The crypto industry’s long-coveted Clarity Act has attracted plenty of opponents in recent months, among them Wall Street leaders, consumer advocates, law enforcement groups, and Native American tribes. Now, the market structure bill has attracted the ire of a new and perhaps unexpected constituency: Catholics.
In a letter sent Tuesday to Senate leaders in both parties, a coalition of Catholic leaders and organizations warned that the legislation—which would legalize most crypto activity in the United States—could violate Christian beliefs by enabling the funding of human trafficking.
“Catholic social teaching calls us to uphold solidarity, protect the vulnerable, and ensure that economic systems are ordered toward justice rather than exploitation,” 82 Catholic leaders wrote in the letter. “The test of any financial system is not simply whether it generates wealth or innovation, but whether it safeguards human life and dignity,” they continued.
In today’s letter, Catholic leaders argued the BRCA “may make it more difficult to responsibly monitor illicit financial activity tied to trafficking, organized crime, child exploitation, sanctions evasion, and other forms of abuse.”
Many industry leaders have said that if the bill cannot pass by next month, it is unlikely to become law this year, given the looming November midterms.
