Mark Silk rightly asks - where is the outrage from religious leaders at the GOP for their hostility to the unaccompanied children coming to the border? Obama signs an LGBT non-discrimination rule and you would think the heavens were falling. But, the GOP personifies the throwaway culture, treats these children as a nuisance, and wants to send them back into the burning buildings which their home countries have become, and there is no outrage coming from the USCCB. Here, sadly but not for the first time, we can discern the priorities of the fifth floor of the bishops' conference. They will not attack the GOP because the GOP supports them on the things they really care about - abortion, same-sex marriage and contraception. You might say they are "obsessed" with these issues. But, care for the poor and the marginalized - and it is hard to imagine anyone more poor and more marginalized than these children - is a command of the Gospels and a leitmotif of this pontificate. The bishops have been great at both calling for a humane solution and at providing assistance to these children. But, where is the outrage at GOP? Here is an opportunity for the conference to demonstrate that it is not an arm of the GOP, that it wants to be non-partisan. Here is a chance for the conference to demonstrate that they have read Evangelii Gaudium. Instead, regrettably, the USCCB is a kind of un-Francis, in danger of becoming an anti-Franics, outfit. Time for the bishops to take the reins and demand that the staff at the USCCB get on board the Pope Francis bandwagon.
