Catholic bishops regret White House prayer photo with Trump, say it was used politically
Two Catholic bishops have expressed regret about agreeing to a White House meeting that produced a publicly distributed photo of them praying with Donald Trump.
Milwaukee Archbishop Jeffrey Grob, in a statement titled “A Public Apology,” said Sunday that he had received many questions and comments — some of them distraught — about the meeting on Thursday which he and 11 other bishops attended.
He said the meeting was speedily publicized by the White House with photos and a video, without consent of the participants, and less than two weeks away from the midterm elections.
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-catholic-bishops-photos-prayer-midterms-7ee124ae0462cf2fb550ffa41f296ab8Open linkView original on lemmy.world
44 replies
Shut up, trying to have your cake and eat it too. You knew exactly what would happen at this meeting.
Not exactly the first time a bishop has lied to my face though.
They would have to be absolute morons to believe it would be "used" any other way.
US Catholic bishops are far more right-wing than Catholic bishops elsewhere in the world, and they have long interfered in politics to support rightwing causes including MAGA. But it seems now that they're embarrassed to be seen near Trump.
More rats leaving a ship that's holed below the water line.
Who could have foreseen that a politician will be doing politics?
Why the fuck else did these utter idiots think one of the least Christian men on Planet earth would invite them for a prayer meeting ?
His own guys consider him the antichrist ffs. Its so weird they choose to do this.
I wonder if they had a call (indirectly) from the Pope asking what the fuck they were thinking.
surprised that things done with a gov are political? lol.
Bishops are better politicians than politicians. They knew.
The White House has private rooms where there is an expectation of privacy, but even if privacy didn't apply, a persons image can't just be used willy nilly without consent.
Just because you're walking down the street, in public, doesnt mean I can take your photo and do what I want with it.
Imagine being so naive to believe that it wouldn't be politicized - or that the White House believed in consent.
These bishops are mostly rightwingers, so they're playing a delicate balancing act between kissing Trump's incontinent ass and not pissing off Pope Bob enough to get fired.
"Here, let me take a photo with this politician. I'm sure he wouldn't politicize it, right?"
But I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Catholic clergy are gullible. Practically a job requirement, right?
No consent required. The White House is a government building and no expectation of privacy exists.
Legally yes.
But professionally there should have existed a courtesy to where the clergy could have been asked if they wanted the photo of them standing next to the dementia riddled rapist felon posted to the wh propaganda channels and maybe been given the ability to say no.
I don't know why they even entertained a meeting with the psychopathic toddler's regime. That was the real mistake.
I agree that agreeing to stand next to the dementia riddled pedophile rapist felon was the obvious thing to avoid.
Can’t believe no one yet has mentioned that it’s not all public. The West Wing, the Oval Office, and private working or living quarters inside the White House are restricted areas where casual photography is prohibited, and access or photography requires special credentials, an invitation, and direct Secret Service supervision.
WH audiences are a matter of public record. These people weren’t playing with a full deck anyway, but this is some idiocy on their part.
As a world leader you have to strive for diplomacy with everyone, and especially psychopathic toddlers, for the good of your people.
Yeah, that's why Roosevelt and Churchill were so buddy-buddy with Hitler in the late 30s and through the 40s.
Oh, that's right, they weren't.
Part of diplomacy is communicating when there are lines that cannot be crossed without consequences.
"Buddy buddy" and "diplomatic" are not the same thing.
Counterpoint, if there's nothing to be gained besides a loss then don't bother. Frankly speaking we defer far too much to these milksops, Putin and Trump should both be treated with utter and open contempt the type where you snear at them and walk off if they approach. There's nothing respectable about Trump and with the sole exceptions of lower government entities there's nothing to be gained by interacting with him, if you ain't a mayor or governor then the only words he should here from someone is "fuck off".
Frankly speaking he really only deserves to be gunned down the next time he has the gall to visit a foreign power. He has long since waived his right to a trial via his actions.
Geopolitics extends will beyond your city and state.
I'm aware, what I'm saying is that the state and cities are the only ones who should do anything other than ignore this fuckwit at best. Unless you can somehow squize something out of him there's no point in playing nice, so long as it doesn't actively risk actual danger do whatever to him. And given how the US is actively collapsing in on itself I'd argue there's only gains to be made by being antagonistic towards Trump and the US as a whole, frankly with this Iran war shit the rest of the world should be issuing general embargos, denials of port, and bounties from Trump his kin and his kith.
No, the regret it now that it's not as favorable to align with him. I'm so fucking tired of this born-yesterday BS these people pull out every time.
We're going to be seeing a lot more of this after Trump's gone. Everyone will be like "wha?! He was a conman?"
How fucking stupid must you be to not realize that everything to do with them is going to be publicity or altered or used for their own gains?
We’re talking about people who are stupid enough to believe in the Catholic Church here.
They're already going against their own scripture by praying publicly, they're going to let themselves be photographed doing so, at the white house of a narcissistic idiot savant self-promoter politician, and they're surprised that the picture was released publicly for political purposes?
I call shenanigans. They obviously knew, thought they'd get away with it without blowback, and are now in damage control mode.
You'd think they would have avoided him just because of trump being a pedophile. It's bad for their PR to bring up all of the sexual abuse stuff again.
Birds of a feather....
yeah theres just something about trumps vibe that church leaders really adore.
I wasn't aware it went anywhere.
Like those bitches haven't made their religion political since day one...
Well, maybe they'll endorse Democrats, instead, now?
Nah. No chance.
I doubt they would or they wouldn't have gone to the White House in the first place, but to play devil's advocate wouldn't intentionally getting involved in politics cause trouble for the nonprofit status of their churches or is that not how that works?
Not how it works. Claiming you're a church is a get out of jail, or in this case taxes, free card. Just like with the "church" of Scientology, if those scam artists haven't lost tax free status there's no way in hell the Catholic church is in any danger.
Besides, the Cathoilic church (and most other churches in the US) have been neck deep in politics here for many decades if not a century at this point.
Edit: also to clarify churches in the US are not non-profit, they're just tax exempt.
Scientology keeps its tax-exempt status because it directly infiltrated and attacked the IRS.
Catholicism doesn't need to.
We'll have exactly the same problems (worse by then) when Dems sweep in next presidency, probably with a zionist at the head of the Democratic party, backed by corporatists money. The Dems wont save us, we'll have to muddle through ourselves somehow. This is why so many people are looking to coerce the dems to be better rather than focussing solely on republican crimes to the exclusion of the bigger picture.
We sure did well by not punishing the last set of confederate traitors.
There needs to be real consequences or the fascists will keep doing it.
I cant beleive these bishops could possibly be that dumb. Its impossible. They exactly knew what they were doing. These are the same kind of church officials who collaborated with the nazis.. They are just sad they are getting any blowback from it.
I say excommunicate the lot of them, or at least remove their titles and park them in a monestary for a few years to farm carrots. This is a glaring signal in the sky that the American catholic church needs to be under better management and the rotten ones need to be taken out by the roots. Its not a time for half measures.
They hired a Fox News guy to run their PR. He's no longer there, but they had him for awhile. They know what's up.
It's not their fault. It's in their nature to support pedophiles.
Voting R stands for so much, R for regret, red, republican, retarded.