DC Cardinal McCarrick: Church Will Push For Immigration, Gun Safety

Photo Credit: Jim, the Photographer

A U.S. cardinal said he expects Catholic Church leaders to intensify efforts on behalf of a new immigration law and gun control measures as congressional legislation on the issues move forward.

Many undocumented immigrants are “family people” who “came to make a contribution to American society,” Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, retired Catholic prelate of the nation’s capital, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” which airs this weekend.

The nation’s Catholic bishops will back up their endorsement of a path to legal status for such immigrants with more action once legislation is introduced, he added. “I’m hoping that when we get a bill, you’ll see how active they’ll be,” McCarrick said.

While the Catholic Church hierarchy has clashed with President Barack Obama over abortion rights and his health-care law’s mandate for contraception coverage, the nation’s bishops are allied with him on his stance for an immigration overhaul and gun control legislation.

A group of bipartisan senators is almost finished drafting immigration legislation to be introduced the week of April 8. In the aftermath of Newtown, Connecticut, shootings that killed 20 schoolchildren in December, lawmakers are at odds over new regulations of firearms and ammunition, while some push for more stringent background checks for gun-buyers.

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