Boehner blasted by Catholic profs

Dozens of Catholic professors sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, a Catholic, asking him to rethink the GOP budget that they say disproportionately harms the poor and accused him of holding a voting record at odds with the church’s teachings.

“Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress,” the academics wrote in the letter. “This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policymakers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it.”


The scholars said the House Republicans’ fiscal 2012 budget, which passed with no Democratic support in April, was “particularly cruel” to pregnant women and children by slashing funds for maternal and child-health programs.

“The House budget radically cuts Medicaid and effectively ends Medicare,” they wrote. “It invokes the deficit to justify visiting such hardship upon the vulnerable, while it carves out $3 trillion in new tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.”

Boehner is scheduled to give the commencement address at the Catholic University of America this Saturday. Michael Steel, the speaker’s spokesman, said in an e-mail that Boehner will deliver “a personal, non-political message at the Catholic University of America that he hopes will speak to all members of the graduating class, regardless of their backgrounds or affiliations.”

The speaker evoked religion in February to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention as he advocated for spending cuts, calling the debt a “moral threat” and saying the country’s challenges are making people realize they “better start praying.”

The more than 50 signatories on the letter include professors from Catholic University of America, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and those from the University of Dayton and Xavier University from Boehner’s home state of Ohio.