It is tragic what is happening to their parishioners right now, but the bishops can only blame themselves.
No shortage of liberal bishops who promoted like-minded candidates. Everyone from John Kerry to Joe Biden got a healthy windfall of support from the Catholic community at-large. As a consequence, Dems have historically been very squirrely on their support/opposition to abortion, with “Pro-Life” Democrats being a significant chunk of the elected bureaucracy.
The biggest opposition to ACA in the first two years was from these very Democrats - folks who twisted and squirmed at the prospect of extending the wrong kind of health care to the wrong kind of people. This wasn’t a “Catholics brought this on themselves by electing Republicans”, it was “Democrats allowed misogyny to fester within its party under the cover of the Catholic vote”.
In the same way, Democrats have historically demonstrated a chronic unkindness to migrants and their families whenever they saw an electoral advantage in kicking people while they were down. This dates back to the Clinton Era of the 90s, when Bill ran to the right of Bush Sr on immigration and won California on the anti-Mexico vote. Catholics who were staunchly pro-immigration ran around backing migrant-friendly(ish) Republicans like Bush, Rubio, Romney, and Kasich only to get their backsides blown out by Trumpism.
No shortage of liberal bishops who promoted like-minded candidates. Everyone from John Kerry to Joe Biden got a healthy windfall of support from the Catholic community at-large. As a consequence, Dems have historically been very squirrely on their support/opposition to abortion, with “Pro-Life” Democrats being a significant chunk of the elected bureaucracy.
The biggest opposition to ACA in the first two years was from these very Democrats - folks who twisted and squirmed at the prospect of extending the wrong kind of health care to the wrong kind of people. This wasn’t a “Catholics brought this on themselves by electing Republicans”, it was “Democrats allowed misogyny to fester within its party under the cover of the Catholic vote”.
In the same way, Democrats have historically demonstrated a chronic unkindness to migrants and their families whenever they saw an electoral advantage in kicking people while they were down. This dates back to the Clinton Era of the 90s, when Bill ran to the right of Bush Sr on immigration and won California on the anti-Mexico vote. Catholics who were staunchly pro-immigration ran around backing migrant-friendly(ish) Republicans like Bush, Rubio, Romney, and Kasich only to get their backsides blown out by Trumpism.