Catholic bishops describe Trump refugee order as shameful and a dark moment

Ferment over President Donald Trump's executive order restricting U.S. entry from seven majority Muslim countries and pausing admission of refugees has dominated airwaves and even airports over the last 72 hours. Catholics have been front and center in voicing reaction, including Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago calling the decision a "dark moment in American history."

Inés San Martín
January 30, 2017

ROME- During a 72 hour period marked by widespread protests over U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to temporarily ban the entrance of citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries and pause America’s refugee program, Catholic leaders have been front and center, with many criticizing the decision and one calling it a “dark moment in American history.”

Those notes weren’t just heard in America but from Catholic leaders around the world, including the affected region. Patriarch Raphael Luis Sako, head of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq, said of the president’s promise to prioritize Christian immigrants from countries where they’re persecuted: “It’s a trap for Christians in the Middle East.”

“Every policy that discriminates (among) the persecuted and suffering on religious grounds ultimately harms the Christians of the East, because among other things it provides arguments to all the propaganda and prejudice that target the native Christian communities in the Middle East as ‘foreign bodies,’ as groups supported and defended by Western powers,” he said.

A report from the Washington Post seemed to prove Sako’s warning, with claims that Islamic State members have said the ban validates their argument of the West being at war with Islam.

https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2017/01/30/catholic-bishops-describe-trump-refugee-order-shameful-dark-moment/