Catholic paper’s focus on Trump at the March for Life was appalling

The Catholic press’s mission includes reporting on news of the day, informed by scripture and Catholic teaching. Thus, I read with dismay the ecstatic coverage of the March for Life in the February addition of the Diocese of Norwich-produced Four County Catholic, with its focus on the appearance of President Donald Trump. He was indeed the first sitting president to address the march in its decadeslong history; but, seen in context with his systematic disregard for the dignity of the human person, this effort to curry favor among pro-life voters is cringeworthy rather than praiseworthy.

While the president proclaimed his intent to “defend the rights of every child, born and unborn,” those words ring hollow in the face of his administration’s policies. The administration has treated our society’s most vulnerable — people in poverty, ethnic and religious minorities, refugees fleeing violence — with contempt. Its policies have stripped funding from social programs designed to help such people and channeled them into a staggering monument to ego and intolerance along our southern border.

Christ called leaders to be “the servant of all,” but the president has engendered an atmosphere where women are objectified, non-Christians are vilified, the disabled are mocked, and desperate refugees are portrayed as sponges on the economy. Yet he glibly professed at the National Prayer Breakfast that he never need ask forgiveness — perhaps being unfamiliar with Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.

This makes the apparent awe-struck response of the March for Life crowd to his appearance both mystifying and scandalous. That faithful Christians and Catholics would embrace this egotistical, bigoted, greed-ridden man as their pro-life savior takes the concept of one-issue voting to a perilous precipice for our nation as a whole.

Cardinal Joseph Bernadin spoke back in the 1980s, little more than a decade after the Roe v. Wade decision, of respect for life as a “seamless garment,” a protective blanket for all the living, from conception to death. Such an attitude acknowledges God as the author of life and embraces our role as stewards of that life. Our judgment on the “quality” of that life — inconvenient, tenuous, addicted, maimed, ugly, unlovable, unwanted — is to be transformed by our striving to see, through the eyes of God, the limitless worth of every individual, and to respond to them as Christ would.

Without this expansive embrace of human life and dignity at all levels, in all conditions, the pro-life movement makes itself an easy target for accusations of wearing blinders. The unborn whom our president says he wants to protect will eventually exit the womb and may well be needy. What does he plan to do to help them and their mothers — and other vulnerable people — thrive in our society? What is he doing about that now?

I was the founding editor of the Four County Catholic publication. I am appalled to see the president’s photo on its pages, but I am even more appalled at the worshipful tone of the accompanying story. A Catholic newspaper should be calling him to account for his innumerable policies that denigrate life, not serving as a not-so-subtle endorsement of his campaign for reelection.

The White House has treated our society’s most vulnerable with contempt.