Before the passing of the MAGA budget bill, twenty Roman Catholic bishops signed an interfaith letter stating that its “passage would be a moral failure for American society as a whole.” Here are its talking points that can be shouted aloud, as responses to the bill gain traction and the 2026 elections unfold.
Signatories include bishops Cardinal Robert McElroy, Cardinal Joseph Tobin, Bishop John Dolan, Archbishop Paul Etienne, Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski, and Bishop Jaime Soto. The letter was also signed by leaders of the Sisters of Mercy as well as respected faith leaders of the Episcopalian, Jewish, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Muslim communities.
Together they write:
There is nothing less Christ-like than cutting healthcare and food stamps for the poor….
It will spur immigration raids across the nation, harming hard-working immigrant families essential to our economy and causing widespread unrest like we recently witnessed in Los Angeles….
The ICE detention budget alone is ballooning from $3.4 billion to $45 billion [and] this figure is more than the combined funding for all 50 federal prisons.
[It] will create a self-perpetrating deportation industrial machine similar to our private prison system and military complex. Just like pouring money into military contractors incentivizes new wars, pouring money into this fledgling deportation industry will incentivize more crackdowns and family separations. The more you feed the monster, the bigger and hungrier it gets….
We have already witnessed a reduction in attendance at many of our religious services in our denominations, as the threat of enforcement has deterred many families from practicing their faith….
Our faith organizations have long favored the creation of legal avenues for migration and a legalization program for immigrants who have lived in the US for years and contributed their hard work to our economy.
We believe the adoption of these policies, instead of the implementation of a mass deportation campaign, would not only benefit immigrant workers and their families, but be in the best interest of our nation.
The bill transfers wealth from those in the bottom 10 percent of income to those in the top 10 percent of income in our nation, increasing the already large gap between the rich and the poor.
The bill will slash nearly $1 trillion in funding from Medicaid, a move that will directly result in the death and suffering of countless Americans. People will go blind, see their life expectancies cut in half, and end up bankrupt and homeless. Nursing homes and hospitals will shut down.
It also guts funding for crucial food programs like SNAP by roughly $186 billion by 2034. Americans are literally going to starve to death so that billionaires can afford a few new yachts.
From our various faith perspectives, the moral test of a nation is how it treats those most in need of support. In our view, this legislation will harm the poor and vulnerable in our nation, to the detriment of the common good. Its passage would be a moral failure for American society as a whole.
In a separate statement, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that the bill “takes from the poor to give to the wealthy.”
“It provides tax breaks for some while undermining the social safety net for others through major cuts to nutrition assistance and Medicaid,” he continued. “It harms God’s creation and future generations through cuts to clean energy incentives and environmental programs.”
See Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society.
And Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
Banner Image: Looking like ants to be stomped on …. an aerial photo over the National Mall during the 2018 Poor People’s Campaign — A National Call for a Moral Revival. Photo by Cecil W. Stoughton. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you find allies here among the Catholic bishops and other faith leaders that speak for you in condemning the immoral and evil MAGA budget bill? How will you spread some of these objections in building resistance?
Recommended Reading
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
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