'Catholic Case for Trump:' Author argues why Trump is 'the most pro-Catholic president in history'
With less than two months to go until the 2020 election, a new book aims to convince Catholics across the United States to support the reelection of President Donald Trump.
Austin Ruse, president of the Center for Family and Human Rights, explained his motivations for writing The Catholic Case for Trump in an interview with The Christian Post.
“I was motivated to write the book to give the faithful Catholics some ammunition” as they debate “their more liberal friends and family,” he said.
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Even though the president isn't Catholic himself, Ruse maintains that he's “the most pro-Catholic president in history.”
Ruse believes that the central issues facing Catholic voters are the sanctity of life and religious freedom. He devoted two chapters in his book to explaining how Trump has proven himself to be an ally of Catholics on both fronts.
“Many pro-lifers are in senior positions at the Department of Health and Human Services, an agency that has been dedicated to advancing the abortionist agenda in Democratic administrations,” Ruse states in the book.
As an example of Trump's actions benefiting Catholics and other religious entities, he notes in the book: “On May 4, 2017, Trump issued the executive order ‘Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty.’” This executive order instructed the Treasury Department to refrain from taking “adverse action” against churches and religious groups that engage in political speech.
In a chapter titled “Trump and Judges,” Ruse reviews the impact Trump has had on the judiciary.
For pro-life Catholics, few issues are more important than the Supreme Court. After all, it was the Supreme Court that legalized abortion nationwide in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Pro-life activists have spent nearly a half-century working to assemble a judiciary that would reverse that decision.
The president has made progress in helping pro-lifers achieve that goal, Ruse contends in the book. “After four years of remarkable judicial picks, seven of thirteen circuit courts have durable conservative majorities.”
Ruse explained to CP that there are three types of Catholics: faithful Catholics, generic Catholics, and dissenting Catholics. Faithful Catholics are “people who actually practice the faith. [They] go to mass every week, go to confession regularly, and try to be observant in their Catholicism,” he said.
Generic Catholics, he said, will “tell a pollster that they’re Catholic” even if they haven't attended mass in a long time.
“George W. Bush won both the faithful Catholic vote and the generics. That was because he was running against an unfaithful Catholic — that is John Kerry. We have the exact same situation here,” he asserted, referring to Biden.
“Joe Biden is an unfaithful Catholic. He opposes the teachings of the Church on fundamental issues of human sexuality and human life. I think that faithful Catholics and generic Catholics are uncomfortable with the idea that a dissenting Catholic will be in the White House.”
According to Ruse, dissenting Catholics ally themselves with “the anti-life left,” which tries to “draw Catholics away from a Republican president based on issues other than life.”
For example, Ruse told CP that ahead of the 2008 election, the left tried to “take the eye of the Catholic voter” off the issues of life and religious liberty by focusing on then-President George W. Bush’s authorization of waterboarding three terrorists.
Ruse warned that in a Biden administration, the Trump administration’s efforts to advance the pro-life movement and religious liberty will face setbacks. “Biden is surrounded by even more radical people than Obama,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a hideous situation for Catholics and other believers.”
“He will persecute the Little Sisters of the Poor and other groups,” Ruse added. “As a dissident Catholic, Biden will persecute Catholics unlike anything we’ve ever seen before including under Obama.”
After noting that Biden described the transgender movement as the “civil rights issue of this time,” Ruse surmised that Catholic schools that subscribe to biblical teachings about gender and sexuality would be “forced to accept transgender teachers and students” in a Biden administration.
The Catholic Case for Trump is the latest book published by Ruse, whose other works include Fake Science: Exposing the Left’s Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data, and Littlest Suffering Souls: Children Whose Short Lives Point Us to Christ, both of which were published in 2017.
