America's leading Catholic leaders are calling on the faithful to oppose Donald Trump in his bid to win the Republican presidential nomination, saying he is "manifestly unfit to be president of the United States" because of his "vulgarity, oafishness, shocking ignorance and ... demagoguery."

Princeton Jurisprudence Professor Robert P. George and George Weigel of the Ethics and Public Policy Center wrote a letter "to all men and women of good will," published in the National Review and signed by 35 other leading Catholics, urging voters to "reject" Trump at the primary polls, LifeSite News reported.

The letter was signed by a long list of distinguished Catholic psychologists, authors, and thinkers.

Trump's "campaign has already driven our politics down to new levels of vulgarity. His appeals to racial and ethnic fears and prejudice are offensive to any genuinely Catholic sensibility. He promised to order U.S. military personnel to torture terrorist suspects and to kill terrorists' families — actions condemned by the Church and policies that would bring shame upon our country," the letter states.

"There is nothing in his campaign or his previous record that gives us grounds for confidence that he genuinely shares our commitments to the right to life, to religious freedom and the rights of conscience, to rebuilding the marriage culture, or to subsidiarity and the principle of limited constitutional government," it says.

The letter acknowledges that some "good people, including Catholics" are supporting Trump because he "speaks to issues of legitimate and genuine concern: wage stagnation, grossly incompetent governance, profligate governmental spending, the breakdown of immigration law, inept foreign policy, stifling 'political correctness.'"

However, the Catholic leaders contend that other Republican candidates, "are far more likely than Mr. Trump to address these concerns, and who do not exhibit his vulgarity, oafishness, shocking ignorance, and —we do not hesitate to use the word— demagoguery."

The Catholic leaders say Trump's record and his campaign "show us no promise of greatness; they promise only the further degradation of our politics and our culture."

The letter commends past Republican administrations, citing them for promoting "causes at the center of Catholic social concern," namely, abortion, euthanasia and the sanctity of innocent human life "and other victims of what Saint John Paul II branded 'the culture of death,'" and, "defending religious freedom" against "the enemies of conscience," and, natural marriage, and, "re-establishing constitutional and limited government, according to the core Catholic social-ethical principle of subsidiarity."

The letter warns that properly addressing those Catholic social concerns "is now in grave danger" with Trump still dominating the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

The Catholic professors, journalists, ethicists and leaders conclude their joint letter by urging all to reject Trump's candidacy and instead support "a genuinely reformist candidate," without mentioning a name.