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."
Agreed. Just as I’m upset to see priests marching in leftist political rallies, they shouldn’t use their collars to promote any candidate or party.
Politics and religion are rightly separate.
So Catholic priests shouldn’t attend speeches by the President, but it is fine for the Catholic religious to attend pro-abortion or pro homosexual rallies, or break into military bases.
Just trying to parse the distinctives of the Catholic church.
Yes, but they were generally Presbyterian, not Catholic.
As Walpole said, “Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson!”
The self-segregating black churches are never partisan!!
Target is having a sale on white sheets this week.
The left’s main complaint here is that they were not imams.
Good! The people I hope are most furious are Catholic democrats who have Trump Derangement Syndrome. And how dare they throw a fit over a few priests...they have the dopey Pope on their side.
Just where is the usual FR "All Catholics are Flaming Liberals" crowd? That is much a strawman, but the testimony that Catholics - those whom Rome manifestly considers such in life and in death - are mostly Liberal remains .
And among other Roman Catholic social activist priests you have so-called Father Michael Pfleger, who together with so-called Rev. Jesse Jackson led left-wing protesters in shutting down all northbound lanes of Chicago’s Dan Ryan Expressway on Interstate 94 Saturday morning.
We saw and commented on those priests. They were seated up front, just behind Donald’s podium. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, clapping, and in the groove. Does the Church frown upon such? What would Jesus do? Their presence did NOT offend me, but not a Catholic by faith and no reason it should. Sounds a bit hypocritical on their part.
JM2CW
Roman Catholic presidential voting patterns from 1952 to 2016.
Roman Catholics have supported the GOP candidate only four times since 1952.
I'll let the reader be the judge if Roman Catholics are liberal or not.
| Yr | D | R | ||
| 1952 | 56% | 44% | ||
| 1956 | 51% | 49% | ||
| 1960 | 78% | 22% | Kennedy | |
| 1964 | 76% | 24% | LBJ | |
| 1968 | 59% | 33% | ||
| 1972 | 48% | 52% | ||
| 1976 | 57% | 41% | Carter | |
| 1980 | 46% | 47% | ||
| 1984 | 39% | 61% | ||
| 1988 | 51% | 49% | ||
| 1992 | 47% | 35% | Clinton | |
| 1996 | 55% | 35% | Clinton | |
| 2000 | 52% | 46% | ||
| 2004 | 52% | 48% | ||
| 2008 | 53% | 47% | Obama | |
| 2012 | 56% | 44% | Obama | |
| 2016 | 45% | 52% |
But a priest can march with Jesse Jackson and block a freeway in Chicago just fine.
Why is anyone still Catholic any more?
Those who remain thinking that everything will turn out fine have as strong a normalacy bias as any I’ve seen.
And after King George issued a Proclamation of Rebellion against the Colonialist on August 23, 1775, the Irish Parliament pledged to send troops to America, and Irish Catholics were allowed to enlist in the army for the first time. Irish Protestants favored the Americans, while Catholics favored the King. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War#Political_reactions
And true to form, the social activist priest is still a (unscriptural ) priest.
And based on the manifest treatment of such by Rome, these are brethren with Trad. RCs, who unlike us, cannot leave for a faithful church without forfeiting their claim to be part of the one true church. Pitiful.
God Bless 4 Catholic priests!
The Christian Churches communities, including the RCC, NEED to be taken back and CLEANED UP.This also includes a number of Evangelical/Mainline communities.
The Pope bashes POTUS Trump over Climate Change and Immigration over and over again.
The Leftists who support Abortion up to the millisecond of Birth praise the Pope for his Leftist viewpoints.
Then there are the Militant Catholic Bishops that can’t turn down participating in all sorts of Leftist Causes, Marches and Protests.
Yes, I am a Catholic, but my respect for the Pope is equal to my respect for the Clinton’s, Obama’s and any other Traitorous Democrat Commie scum.
This Christian Catholic voted for President Trump. No regrets.
Yea what you said.
Once upon a time there was a particularly venomous anti-Catholic poster here. Turned out she was really a liberal here to show division -- she made the mistake of posting to a different board under the same screen name admitting what a committed liberal she was.
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