Posted on 07/07/2018 10:36:05 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The attendance of four Roman Catholic priests from Montana at President Donald Trump's political rally in Great Falls Thursday has created a social media firestorm and apparently incurred the displeasure of the priests' superiors in the church.
The four, who were seated near the front of the rally, wore their clerical garb, carried "Make America Great Again" signs, and wore VIP badges. They clapped for Trump as he doubled down on his oft-repeated slur of Sen. Elizabeth Warren as "Pocahontas," mocked the #MeToo movement, and questioned the meaning of former Republican President George H.W. Bush's "Thousand Points of Light" slogan.
Two of the priests, Father Garrett Nelson and Father Ryan Erlenbush, serve in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings. The other two, Father Kevin Christofferson and Father Christopher Lebsock, serve in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena.
Bishop Michael William Warfel, Bishop of the Great Falls-Billings diocese, answered a query about the priests' attendance on Facebook by saying, "I was not aware that these priests would be in attendance at the rally at which President Trump spoke. Two were from the diocese of Great Falls-Billings and two were from the Diocese of Helena. I will be contacting the two priests from this diocese.
"While they are free to support a political candidate — and I believe they were there in support of Matt Rosendale, who is running for the Senate seat from Montana — they should not have been attired in clerical garb and seated in such a prominent location. I myself had been invited to attend the rally but declined. It has been my experience that people can be manipulated and used unwittingly. I judge that it was an imprudent decision on their parts to allow themselves to be used in such a way though I suspect they had not thought of this. In Christ, Bishop Warfel."
Christofferson is based in Frenchtown. Lebsock is assistant pastor at the Cathedral of Saint Helena.
Erlenbush and Nelson are both based in Great Falls.
As pictures of the priests at the rally circulated on social media Friday, several people posted wording from Catholic Church guidelines regarding priests' participation in politics.
In April 2011, the Montana Catholic Conference issued the following instruction on political advocacy for use by Catholic clergy and parishioners:
“Religious leaders should avoid taking positions on candidates or participating in political party matters even while acting in their individual capacity. Although not prohibited, it may be difficult to separate their personal activity from their public role as a Church leader.”
The conference posted diocesan guidelines later in 2011 featuring the same wording. According to the conference, the "guidelines were developed using the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' 2007 Political Activity Guidelines.
The Diocese of Helena is currently without a bishop. In a statement released Saturday afternoon, Diocesan administrator Monsignor Kevin O'Neill quoted the 2011 statement as the Diocese's policy and added that "a Diocesan Administrator may not innovate, but is expected to affirm standing policy and practice. With this in mind, I have issued a letter to all diocesan personnel requesting their thoughtful and sincere cooperation with the stated policy and practice of the diocese."
Erlenbush, a Billings native, found himself at the center of a controversy earlier this year when he called for a boycott of Mayfair, the Billings Catholic Schools’ largest fundraiser, because a gay couple were among the fundraising leaders of the event.
Erlenbush, who is also an alumnus of Billings Catholic Schools, called for a boycott in April saying, the school had lost its way “when a prominent homosexual couple is advertised as the chairs for the annual fundraiser.”
“What does a Catholic school have to do before people say ‘enough’ and take their kids (and their money) elsewhere?” Erlenbush continued. “I am an alumnus of Billings Catholic Schools and I say ‘enough.’”
His comments drew a strong rebuke from Billings Catholic Schools, and Warfel responded to Erlenbush’s comment in part because of the outcry from Erlenbush’s Facebook post.
“The issue is not the principle, the issue is how things were communicated,” Warfel wrote at the time. “I would judge there are better ways to handle it.”
Many on social media suggested the pictures of the priests at the rally were "fake news," had been "photoshopped," or that they were "actors" hired to create controversy, although the identities of the priests and their attendance were confirmed by the dioceses and many others.
Mary Moe of Great Falls, a prominent Democrat and former legislator, posted on Facebook: "Our Catholic priests clapped, there in the front row allowing themselves and the Church to be exploited for political purposes, as President Trump, that exemplar of Catholic teachings, said of Hillary, 'she got her ass kicked.' They laughed at his jokes about immigration and laughed again when he used language that they used to beat boys for back when America was great. And Jesus wept."
Her post generated more than 1,000 comments, predictably mixed.
Many praised the priests and defended their right to be there.
Dave Galt, a prominent Montana Republican and longtime executive director of the Montana Petroleum Association, responded to Moe on Facebook: "I was there. I talked to those priests. Hillary did get her ass kicked. Perhaps they really care about the number of babies killed in this country under our abortion laws. I saw their support for the President's comments about late-term abortion votes. Good for them and damn good for President Trump."
Good for them! They see the big issue.....abortion, and that Donald Trump and his SCOTUS pick can do something about it.
The wife’s family is from the Montana and Idaho area and were Catholic. Not today. No one in the family identifies as Catholic anymore. The Catholic church is just not seen as upholding Christianity or American ideals.
Yeah, but with 40 million dead babies and all maybe they figured “screw it let’s wear the clerical garb”...
Like Pope Francis standing at the border arguing against a wall.
Catholicism among Democrats is quite high. One third of the House and 1/4 or the Senate is composed of Catholics.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/3/religious-makeup-of-115th-congress/
"Fully two-thirds of Republicans in the new Congress (67%) are Protestant, while 27% are Catholic. The breakdown between Protestants and Catholics is more even among the Democrats; 42% of the Democratic members are Protestants and 37% are Catholics."
Actually everyone has a right to judge what a priest or other person wears. The judgment of everyone does not carry equal weight.
The Republican Catholics are much less likely to be Catholics in name only.
Those are two completely separate concepts. The idea that any exercise of a "right" is praiseworthy is utterly fallacious.
He was the first thing that came to my mind when I read the title!
But where's the usual FR "All Catholics are Flaming Liberals" crowd today?
"They laughed at his jokes about immigration and laughed again when he used language that they used to beat boys for back when America was great. And Jesus wept."
Tend to your own house, Mary. Haven't heard you condemning the incitement to riot that Kerosene Maxine has been doing lately. Jesus certainly would not have been applauding that!
Until you do, Mary, be quiet.
What is the Church if she does not take a stand?
Our country was founded, in no small part, because of pastors taking a stand.
Priests can molest children for decades but they better not show up at or enjoy a Trump rally.
What about the Berrigan brothers, what about the Sister of Providence who protests at every execution at Terre Haute?
What about all the priests and sisters over the years who have been beating the drum for The Great Society, for borderless illegal immigration, for quotas?
They are not showing their Democrat political stripes by doing so?
Your stance is hypocritical.
The Roman Catholic church in the USA has been through and through infiltrated with leftists for the past 70 years.
This handful of exceptions to the rule appear, and you are in a tizzy.
Get real.
How many thousands of priests have attended leftist protests in clerical garb since the 60’s? Father Pflager does it all the time.
Democrat furor has become an awful lot like Islamic furor.
The USCCB (bishops) is a de facto arm of the democrat party but nobody gets upset about that.
What’s it like to be both a bigot and wrong?
Dear Catholic Church,
Shut up. As long as one of yours can shut down a major expressway in Chicago while you do nothing about it you have nothing to say on this matter.
L
I'll take the bigot part, but I am correct. Pope Frankie's whole strategy, and thus the strategy of the Roman Catholic church, is to cater to the third world. They're depending on ignorance savages, third world peasants, and various types of barbarian to stay strong.
They want far left regimes in Europe and America and unlimited immigration to replace the educated atheists of Europe, and the Protestants of America.
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