Catholic Leaders: 'Donald Trump Is Manifestly Unfit To Be President'
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Catholic leaders are calling on their fellow Catholics not to vote for Donald Trump.
Robert George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, and George Weigel, distinguished senior fellow and William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studeis at Ethics and Public Policy Center, wrote an op-ed for National Review stating that advancing the noble causes of the Catholic social doctrine is "now in grave danger" if Trump is elected president.
"Donald Trump is manifestly unfit to be president of the United States. His campaign has already driven our politics down to new levels of vulgarity," the op-ed reads. "His appeals to racial and ethnic fears and prejudice are offensive to any genuinely Catholic sensibility."
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The op-ed touched on Trump calling for military personnel to kill the families of terror suspects and flip-flopping on such issues as abortion and gay marriage.
George and Weigel wrote that they understand why Catholics have been attracted to the Republican presidential hopeful's campaign, but that there are better GOP candidates to vote for.
"We urge our fellow Catholics and all our fellow citizens to consider, however, that there are candidates for the Republican nomination who are far more likely than Mr. Trump to address these concerns, and who do not exhibit his vulgarity, oafishness, shocking ignorance, and – we do not hesitate to use the word – demagoguery," they said.
The op-ed concluded, "Mr. Trump's record and his campaign show us no promise of greatness; they promise only the further degradation of our politics and our culture. We urge our fellow Catholics and all our fellow citizens to reject his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination by supporting a genuinely reformist candidate."
The op-ed also received 35 signatories from other Catholic leaders.
Last month, Trump got into a holy war of words with Pope Francis after the pontiff said the billionaire wasn't Christian for wanting to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep immigrants out.
Trump called the pope's comments "disgraceful."
Trump currently has the most delegates among his Republican rivals with 378. Sen. Ted Cruz is in second with 298 and Sen. Marco Rubio is third with 146.
