How fear is being used to politicize and weaponize the Catholic Church

The Catholic church is facing increasing divisions and tensions that are also reflected in the country at large. Those divisions once again made headlines a few weeks ago when Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke with Michael Voris of Church Militant about a range of topics. In the interview, both Voris and Greene were critical of the U.S. bishops welcome of immigrants. They also weaponized the scandal of the sexual abuse crisis to argue that the bishops had lost their moral authority. 

Here to discuss this interview and what it says about polemics in the Catholic church is Bill McCormick, S.J., a contributing editor at America and a visiting assistant professor at Saint Louis University in the departments of political science and philosophy.

“I think my primary impression was that this is a discourse of fear.” says McCormick, “There's a fear that if we try to help other people, we can't help ourselves, the fear that we can barely take care of our own families so how could we possibly take care of other families?” 

These fears and scarcity mentality are driving much of the conversation, but McCormick adds, “That's not the gospel. You know, one of the most common lines in the gospel is have no fear.”

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