Local Catholic News

The April 1, 2025 online issue of the Valley Catholic published an article about Marcos Herrera’s participation in a Catholic Extension Society trip to the Border Diocese of Brownsville, TX.  In the Hand-up to Higher education section, he notes the support of beloved St. Ann’s member Edda Ritson and the Catholic Interracial Education Fund!

The link is:

https://thevalleycatholic.org/marcos-herrera-brownsville-tx-immersion-mission-border

and a pdf of the article is attached Under "Documents".

Catholic Media News

For those of us who follow the activities of Tim Busch, Head of the Napa Institute:

Tom Roberts, NCR executive editor from October 2018 through April 2020. Tom was NCR editor from 2000-2008. He writes in NCR on April 16th

Libertarian Catholicism championed by Tim Busch's Napa Institute conflicts with Christian Scripture

Read the complete article (here)

The recent column penned by Tim Busch and headlined by the National Catholic Register, "The Trump Administration: More Catholic Than You Know," may be stunning as a political endorsement, but it is far more important as a statement that twists Catholic thought into unrecognizable shapes. It is the most recent of Busch's pronouncements that raise serious questions about Catholicism's engagement in the wider culture and who represents the voice of church authority in this era.

Given the prominence of Busch on the Catholic landscape as the founder of the conservative Catholic Napa Institute, two assertions in this piece should be taken seriously. The first, which even he labels "surprising," is his belief that the Trump administration "is the most Christian I've ever seen." The second: "Crucially, from what I've seen, the president's team is earnestly striving to apply the precepts of our faith to the policies that govern America." Let that sink in.

Donald Trump's presidency may be term limited, and politics can shift without warning, but there is no term limit to Busch's influence, and it doesn't appear his resources will run out anytime soon. Apparently, no existing structure, not even hierarchical authority, dares to challenge his public assertions.

Busch has long been an unabashed advocate for a brand of American religion that seeks respectability for the unbounded economic ambitions of its practitioners by wrapping itself in a veneer of piety. In his case, it is Catholic piety placed in service of an extreme libertarian agenda and what is turning out to be a politics of retribution, division and cruelty.

If that seems a harsh assessment, an extensive public record bears it out. Busch's wealth has gained him a significant share of the ecclesial attention economy as well as a name on the business school at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and a considerable influence over the EWTN publishing and broadcasting empires.

…The libertarian/religious ideology he often places on prominent display has been under construction by others for decades. Busch, a successful lawyer who owns luxury resorts, is the perfect vehicle for carrying forward the work of those who have attempted to Catholicize ideas and rationale from the furthest extremes of secular economics and the politics of disruption.

…In 1986, the U.S. Catholic bishops issued a cutting-edge document, "Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy." Several years in the making, it was "a work of careful inquiry, wide consultation," as the bishops described it, a "process of listening and refinement" grounded in the conviction that "the obligation to 'love our neighbor' has an individual dimension, but also requires a broader social commitment to the common good."

…The attempts to make Catholic teaching compatible with unrestricted capitalism and business interests would evolve with the appearance of such groups as Legatus, which self-describes as "the world's premiere organization" for Catholic "CEOs, company presidents, managing partners and business owners." Domino's Pizza founder Thomas Monaghan started Legatus in 1987, a year after the economics pastoral was issued. Monaghan went on to found Ave Maria University in Florida.

The Ethics and Public Policy Center was founded in 1976, prior to the pastoral, but with strong religious connections. The neoconservative think tank contributed to the development of Project 2025, the aims of which Musk is fulfilling. Leonard Leo — he of the Federalist Society, tons of dark money and friendship with Busch — is currently a member of the center's board. 

….While Busch rails against secularization of society, there is little, if any, suggestion that excessive wealth, vast income disparity and corporate greed have anything to do with it. "We have a right to have wealth," he said in a 2007 talk in which he made an apparent reference to Bill Gates as an example of the kind of philanthropic good that can result from wealth, as if he were the benign standard.

An unfiltered exuberance often accompanies Busch's pronouncements, like the time he referred to a cardinal's presentation on Catholic social teaching tradition as a necessary hearing of "both sides" before introducing the main star of his symposium, billionaire libertarian Charles Koch, referred to by Busch as the "refounder of America."

It is beyond time we take what Busch says seriously. He is not speaking to hear himself. He is trying to fashion a church that conforms to an ideology.