"The church's teaching is clear: Human dignity is most sacred, regardless of legal status," he said. The USCCB, along with other Catholic organizations, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in this case, arguing that excluding those without legal documentation from the apportionment base of the census sends a message that these individuals are not equal members of the human family, which contradicts the dignity of all people and violates the U.S. Constitution and the Census Act.
Since the census started in 1790, its practice has been to count all people living in the U.S. Currently, an estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants are living in this country.
The pope spoke at the end of his weekly general audience Dec. 6, the same day Trump announced his decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, fulfilling a promise he made during his presidential campaign.
The Vatican supports a "two-state solution" for the Holy Land with independence, recognition and secure borders for both Israel and Palestine. In his appeal, Pope Francis said, "Jerusalem is a unique city, sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims who venerate the holy places of their respective religions, and has a special vocation to peace."
In February 2016, shortly after celebrating a Mass in Mexico just yards from the border, Pope Francis was asked by reporters about then-candidate Trump's promise to build a wall the entire length of the border. "A person who thinks only of building walls, wherever it may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian," the pope said.
Trump, asked by reporters to comment on that, said Mexico was "using the pope as a pawn," and he said it was "disgraceful" for a religious leader to question someone's faith.
The pope's approach, he said, is "to meet the major players in the field in order to reason together and to propose to everyone the greatest good, exercising the soft power that seems to me to be the specific trait of his international policy."
"As you know, these realities are increasingly under attack from powerful forces which threaten to disfigure God's plan for creation and betray the very values which have inspired and shaped all that is best in your culture," he said.
The pope called on his listeners to resist "ideological colonization that threatens the family." The Vatican spokesman said later that the pope was referring to same-sex marriage, among other practices.
[A newly-released] report opens with the observation that, dating to the role of faith-inspired activists in opposing slavery and opening Settlement Houses in poor slums, religious social activists have shaped what has come to be known as the progressive movement. For example, the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s. But since the 1970s, the role of religious motivations in public policy has come to be defined more by the Moral Majority, focused on traditional definitions of family, pushing back against societal shifts. As the report observes: "Popular narratives about religion's role in public life continue to focus on the influence of religious conservatives in campaign and policy debates."
The pope's comparative reticence on abortion became evident to many observers a few months into his pontificate. At a June Vatican Mass dedicated to pro-life causes, an event that had been planned under Pope Benedict, Pope Francis surprised many when delivered a homily without any reference to abortion, euthanasia or any other specific threat to life. The pope explained afterward to reporters that the "church has already expressed itself perfectly on that."
"Defense of unborn life is closely linked to the defense of each and every other human right," Pope Francis wrote in the apostolic exhortation. "It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development. Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems. Once this conviction disappears, so do solid and lasting foundations for the defense of human rights, which would always be subject to the passing whims of the powers that be."
It is nothing new for a pope to draw such connections, as Pope Francis knows, since he made a similar point in September by quoting Pope Benedict: "If personal and social sensitivity in welcoming a new life is lost, other forms of welcome useful to social life will dry up."
Pope Francis was responding to a letter Cameron sent the pope outlining some of his priorities during his one-year term as president of the G-8. Cameron wants to emphasize openness in economies & governments through the support of free trade, tackling tax evasion and encouraging greater transparency.
In his reply, Pope Francis said if the work of world leaders was to have any impact, all political and economic efforts and policies must be seen as the means, not the end, with the true goal being the protection of the human person and well-being of all humanity. "In the absence of such a vision, all economic activity is meaningless," he wrote.
This was the experience of the early church as "St. Peter didn't have a bank account, and when he had to pay taxes, the Lord sent him to the sea to fish and find inside the fish the money for paying," the pope said.
The church must carry out its charitable work--where money is necessary--but it can be done with "a heart of poverty, not with the heart of an investor or an entrepreneur," he said. It's this kind of poverty that "saves us from becoming businessmen," he added. "The church is not an NGO."
"When we find apostles that want to make the church rich, the church becomes old, it becomes an NGO; the church becomes lifeless," the pope said.
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The above quotations are from Catholic News Service political coverage.
Click here for other excerpts from Catholic News Service political coverage. Click here for other excerpts by Pope Francis. Click here for a profile of Pope Francis.
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