Catholic Mass today seemed to endorse austerity and anti-SNAP benefits?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't sound New Testament compliant to me.

Lots of churches have "sermon idea" type publications. Sounds like that might have happened.

It's a sad state of affairs when Christian churches give up on compassion for people who are imperfect. That's kind of the whole point.

I'm sorry, OP.

You are thinking of socialism not Christianity, nowhere in the Bible does it say help people that are stealing and lying about EBT. And the Bible says plenty about not being lazy.

The Bible has nothing to say about EBT or other modern welfare programs. Jesus counseled compassion and selflessness. Jesus was also kind to a thief. The word of Jesus is more authoritative than that of his apostles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's too bad the Catholic church doesn't go after the large corporate and government entities that don't pay living wages like Walmart & the US military. Someone shouldn't work full time and not be able to afford food.

You may be interested in true Catholic Lsbot Network. I get their newsletters and they are very good.

I’m also astounded that OP is apparently a cradle Catholic that did not realize that:
1) all Catholics hear the same readings each weekend. There is a three year cycle, A B and C, so you will always hear the same readings in the same week of the liturgical calendar for a given cycle year.
2) some parishes or dioceses are incredibly conservative politically Northern VA more conservative than the DC-MD diocese. CT more conservative than AZ. Etc. there are some priests who are raging maga unfortunatrely. That’s why most of us shop around a little bit.
OP’s post is just super weird because none of this is news for anyone who has been Catholic for more than a hot minute.

[Anonymous]

Pope Francis is not ok with that shi$talk and neither are most Catholics. Call your MAGA priest out! We left our church due to the conservative Monsignor.

[Anonymous]

Oh yeah, Christ was TOTALLY into the whole “don’t feed people if they don’t work.”

Oh wait.

(and don’t start quoting Thessalonians. That’s PAUL, not Jesus, and was written to a specific group of people at a specific moment in time. Thanks ever so).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pope Francis is not ok with that shi$talk and neither are most Catholics. Call your MAGA priest out! We left our church due to the conservative Monsignor.

Pope who?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Here is the lectionary for this Sunday:

https://bible.usccb.org/daily-bible-reading

It has been set for a long time, so the appearance of the one out four passages in which Paul talks about how the the early Christians worked to feed themselves instead of relying on the communities where they traveled to evangelize to provide charity.

If an idiot priest chose to take this one verse out of context and interpret it to mean that there shouldn’t be SNAP, well that’s not a surprise because it’s a known fact that there are MAGA priests, but that is certainly not the only way to interpret it, nor is it consistent with other passages like the story of loaves and fishes.

Now, if someone wanted to interpret it to mean that Christians who travel to Evangelize should be very careful not to burden the communities they visit then I would agree.

I’m OP. The priests didn’t literally say “SNAP” or “welfare” or “EBT” or any other gov assistance terms in the news and viral on social media the last few weeks — that was me reading between the lines. It just seemed awfully coincidental two Catholic churches which are totally unaffiliated with each other had the same reading and two priests had similar interpretations and expansions essentially demonizing poor people on welfare as lazy, idle, and lacking dignity — albeit the hometown priest was much more aggressive and even used some old school urban “welfare queen” dog whistles.

Every Catholic church in the US, maybe in the world, uses the same lectionary (a document that assigns readings to days), so it's not really a "coincidence" that two Churches would use the same readings this Sunday. But the priest didn't choose them.

I'm not defending his choice to interpret it that way. The Catholic church is very much in favor of feeding people, and does a lot of work towards that goal. This is MAGA infecting the church, and not the position of the church as a whole.

Here is a statement from one of the top Catholic archbishops on the SNAP issue.

https://www.usccb.org/news/2025/archbishop-broglio-urges-funding-lifesaving-programs-and-end-federal-government-shutdown

I disagree with the USCCB on many things. But not on this.

Interesting. I didn’t know the readings were the same everywhere. I guess I've never attended Mass twice in the same weekend or day. It was totally random that I just kept listening to the live feed of my hometown church.

I remain suspicious this reading was chosen for this weekend with everything in the news. I didn’t feel comfortable with the reading and the even crueler sermons after. It didn’t feel Catholic to me. And I know my husband and I weren’t the only two people in the pews side-eying what we were hearing.

