New York's Cardinal Dolan rips Bannon's 'insulting' remarks about church, DACA

FILE PHOTO: Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, looks on as Pope Francis leads the weekly general audience in Saint Peter's Square. (Reuters)

New York archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan fired back Thursday at President Trump’s former chief strategist, who accused the Roman Catholic Church of opposing Trump’s recent DACA move because they “need illegal aliens to fill the churches.”

Steve Bannon made the comments in an excerpt from CBS's “60 Minutes,” which will air Sunday. Bannon accuses the church of opposing Trump’s move to do away with the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program for economic reasons. He said bishops “have been terrible about this.”

“By the way, you know why? You know why? Because unable to really, to, to, to come to grips with the problems in the church, they need illegal aliens, they need illegal aliens to fill the churches. That’s, it’s obvious on the face of it,” Bannon said, according to the New York Post.

“That’s what, the entire Catholic bishops condemn him. They have, they have an economic interest. They have an economic interest in unlimited immigration, unlimited illegal immigration.”

Dolan told the Catholic Channel on SiriusXM radio that he was “befuddled” after seeing the transcript.

“I don’t care to go into what I think is a preposterous and rather insulting statement that the only reason we bishops care for immigrants is for the economic and because we want to fill our churches and get more money,” Dolan said.“That’s just so insulting and ridiculous that it doesn’t merit a comment.”