Catholic Church takes step back from Trump, in right direction

'Special message' denouncing mass deportations signals way forward

- GUSTAVO ARELLANO COLUMNIST

MARIA GRAZIA PICCIARELLA SOPA Images/LightRocket POPE LEO XIV delivers a speech during his visit to the Pontifical Lateran University for the start of the academic year on Saturday.

When millions of European immigrants came to the United States in the 19th century only to be scorned by mainstream society, it was the Catholic Church that embraced them, taught that keeping the customs of one’s native lands was not bad and created systems of mutual aid and education for the newcomers that didn’t rely on the government.

The 1960 election of John F. Kennedy, an Irish American Catholic, showed that the U.S. was ready to expand its definition of who could become president. Labor organizers like Cesar Chavez, Dorothy Day and Mother Jones pushed for the dignity of workers while frequently citing the woke words of Jesus — the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes among the wokest — as the fuel for their spiritual fire.

Catholicism is the faith I was baptized in, the one I embraced as a teen and that's the bedrock for my moral code of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. My work desk covered with statues and devotional cards of Jesus, Mary and the saints is a physical testament to this.

But I'm also one of the 72% of U.S. Catholics that a Pew Research Center survey from earlier this year found don't attend weekly Mass, which we're obligated to do.

I stopped going early on in my adulthood because the church became something I didn't recognize.