Remain as suspicious as you like, but current events had absolutely nothing to do with that reading being this Sunday.

Okay, we’ve covered that. I guess the more concerning part would be priests in different regions of the U.S. taking that allegedly random assigned reading to launch into racist or at least classist welfare queen tropes and demonizing the modern underclass as lazy moochers with no dignity. While those same tropes are being trafficked on the news, on podcasts, used by politicians to shut down the government, and racist videos with those themes are going viral on social media at a scale I’ve never witnessed in my life.

It isn’t “allegedly random”. These readings are on a 3-year cycle, as someone else has already posted. They are published WELL ahead of time.

Also, did the priests actually say all that stuff, or are you simply assuming they did?

OP, can you post the videos, if they were recorded? I’d love to see what was actually said and not what PPs assume was said. I’m guessing it’s Biblically-based and not some lecture about current events.

I’m certainly not going to dox two priests and two churches my family attends, so don’t ask again.

It is your contention that priests are totally oblivious to current events and the government shut down and its impact on SNAP? They are also oblivious that a major theme being pushed by the MAGA right wing is low and middle class Americans are lazy and entitled and if they can’t afford soaring food costs — or soaring housing, college and student loans, health care, a car, kids or a wedding — it’s their own fault because they don’t work hard enough? Compared to model immigrants who will sleep on a floor and work 100 hours a week. President Trump just this week told Fox News this week Americans are lazy and talentless and that’s why we need millions of foreign visa students and workers annually.

How can anyone discern what was actually said at the Mass if we can’t hear it for ourselves?

And I don’t believe it’s “doxxing” a priest to put a link to a publicly available video. Most of the Catholic churches around here have pretty big congregations, so no one is going to know who you are if you just give the name of the local parish.

I’ve already listened twice, as I went back to listen and confirm the reading. I have not mischaracterized the dialogue. And again, the priest located several states away was worse than the local.

That's nice, but we'd love to hear this for ourselves. Otherwise, this is just a giant waste of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is the lectionary for this Sunday:

https://bible.usccb.org/daily-bible-reading

It has been set for a long time, so the appearance of the one out four passages in which Paul talks about how the the early Christians worked to feed themselves instead of relying on the communities where they traveled to evangelize to provide charity.

If an idiot priest chose to take this one verse out of context and interpret it to mean that there shouldn’t be SNAP, well that’s not a surprise because it’s a known fact that there are MAGA priests, but that is certainly not the only way to interpret it, nor is it consistent with other passages like the story of loaves and fishes.

Now, if someone wanted to interpret it to mean that Christians who travel to Evangelize should be very careful not to burden the communities they visit then I would agree.

I’m OP. The priests didn’t literally say “SNAP” or “welfare” or “EBT” or any other gov assistance terms in the news and viral on social media the last few weeks — that was me reading between the lines. It just seemed awfully coincidental two Catholic churches which are totally unaffiliated with each other had the same reading and two priests had similar interpretations and expansions essentially demonizing poor people on welfare as lazy, idle, and lacking dignity — albeit the hometown priest was much more aggressive and even used some old school urban “welfare queen” dog whistles.

Every Catholic church in the US, maybe in the world, uses the same lectionary (a document that assigns readings to days), so it's not really a "coincidence" that two Churches would use the same readings this Sunday. But the priest didn't choose them.

I'm not defending his choice to interpret it that way. The Catholic church is very much in favor of feeding people, and does a lot of work towards that goal. This is MAGA infecting the church, and not the position of the church as a whole.

Here is a statement from one of the top Catholic archbishops on the SNAP issue.

https://www.usccb.org/news/2025/archbishop-broglio-urges-funding-lifesaving-programs-and-end-federal-government-shutdown

I disagree with the USCCB on many things. But not on this.

Interesting. I didn’t know the readings were the same everywhere. I guess I've never attended Mass twice in the same weekend or day. It was totally random that I just kept listening to the live feed of my hometown church.

I remain suspicious this reading was chosen for this weekend with everything in the news. I didn’t feel comfortable with the reading and the even crueler sermons after. It didn’t feel Catholic to me. And I know my husband and I weren’t the only two people in the pews side-eying what we were hearing.

Remain as suspicious as you like, but current events had absolutely nothing to do with that reading being this Sunday.

