My experience with Catholic clergy is that they are extremely ignorant of economics. There are many things in economics on which leftists like Robert Reich and Tom Friedman agree with Conservatives like Walter Williams.
But Catholic clergy are totally ignorant of those things. The ones Ive met could never explain the law of wages and prices, or what a profit margin is.
With a very few exceptions they never had to work for a living. They never had to compete in the marketplace to provide for their families. Their experience is basically the welfare state model where someone else contributes to your upkeep. So naturally they cling to a socialist government - just imaging how much good you could do if you just were able to get enough of other peoples' money, how many poor illegal immigrants you could shelter, what a wonderful center for midnight basketball you could build, etc.