Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky in an online international seminar, 31st July 2020
To back President Trump because of his claims to be ‘pro-life’ is to suffer from ‘almost wilful ignorance’ – according to Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky.
The NCR has reported that In an international online seminar on July 31st, Bishop Stowe insisted that Catholics should listen to the definition given by Pope Francis of what ‘pro-life’ means.
“He basically tells us we can’t claim to be pro-life if we support the separation of children from their parents at the U.S. border, if we support exposing people at the border to COVID-19 because of the facilities that they’re in, if we support denying people who have need for adequate health care access to health care, if we keep people from getting the housing or the education that they need, we cannot call ourselves pro-life.”
US bishops are divided on whether the single issue of abortion should determine a voter’s choice in the US presidential election in November 2020. Many have criticised the US president for his policy on immigration, especially in relation to the long US border with Mexico – while there is also a view that abortion is largely driven by social deprivation in a vastly unequal US society that Trump’s Republican party has done nothing to overcome.
The webinar (world wide web seminar), on the topic of the church’s future after 2020, was hosted by the International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs, or ICMICA-Pax Romana, a global lay community of Catholic intellectuals.
For the complete NCR report, click here.
I, and many of my Catholic (and non Catholic) friends are in complete agreement with Bp. John Stowe. Being pro life means more than just being opposed to abortion.
Well, the most I’ve been able to gather on Trump is via a Vice News special that exposed his connection to the “kafala” transient worker system in the Middle East. Trump, as you know, is an avid golfer but also likes to brand his Trump name wherever he can impose it. This happened in Dubai when their newest golf course “Trump International Dubai” was erected prior to his gaining office. The catch? Well within that “kafala” system, Trump’s brand broke its own corporate ethics. How? That golf course was put there at $1.50 USD/hr and the workers housed on the edge of the desert in the most deplorable conditions. Being “pro-life” means so much more these days to the billionaire class. He likely thought he was doing those “deplorables” (Hilary Clinton quote) a favour. The whole Epstein scandal that involved Bill Clinton as a frequent flyer and Donald coming up in the flight logs had no moment of exposure in the campaign lead up from either parties – the Clintons implicated in this Dubai transient worker scandal as well since Bill opened New York University (Dubai) as key note speaker and then realized it had been built on the same labour. Shame the main stream news doesn’t do much investigative reporting these days.