Okay, we’ve covered that. I guess the more concerning part would be priests in different regions of the U.S. taking that allegedly random assigned reading to launch into racist or at least classist welfare queen tropes and demonizing the modern underclass as lazy moochers with no dignity. While those same tropes are being trafficked on the news, on podcasts, used by politicians to shut down the government, and racist videos with those themes are going viral on social media at a scale I’ve never witnessed in my life.

It isn’t “allegedly random”. These readings are on a 3-year cycle, as someone else has already posted. They are published WELL ahead of time.

Also, did the priests actually say all that stuff, or are you simply assuming they did?

OP, can you post the videos, if they were recorded? I’d love to see what was actually said and not what PPs assume was said. I’m guessing it’s Biblically-based and not some lecture about current events.

I’m certainly not going to dox two priests and two churches my family attends, so don’t ask again.

It is your contention that priests are totally oblivious to current events and the government shut down and its impact on SNAP? They are also oblivious that a major theme being pushed by the MAGA right wing is low and middle class Americans are lazy and entitled and if they can’t afford soaring food costs — or soaring housing, college and student loans, health care, a car, kids or a wedding — it’s their own fault because they don’t work hard enough? Compared to model immigrants who will sleep on a floor and work 100 hours a week. President Trump just this week told Fox News this week Americans are lazy and talentless and that’s why we need millions of foreign visa students and workers annually.

How can anyone discern what was actually said at the Mass if we can’t hear it for ourselves?

And I don’t believe it’s “doxxing” a priest to put a link to a publicly available video. Most of the Catholic churches around here have pretty big congregations, so no one is going to know who you are if you just give the name of the local parish.

I’ve already listened twice, as I went back to listen and confirm the reading. I have not mischaracterized the dialogue. And again, the priest located several states away was worse than the local.

That's nice, but we'd love to hear this for ourselves. Otherwise, this is just a giant waste of time.

Right, how do we know the homily was not mischaracterized if we can’t hear it for ourselves?

[Anonymous]

Was this OLGC?

We left because it was too MAGA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is the lectionary for this Sunday:

https://bible.usccb.org/daily-bible-reading

It has been set for a long time, so the appearance of the one out four passages in which Paul talks about how the the early Christians worked to feed themselves instead of relying on the communities where they traveled to evangelize to provide charity.

If an idiot priest chose to take this one verse out of context and interpret it to mean that there shouldn’t be SNAP, well that’s not a surprise because it’s a known fact that there are MAGA priests, but that is certainly not the only way to interpret it, nor is it consistent with other passages like the story of loaves and fishes.

Now, if someone wanted to interpret it to mean that Christians who travel to Evangelize should be very careful not to burden the communities they visit then I would agree.

I’m OP. The priests didn’t literally say “SNAP” or “welfare” or “EBT” or any other gov assistance terms in the news and viral on social media the last few weeks — that was me reading between the lines. It just seemed awfully coincidental two Catholic churches which are totally unaffiliated with each other had the same reading and two priests had similar interpretations and expansions essentially demonizing poor people on welfare as lazy, idle, and lacking dignity — albeit the hometown priest was much more aggressive and even used some old school urban “welfare queen” dog whistles.

Every Catholic church in the US, maybe in the world, uses the same lectionary (a document that assigns readings to days), so it's not really a "coincidence" that two Churches would use the same readings this Sunday. But the priest didn't choose them.

I'm not defending his choice to interpret it that way. The Catholic church is very much in favor of feeding people, and does a lot of work towards that goal. This is MAGA infecting the church, and not the position of the church as a whole.

Here is a statement from one of the top Catholic archbishops on the SNAP issue.

https://www.usccb.org/news/2025/archbishop-broglio-urges-funding-lifesaving-programs-and-end-federal-government-shutdown

I disagree with the USCCB on many things. But not on this.

Interesting. I didn’t know the readings were the same everywhere. I guess I've never attended Mass twice in the same weekend or day. It was totally random that I just kept listening to the live feed of my hometown church.

I remain suspicious this reading was chosen for this weekend with everything in the news. I didn’t feel comfortable with the reading and the even crueler sermons after. It didn’t feel Catholic to me. And I know my husband and I weren’t the only two people in the pews side-eying what we were hearing.

Remain as suspicious as you like, but current events had absolutely nothing to do with that reading being this Sunday.

