Millennial co-founder Christopher Hale has a new article at Time. He writes:

Ryan is very much in the same boat of his two immediate predecessors, Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner. All three are professed Catholics. And like Pelosi and Boehner, Ryan has his own set of difficulties with the Catholic Church on social policies. For Pelosi it was abortion rights, for Boehner it was immigration reform, and for Ryan it most likely will be the social safety net.

Ryan has already experienced this difficulty in recent years. In 2011 and 2012 as the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Ryan proposed significant cuts to programs that served the poor. The American Catholic bishops said that Ryan’s cuts were over the top and that his budget failed “a basic moral test.” Sister Simone Campbell and the Nuns on the Bus campaign took that message on the road and made the position of Catholics clear: You cannot balance the federal budget on the backs of the poor….

Ryan said Thursday that he plans to “wipe the slate clean” and begin a new era of leadership for the broken House of Representatives. Perhaps this new era can be defined by the words Pope Francis spoke in front of the body last month: “If we want security, let us give security; if we want life, let us give life; if we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities​.”

The full article can be read here.