Incendiary politician Marjorie Taylor Greene hits out at US Catholic bishops

0

U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the incendiary far-right Republican from Georgia, waded into heated debate among American Catholics this week when she told right-wing outlet Church Militant that Satan “controls the church.”

In a separately prepared statement, Greene also accused Catholic bishops of “destroying” the United States by advocating for policies that support migrants and refugees. She repeated a conservative talking point that Catholic organizations take advantage of government contracts to provide care for migrants.

“What more can we expect from criminals and abusers who live lives of inexplicable luxury funded by the rest of us, draped in fine sheets while altar boys are raped,” Greene said in his statement. of April 27.

Her controversial comments made headlines and were pushed back by lawmakers and GOP strategists, and prompted the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue to call her a “disgrace” and demand that Congress sanction her.

“Greene has a history of offending African Americans and Jews, so bigotry is something that is apparently ingrained in her,” Donohue wrote April 28 in a letter he sent to the ethics committee. from the room.

Donohue, a hard-line, outspoken conservative who often challenges Democratic lawmakers and progressive activists, said “now is the time” for Greene to be reprimanded or censured.

“Her irresponsible behavior has already led to her being removed from committee assignments,” Donohue said. “As a result, his anti-Catholic push now demands stronger sanctions against him.”

Greene criticized the Catholic Church, primarily for its pro-immigration stance, in an hour-long interview with Church Militant’s Michael Voris that aired April 25.

“If the bishops would read the Bible and really preach the word of God to their flock…and not cover up child sexual abuse and pedophilia, that would be loving one another, that would have the real meaning and not the perversion and the twisted lie that they make it up,” Greene said.

In an April 28 speech from the House floor, U.S. Representative Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California, said Greene’s comments were “bigoted.” Olivia Troye, former national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, tweeted that Greene’s statements were “repugnant” and could “lead to threats” against churches and Catholics.

Steven Millies, director of the Catholic Theological Union’s Bernardin Center in Chicago, told NCR that Greene’s comments reminded him of an earlier era of anti-Catholic sentiment in the United States.

“I see a time of political instability similar to the late 1940s where this last acceptable bias becomes something that can be used to score points against Catholic bishops, who have some political power but are on the other side of partisan division,” Millies mentioned.

“For me, the real takeaway here is that there is not enough integration of Catholicism to weed out anti-Catholicism,” said Millies, who noted the irony that Greene attacked the church on an outlet that presents itself as a faithful voice of traditional Catholicism. .

Said Millies: “The fact that anti-Catholicism can be deployed by a so-called Catholic organization like Church Militant against Catholics and Catholic bishops is a startling new moment, and we’ve had a lot of that lately. We’re diving into new depths.”

Its coverage and commentary tainted by right-wing ideology, Church Militant often attacks bishops and priests for alleged offenses that include being too tolerant of LGBTQ people, pro-choice politicians and undocumented migrants. The outlet promoted her interview with Greene with the headline, “Marjorie for the Pope.”

In March 2021, EWTN’s evening show News Nightly also interviewed Greene in a sympathetic segment that cast her as a lawmaker hounded by Democrats for her pro-life Christian views. At the time, Greene was under fire for previous comments that appeared to support political violence against Democrats and a conspiracy theory that wealthy Jews were responsible for using space lasers to start wildfires in California.

In her April 27 statement where she snubbed Donohue, calling him a “loyal lapdog” to the bishops, Greene said she was baptized a Catholic and married in church. Now an evangelical Christian, Greene said she left the Catholic Church as an adult because she would not submit the “spiritual and physical livelihood” of her children to the bishops, whom she called “monsters “.

Share.

Comments are closed.