AOC credits her Catholic faith with her positions on healthcare and the environment

[pnwmom]

https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/aoc-credits-her-catholic-faith-positions-health-care-environment


Her favorite biblical story is that of Jesus casting out the moneychangers from the temple.

Often cast as a socialist firebrand, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York representative elected in 2018 as the youngest member of Congress, said she receives inspiration on issues such as health care and climate change from her Catholic faith as well as political ideology.

Popularly identified by her initials AOC, she talked about faith with NCR during a 15-minute phone interview Oct. 21, just weeks before the presidential and her own re-election campaigns conclude. Ocasio-Cortez is considered a shoo-in running in an overwhelmingly Democratic district, yet her contest has generated the second-largest amount of contributions for this year's congressional races on both sides, largely because her presence both galvanizes supporters and opponents. She is perhaps the most prominent metaphorical lightning rod in Congress.

She is being challenged by Republican John Cummings in her district, a heavily-immigrant area encompassing sections of the Bronx, where she was born, and Queens.

The Gospel parable of the Good Samaritan and the biblical stories of healing inspire her view in support of universal health care. Care for the sick and healing is a biblical value, she said, all part of "the stories we were raised with."

SNIP

[halfulglas]

1. Rerum Novarum

I can identify very much with this. I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school as a kid. Rerum Novarum was the encyclical by Pope Leo XIII. Both schools I went to emphasized this as we were taught it addressed Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor. As a union family it was important in our area because it gave religious strength when the union went on strike because it taught workers should receive a living wage. My dad taught us not to cross a union picket line even if it wasn't my grandfather's. My high school was taught by Franciscan nuns and we were taught to tell the truth, respect for the environment and all living things. Of course I was so innocent (most of the time) and didn't experience or know of the atrocities of the sexual abuse that was known but hidden all those years, but I do credit especially those Franciscan nuns with the the fact that although I'm no longer Catholic, the seeds of my being a lifelong Democrat and (probably the most liberal) of my whole family with that upbringing. That's probably why when so many of the right wing extreme Catholics lie their asses off even when they know you know they are lying, because one other thing I was taught to do was tell the truth and lying was a sin. Anyway, this septuagenarian loves AOC. Actually, I love most of the Democratic women in Congress and the Senate and am so proud they are continuing the fight.

[pnwmom]

2. Welcome to DU, halfulglas!

I share memories similar to yours. The values that were taught to us over those years have endured, despite the terrible abuse that was being hidden. And no matter how much distance we've put between ourselves and the church since then.

I don't understand how fundamentalists and literalists can read the Bible and miss all the passages we were taught -- about caring for the poor, telling the truth, etc.