My KQED Interview: Catholics Can No Longer Accommodate Trump
I said it on KQED, and I’m saying it again: standing up to creeping authoritarianism is the biggest secular project American Catholics must undertake. That includes holding my own party accountable.
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I said something on the radio earlier this month that I want to put in writing, because I think it matters more to you than almost anything else I can offer.
Scott Shafer, who co-hosts Political Breakdown on KQED in San Francisco, asked me a straightforward question about what Pope Leo XIV means for American politics.
My answer was blunt: the era of accommodating Donald Trump must be over. The decade-long project of Catholic leaders trying to find common ground with a movement that mocks the Gospel, cages children, and sends ICE agents into church parking lots has run its course.
Catholics in America face a choice. Follow the moral leadership of Pope Leo XIV, who made clear in his first apostolic exhortation, Dilexi Te, that the Church would not abandon its immigrant faithful. Or continue deferring to a political movement that treats cruelty as policy and intimidation as governance.
I realize that sounds like a provocation. Let me explain why I think it is something closer to a moral obligation.
