance's comments about ordo amoris, and the Catholic internet becomes abuzz as partisan actors like Fr. Thomas Reese and S.J., Michael Sean Winters made it their mission to nitpick his understanding and application, rather than celebrate that Augustine's teaching is gaining a new foothold with people who have never heard it articulated before.
The entire state of communication between the Church and the Trump Admin needs a complete reset. I contend that it is those who claim the mantle of spiritual and moral authority that need to extend a laurel and hearty handshake first.
I could ( and DO) just say “Amen” to your post; but I would add that on this thread Vance is taking a pretty good “smack-down”. Would that some comments here be more conciliatory given he’s a “newbie Catholic”. After all, convert might be a noun but converting is a verb. So, the “upper hand” reference of your predecessor ( Fr BJ) is debatable IMHO.
I read that as a “Laurel and Hardy handshake” and was really confused for a moment. 😂
The bishops started this, not Mr. Vance. And this pope didn’t engender dialogue with his scurrilous comments about Mr. Trump (and Americans in general).
Was it ok for the Lord to say:
“You family of venomous snakes!”
“Better for that man to have never been born, or to be hurled into the sea with a huge stone collar tied around his neck!”
Or referring to the Samaritan woman as a dog.
Sometimes, sometimes, ya gotta get people’s attention. For their sake.
> “You family of venomous snakes!”
and then the Pharisees said "oh! we're sorry and we'll try to do better"
> “Better for that man to have never been born, or to be hurled into the sea with a huge stone collar tied around his neck!”
and then Judas changed his mind and did not betray his very good friend who, also, he knew to be God
Your examples are "1 for 3" (the Samaritan woman, arguably, was trying to get the attention of *Jesus* rather than the other way around, but I'll allow it) - so I would say it's not a very effective technique even though God is *of course* permitted to address His creatures in any way He wants to.
The lady’s response to Our Lord was quick witted, honest and from her heart. I have often imitated her in prayer by thanking God for whatever crumbs of His Love He deigns to give me.
As for “it not being a very effective technique” - that depends on the recipient. Hard heads like me actually like bluntness. As for the hard hearted, it just might ‘verbally jack hammer’ some sense into them. We in law enforcement, when confronting evil-doers in the act of committing a crime don’t have time to convene a process meeting to come to a consensusfulness that what the criminal is doing isn’t nice and then twittertweet “please stop”.
We just bluntly tell them, “Stop or else!” Sometimes God tells us in that way. Sometimes so must we.
Indeed!
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2025/01/28/the-ethics-of-invective/
People in this country don't know how to give a man their vote without also giving him their soul.
// I think we as Catholics have to stand for something better. And I think it's shameful that Vance is picking a fight with the bishops over the immigration issue rather than reaching out to them to work with them. Vance is the one with the upper hand, so he's the one more responsible for seeking peace and a constructive way forward. //
Vance has *an* upper hand. The bishops also have one. And I believe that one of Vance's points was that the bishops are themselves being obstructionist rather than trying sincerely to find "a constructive way forward."
It is a fact that the USCCB has chosen this fight, which represents hundreds of millions of dollars to them , while remaining virtually silent for 4 years regarding the “intrinsic evil” promoted by the previous administration, fully staffed by so-called Catholics.
“We as Catholics have to stand for something better.” Right. How about the millions of abortions, fentanyl, murders, rapes, child traffickings? Maybe that’s “something better” to stand against.
Ed or JD: my friend is from this region in DRC and is getting updates from her family. She and her family is part of the Neocatechumenal Way. I don’t know if she could be a source, but she has certainly requested an outpouring of prayers. Thank you so much for highlighting what is happening there.
Christ have mercy! Pray for us, Mary!