Okay, we’ve covered that. I guess the more concerning part would be priests in different regions of the U.S. taking that allegedly random assigned reading to launch into racist or at least classist welfare queen tropes and demonizing the modern underclass as lazy moochers with no dignity. While those same tropes are being trafficked on the news, on podcasts, used by politicians to shut down the government, and racist videos with those themes are going viral on social media at a scale I’ve never witnessed in my life.

It isn’t “allegedly random”. These readings are on a 3-year cycle, as someone else has already posted. They are published WELL ahead of time.

Also, did the priests actually say all that stuff, or are you simply assuming they did?

OP, can you post the videos, if they were recorded? I’d love to see what was actually said and not what PPs assume was said. I’m guessing it’s Biblically-based and not some lecture about current events.

I’m certainly not going to dox two priests and two churches my family attends, so don’t ask again.

It is your contention that priests are totally oblivious to current events and the government shut down and its impact on SNAP? They are also oblivious that a major theme being pushed by the MAGA right wing is low and middle class Americans are lazy and entitled and if they can’t afford soaring food costs — or soaring housing, college and student loans, health care, a car, kids or a wedding — it’s their own fault because they don’t work hard enough? Compared to model immigrants who will sleep on a floor and work 100 hours a week. President Trump just this week told Fox News this week Americans are lazy and talentless and that’s why we need millions of foreign visa students and workers annually.

How can anyone discern what was actually said at the Mass if we can’t hear it for ourselves?

And I don’t believe it’s “doxxing” a priest to put a link to a publicly available video. Most of the Catholic churches around here have pretty big congregations, so no one is going to know who you are if you just give the name of the local parish.

I’ve already listened twice, as I went back to listen and confirm the reading. I have not mischaracterized the dialogue. And again, the priest located several states away was worse than the local.

That's nice, but we'd love to hear this for ourselves. Otherwise, this is just a giant waste of time.

Right, how do we know the homily was not mischaracterized if we can’t hear it for ourselves?

You may disagree, but that doesn't make listening to pp's opinion a "giant waste of time." That's YOUR opinion, only.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are trying to create a schism in the church. The American Catholics are cash-rich and are being heavily influenced by Vance's group - MAGA politics. The Italian Catholic church has a lot of expensive real estate but no cash and is heavily influenced by Pope Leo/Pope Francis and traditional Catholic values like care for the poor. One of the reasons Pope Leo was chosen was to keep the American Catholics from taking their cash and going. The fight is going to get ugly and from your report, it seems Pope Leo might be losing.

Disgusting racist clips like this are being spammed on social media by MAGA influencers. There is big money and coordination behind this effort to dehumanize the poor and tar anyone on SNAP as a lazy scammer.

[Anonymous]

Guess who gets Snap benefits

White Christians. They are the largest recipients.

MAGA those are your people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of you have good imaginations.

If you're a Catholic who regularly attends Sunday mass, you've heard this reading every third year. You'll hear it again in 3 years.

Is it also our imagination there is a organized ecosystem by the right wing apparatus to demonize Americans who take government food assistance? Below is a verified account on social media. They collect and post clips, which are boosted by a network of right wing influencers and rags like Daily Wire, Fox News, NY Post, Daily Mail, etc. You think priests are oblivious to all of this going on? Priests don't know the government was just shut down over SNAP benefits? Give me a break.

Handle: @EBTofTikTok
Profile: "Over 40 million Americans receive SNAP benefits through EBT cards. That is 1 in 8 Americans. Make America Work Again."
https://x.com/EBTofTikTok

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some churches have a set schedule of lessons they cover.

Our congregation also covered idleness this week. The leadership is extremely woke so highly unlikely a commentary on SNAP benefits.

When is the last time your priest covered usury during a Sunday Mass? Ever?

[Anonymous]

I think this whole thread goes to show that most of those attending mass or service have no clue of whats actually in the Bible and they will blindly follow their priest/preacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this whole thread goes to show that most of those attending mass or service have no clue of whats actually in the Bible and they will blindly follow their priest/preacher.

That’s not remotely what this thread shows.

People have explained that Mass readings are on a schedule. They aren’t some targeted attack on current events. It’s kind of silly to assume that.

This has nothing to do with blindly following a priest.