Joe Biden will leave the White House in January, becoming the second Catholic to live in the White House. However, many Catholics are expected to soon serve in senior positions in President Donald Trump’s administration.
Trump was raised a Presbyterian but now thinks of himself. nonsectarianhas nominated at least 12 Catholics to key positions in his administration, including his own vice president, J.D. Vance, who converted to Catholicism, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom he named secretary of health and welfare. Their beliefs can play a direct role in shaping public policy, from pro-union policies and new tariffs to expanding the child tax credit and stricter regulation of the food and drug industries. It would also help chart a new path for the Republican Party.
Several conservative practicing Catholic leaders said in interviews that many of President Trump’s second-term policy priorities closely align with conservative views on Catholic social teaching, which goes far beyond abortion. He said he was looking at it. It also focuses on promoting marriage and childbirth, giving parents wide discretion over everything from school content to medical care, and giving social support to non-governmental organizations such as churches and nonprofit organizations.
“There’s no one in the administration who is ready to launch a crusade or anything like that,” said Rachel Bovard, vice president of programs at the Conservative Partnership Institute, a think tank that has worked with Trump. But “we may begin to see a very specific kind of Catholic paradigm.”
It arose after decades of influence in the Republican Party, especially by more individualistic evangelical Protestants who strongly embraced individual freedom and free-market capitalism.
“Markets are not an end in themselves. They have a purpose, and that is to create free and prosperous societies. If families don’t work, societies don’t work either. We believe that public policy supports the functioning of families. We need to make sure that we are doing that,” Bovard added.
A spokesperson for President Trump’s transition administration did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Trump has already dramatically realigned the Republican Party in his nearly 10 years of political excellence, with the future of the party changing from the fiscally conservative, socially conservative and hawkish president Ronald Reagan. It is clear that it is unlikely to be found in the three-legged chair of conservatism.
Republicans have long been skeptical of government intervention, but some within the party increasingly view government as a means to reshape social policy. The Republican Party, which has long supported “pro-life” policies such as restricting access to abortion and supporting crisis pregnancy centers, is now shifting away from tax policies that encourage marriage and childbearing toward broader policies known as pro-family policies. It is being done. Restrictions on children’s access to online pornography. They are also beginning to look skeptically at large corporations, such as Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, and Big Tech.
“I think President Trump has put together a very pro-family platform that tries to put families back at the center of public policy. I certainly think it’s very Catholic. I don’t think he’s trying to be too Catholic. I don’t think there is,” said Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project. “It just happens to be consistent with Catholic principles and Catholic teaching.”
Of course, this is not the progressive-leaning Catholicism of Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and other prominent Democrats, who have focused on social justice, climate change, and health care access as among their main causes. Their definition of Catholicism will push back against the idea of excluding immigrants and cutting access to Medicaid.
Catholics are the largest Christian group in the world, and Catholics of both parties have long held prominent positions not only in the White House but throughout Washington. Six of them sit on the nine-member U.S. Supreme Court. They make up a quarter of Congress, a majority compared to the American population. And Biden has similarly appointed a significant number of Catholics to his cabinet.
But conservative Catholic leaders see the Republican Party’s embrace of populism as a shift toward so-called common good conservatism, which emphasizes family and community over individual rights. It replaces a pro-business focus with a “pro-family” focus. And that’s what they see non-Catholics leaning toward. Mr Trump, recent interviews In Time magazine, he declared that the Republican Party had “become the party of decency.”
“What does Catholic social teaching say about these things? Yes, it says the purpose of politics is the common good,” said Brian Birch, president of the conservative Catholic Vote. “And right now, a large portion of the population, especially families, are not thriving.”
Trump’s performance with Catholics has continued to improve, perhaps due in part to his dramatic improvement among Latino voters. This year, he won 59% According to CNN exit polls, Biden supported Catholics with 50% support in 2016 and won with 52% in 2020.
