Good to see the USCCBureaucy is using that $139 million per annum budget for important issues like asking McDonald’s to push for higher wages for farm workers. Not that there’s anything wrong with making sure that farm workers, many of them migrants and recent immigrants, are treated fairly. But are these the most compelling issues facing the Catholic Church today? Aren’t there other lay lobbying groups doing this? The bishops should be using their political and moral capital on the most pressing matters.
Our pews are emptying and people don’t know their faith, and the USCCB is spending time and money lobbying McDonald’s. We can’t even get laws passed to prevent the dissolution of the institution of marriage, we can’t get a cloning ban passed in Congress, and thousands of children are still being aborted every day. We need to re-focus our efforts on the basics. We can return to such advocacy, if necessary, when we’ve got our own house in order.
People rightly complain about the cericalization of the laity. At what point do actions like this become the “laicization” of the clergy?