Five years ago this week the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church selected the first Latin American pope—and the first from a Jesuit religious order known for its fierce commitment to social justice. Pope Francis immediately began changing the public face of Catholicism. He warned that the church can't only be “obsessed” with opposing abortion, struck a more welcoming tone toward LGBT people, and chose to live in a Vatican guesthouse instead of the more regal Apostolic Palace.
Along with disrupting business as usual in Rome, the pope has empowered a new generation of “Francis bishops” in the United States to speak out with renewed vigor on issues beyond abortion and birth control, insisting that being prolife also means addressing income inequality, climate change, and treatment of immigrants. One of the most visible of them, San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy, has argued that the pope's emphasis on economic justice and poverty demand a “transformation of the existing Catholic political conversation.” Another, Newark's Joe Tobin, appointed a cardinal by Francis in 2016, took to Twitter a few days after President Trump touted a nativist, “America First” ideology at his inauguration with a warning that only “a fearful nation talks about building walls and is vulnerable to con men.” While a majority of white Catholics voted for Trump, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has consistently denounced his administration's efforts to limit refugees from entering the country and blasted the president's decision to rescind protections for young undocumented immigrants—a move the bishops called “reprehensible.”
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