Talk:Catholic Church and politics in the United States

Photo of Robert Kennedy

Why is RFK's photo put adjacent to the lead? I wouldn't even want to put JFK's photo there, let alone RFK's photo. JFK is important because he was the first Catholic President of the United States but RFK was just JFK's attorney-general. I have a lot of admiration for RFK but there is no way that he is the primary icon of Catholic politics in the U.S. The placement of RFK's photo makes no sense to me except as a desire to include RFK's photo somewhere in the article and since we don't actually mention RFK in the article, there is no logical place to put it, so someone apparently stuffed it at the top of the article. Unless someone objects, I will remove it from the article. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 16:22, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

"The pope says", therefore...

The lead presumably summarizing the article, says, "In 2015 the Catholic Church has acknowledged a man-made climate change caused by burning fossil fuels. The church says the warming of the planet is rooted in a throwaway culture and the developed world's indifference to the destruction of the planet as it pursues short-term economic gains. The positions of the Church were laid out in encyclical Laudato si'. The publication by Pope Francis puts pressure on Catholics seeking the Republican Party nomination for president of the United States in 2016, including Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Rick Santorum, who "have questioned or denied the established science of human-caused climate change, and have harshly criticized policies designed to tax or regulate the burning of fossil fuels."

For starters, this seems inordinately long in the lead. At best probably deserves no more than two terse sentences.

The pope's statement was not aimed at Jeb Bush, etc. Did the editor, when the pope spoke out against abortion, insert the following in some article: "The pope spoke out against abortion. This puts pressure on Vice President Biden to cast the deciding vote in the Senate..." etc? Probably not.

The statement seems disproportionately aimed. If the National Council of Bishops had said this, maybe.... The pope was speaking to the whole world, or individual leaders. Not US presidential candidates particularly. The columnist writing this decided to make it political. So the columnist is kind of guilty of WP:SYNTH IMO.

Note that this is more about the Pope and climate change than it is about the Catholic Church and American politics. Somewhat non-WP:TOPIC.

I think it probably ought to be totally deleted until the NCCB echoes it, at least. Anyway, it should not be that prominent in the lead. Student7 (talk) 20:20, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

The USCCB echoes Laudato si [1]:

"Leaders of the Catholic church in America took their “marching orders” from the pope’s encyclical on Thursday, fanning out to Congress and the White House to push for action on climate change. The high-level meetings offered a first glimpse of a vast and highly organised effort by the leadership of America’s nearly 80 million Catholics to turn the pope’s moral call for action into reality. “It is our marching orders for advocacy,” Joseph Kurtz, the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Archbishop of Louisville, said. “It really brings about a new urgency for us.” Representatives of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops said they would hold two briefings for members of Congress on Thursday and visit the White House on Friday to promote and explain the pope’s environmental message."

And the Pope has travel plans [2]:

"The Vatican released the itinerary Tuesday for Pope Francis’ first trip to the United States in September, a six-day visit that will take the pontiff from the halls of power to the margins of society. […]While in the United States, Francis will address both Congress and the United Nations, […] Francis is expected to speak on a number of hot-button issues while in the United States, including immigration, poverty, and the environment. He will draw from his encyclical Laudato si’, in which he wrote that climate change is real and caused primarily by human activity, during his talk at the United Nations."

So there is a link between Laudato si and politics in the US. Neudabei (talk) 17:23, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Immigration

Moved the following here from the section on Immigration: "The Roman Catholic leadership in the U.S. has opposed restrictions on immigration." cf. This from the USCCB position on Immigration Reform,[3]:"The second duty is to secure one’s border and enforce the law for the sake of the common good. Sovereign nations have the right to enforce their laws and all persons must respect the legitimate exercise of this right." and in same document, quoting ¶2 of §2241 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption." Mannanan51 (talk) 04:46, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Catholic Church and politics

Greetings fellow Wikipedians! Information from this article is likely relevant to the article Catholic Church and politics. I'm flagging this here in case anyone with time and knowledge or interest in this topic wishes to add some of this information to Catholic Church and politics, which would be greatly appreciated and help round out that article some more. Tomorrow and tomorrow (talk) 00:06, 2 May 2023 (UTC)