Some conservative Catholics are particularly intrigued by Kennedy, whose uncle, John F. Kennedy, was the first Catholic president of the United States. Kennedy comes from a storied Democratic family and was himself a registered Democrat until 2023, but his concerns about food and drug companies profiting from sick people are at odds with human dignity. Some see it as consistent with Catholic social teaching concerns about respect. Some of them are concerned about his changing views on abortion.
“Bobby talked about the commodification of human beings, whether sick or healthy. It’s just another vaccine out of control. They are cogs in the globalist machine that we just need to manage with medicine, technology and science,” Birch said. Close to Kennedy. “And we say to Catholics that we have to reclaim something richer, deeper, more profound about what it means to be human.”
Other Catholics Trump has named to his Cabinet include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez Delemer, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, Ambassador to the United Nations Elise Stefanik, and Kelly Loeffler, SBA. Includes the Secretary. CIA Director played by John Ratcliffe.
The party’s leanings toward these parts of Catholicism come as the country faces high income inequality and middle-class goals like buying a home and having children feel increasingly out of reach. This is because two generations are facing this reality. The issue also comes at a time of growing social debate over gender roles, stagnant birth rates, and the prevalence of technology, social media, and artificial intelligence in people’s daily lives, especially children.
Leading the way is Mr. Vance, whose conversion as an adult to postliberal Catholicism underpins his approach to policymaking. The George W. It fell by the wayside as the company took over. party.
“In Vance we have someone who is applying Catholic social teaching in a deeper and different way than we’ve seen before,” said Ramesh Ponnuru, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. . “This is just a general attempt to reorient Republican economics to be more pro-family and a little bit more pro-business.”
This conservative view of Catholic social teaching coincides in many ways with the party’s changing views on many issues such as trade unions and trade policy. Vance joined the United Auto Workers picket line last year. exclaimed that he was familiar with In his 1901 encyclical on Christian Democracy, Pope Leo Rubio is previously referenced text Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s trade chief during the first administration, similarly said in his own advocacy for unions: In his discussion of “Free Trade Religion Orthodoxy” (Mr. Lighthizer is unlikely to return to the Trump administration, but a close aide of his was elected U.S. Trade Representative.)
This has also led to growing opposition within the Republican Party to using government to encourage family creation, as European countries such as Italy, Greece, Hungary, and Russia have attempted, with little success so far. It is also telling that there is a growing interest in President Trump says he wants a “significant” expansion of the child tax credit, with Vance proposing increasing it to $5,000 per child and making in vitro fertilization available to Americans for free. I promised. (However, this policy conflicts with the Catholic Church’s official position against IVF.)
This is because much of the country still broadly supports some degree of abortion access, and the anti-abortion movement has sought to focus on these and other “pro-family” policies rather than new abortion regulations. This is also supported by the growing movement to do so.
“We’re about to talk [IVF]Recently, President Trump He told NBC News’ Kristen Welker.. “We’re going to submit a tax cut extension to Congress in either the first or second round. So there’s a good chance it’ll be there, or sometime later.”
Still, progressive Catholics say President Trump has promised to focus on extending tax cuts, taking action at the border, and combating crime in urban areas in his first 100 days, even though Republicans are actually pushing back on these policies. I am skeptical about how much priority should be given to And big companies that have long cooperated with Republicans are unlikely to be easily overthrown.
“If you look at what the Republicans are talking about, they’re talking much more about cutting Social Security than they are about expanding Social Security,” said Roberts, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the Republican Party’s Catholic involvement in Social Security. says EJ Dionne, who has focused on political arena. “The dominant faction within the party remains pro-business, anti-government and liberal.”
And progressives and some conservative Catholics agree that the administration’s hardline approach to immigration is likely to anger the U.S. bishops. Already on alert President Trump’s “mass deportation” proposal.
Dionne added: “It’s not our family’s policy, given that our family is our number one priority.”
