Leftist media outlets take an extremely opportunistic approach to covering the intersection of religion and politics. They're appalled at religion when it impedes their agenda, but they gush over religious figures when they align with their talking points.

On Jan. 19, New York Times religion reporter Ruth Graham penned a story headlined "Top Catholic Clerics Denounce U.S. Foreign Policy." Three Catholic cardinals — Blase Cupich of Chicago, Joseph Tobin of Newark and Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C. — put out a statement critical of President Donald Trump's international policies.

"Our country's moral role in confronting evil around the world, sustaining the right to life and human dignity, and supporting religious liberty are all under examination," the cardinals contended. "And the building of just and sustainable peace, so crucial to humanity's well-being now and in the future, is being reduced to partisan categories that encourage polarization and destructive policies."

The line about "partisan categories" is amusing, since the Times and Rachel Maddow and the rest are delighting in how this statement fits their category. It's puzzling to argue that Trump messing with tyrants in Venezuela and Iran is somehow not taking on "evil." Opposition to any military action is at the forefront of their message, and religious liberty and the right to life are subordinated.

The Times never used words like "liberal" or "leftist" or "progressive" to describe these three prelates, or for Pope Leo, whom they cite as their inspiration. But go back four years, and Ruth Graham and the Times took an entirely different approach.

On June 20, 2021, the labels were flying. The headline was "In Rift With Biden, a Dramatic Show of Force by a Conservative Catholic Movement." Graham and her colleague Elizabeth Dias began by asserting, "Pope Francis and President Biden, both liberals, are the two most high-profile Roman Catholics in the world." But forget the pope, it's "now a conservative movement that decides how the Catholic Church asserts its power in America."

Including headlines, the word "conservative" appeared 15 times. In this story, they mourned their heroes Cardinal Cupich and Cardinal Tobin — "leading U.S. allies of Pope Francis" — were "ultimately drowned out" as the bishops voted to draft a policy that could restrain the offering of the Eucharist to Catholic politicians like Joe Biden, who energetically opposed church teaching on abortion and other moral issues.

This was lamented as "polarizing the Catholic faithful," something the Times did not say about the Trump-bashing statement.

On Inauguration Day 2021, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, put out a welcoming statement to Biden, but underlined "our new President has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender."

At the time, the Catholic News Agency reported Cardinal Cupich wanted "a more supportive, clearly pro-Biden statement, and that he spent most of Wednesday trying to get the support of other bishops to come up with an alternative statement." In other words, he was "polarizing the Catholic faithful" on Biden's behalf.

Cardinal Cupich put out a four-tweet attack on Gomez for an "ill-considered statement" that didn't seek enough "collegial consultation," leading to "internal institutional failures" when the bishops should "take up the work of healing our nation in this moment of crisis."

In other words, it's impolite and divisive to confront a pro-abortion, pro-transgender Catholic president, but years later, church leaders can attack non-Catholic President Trump while claiming they're against "partisan categories." This is blatantly partisan advocacy, which is why the leftist media applaud it so enthusiastically.

Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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