Scavino Trump Vigano McCarrick
Title: Why White House Catholics are concerned about Trump’s Catholic tweets
.-Officials working in the Trump administration have told CNA that they have been frustrated by recent presidential tweets elevating controversial Catholic figures, saying the tweets undermine the work many Catholics in the administration hope to accomplish.
In recent weeks, the president’s Twitter account has cited support from two figures with tendentious reputations among Catholics: former papal nuncio to the United States Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, and the author and online polemicist Taylor Marshall.
While both men have been publicly supportive of the president, both are better known for their criticism of Church authorities than for their views on secular politics.
Two Catholics in senior positions in the administration told CNA the decision to elevate Viganò and Marshall has put the White House at odds with the U.S. bishops, instead of puttng focus on issues on which they could agree, and has frustrated some Catholic administration officials.
“It puts those of us who care about the Church and care about the work we are doing here in a bind,” one White House official told CNA. “I believe in the work I’m doing, and believe it matters as a Catholic. But I spend enough time just defending that simple premise – I don’t want to have to deal with crazy Catholic Twitter too.”
“Everyone knows the campaign needs religious voters, and Catholic voters for sure. But there is such a divide between the people working on policy stuff around here and the people doing this. For us, we are doing things that matter: on religious freedom, on life issues.”
A second senior administration official, who attends weekly meetings with the president in the Oval Office, told CNA the president believes he has not been supported by U.S. bishops for his efforts on religious liberty, and that White House strategists have urged him to court Catholic votes through figures like Marshall and Viganò.