Philadelphia mayor called 'un-American' for launching 'personal war' with the Catholic Church

A Catholic watchdog blasted Mayor Jim Kenney of Philadelphia for being "un-American" in using his elected position to launch a "personal war" with the Catholic Church.

The mayor took flak as Bill Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, wrote Thursday, July 7 an article in response to Kenney's recent attack on Archbishop Charles Chaput.

"The mayor is demonstrably un-American in misusing his public office to conduct his personal war on the Catholic Church," wrote Donohue.

Donohue's reaction came after Kenney tweeted a day earlier, "Jesus gave us gift of Holy Communion because he so loved us. All of us. Chaput's actions are not Christian."

Kenney just openly criticized Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia, who recently laid a new set of pastoral guidelines denying divorced and remarried Catholics from performing sex and called instead for them to live as a brother and sister would.

Donohue defended the archbishop's pastoral guidelines as nothing new in the Catholic doctrine and that Archbishop Chaput merely upheld his pastoral duty of caring and guiding his flock.

The archbishop also claimed that he only gleaned the guidelines from Pope Francis' doctrinal teachings "The Joy of Love" released in April.

"Kenney disagrees," noted Donohue. "Fine. But it is an abuse of his office to use his platform as mayor to publicly intrude on what is clearly an internal church matter."

He also quoted Philadelphia Magazine that dubbed "Jim Kenney's Long War with the Archdiocese" for slamming clergy officials as "cowardly men" for forbidding women in same-sex unions from teaching religion subjects in Catholic schools.

Donohue also recalled another tweet from the mayor last year, "The Arch don't (sic) care about people. It's about image and money. Pope Francis needs to kick some ass here!"

A senior editor at The Federalist, Mollie Hemingway, thought it "scary" for a public official to openly defy a Christian leader.

On the other hand, Ben Secka, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activist, felt grateful and offered appreciative comments to the Philadelphia mayor.

"Thank you @JimFKenney for being a leader & taking a stand. Happy to have you representing Philadelphia, your hard work does not go unnoticed," he tweeted.