Dueling ideologies and a curious case of the cat-got tongue at 2024 bishops' meeting in Baltimore

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is wrapping up its 2024 fall plenary assembly in Baltimore, where the post-election season coupled with the waning airs of the Synod on Synodality and the Eucharistic Revival made for a (still muted) spectacle.

The typical odes of support and gratitude between the bishops and the Vatican kicked off the livestreamed public sessions on Tuesday, which featured various orders of business, including elections.

Sleepier picks were balanced out by Archbishop Shelton Fabre of Louisville becoming chairman-elect of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development. When he takes office next fall, he will likely be one of two African-American bishops heading a committee in the USCCB, alongside Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus Joseph N. Perry of Chicago from the Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism—which Fabre formerly led for five years.

The prior exchanges at the meeting, between USCCB president Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Military Services and the U.S. apostolic nuncio, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, reflected some of the longstanding differences between Pope Francis' vision for the Church and that of the stateside bench.

Pierre, in his address on behalf of the Holy Father, emphasized the meaning of synodality—regarded as a buzzword, or even a byword in much of American Catholicism—and urged the nation’s prelates to set themselves against the ideological “war” of the current political climate. 

“Several years into the synodal journey as a Church, some are still asking, ‘What is synodality?’ Perhaps the language of devotion to the Sacred Heart can give us a way to understand,” said Pierre, referring to Pope Francis’ new encyclical “Dilexit Nos.”

“The synodal Church is a gathering of people who have come into relationship with the heart of Christ and who are journeying together in order to share that relationship with others. This Synod on Synodality was never about completing a to-do list. As Pope Francis has always said, synodality is not about predicting certain outcomes.”

Broglio, a noted archconservative, in his presidential address seemed to endorse the very themes of combat, painting the U.S. Church as facing (apparently ideological) persecution in the vein of martyrs from the ancient Maccabean Revolt.

“The fidelity of a small group was sufficient to ensure a temporary victory over the oppressors but more importantly the preservation and handing on of the Jewish faith to the next generations, right up to our time,” he noted to begin his remarks.

“The notions of fidelity and its transmission of the faith are dear to believers and to us as successors of the apostles. They are characteristics of this time of mission for the Church in the United States of America.”

His words were less than surprising, given the general tenor of many bishops in the conference and the conservative backlash to perceived cultural shifts in the nation and the Church. Several of these themes would be picked up on later in the public sessions of the USCCB assembly.

Notably, a voice vote approved a letter of greeting to the pope that spoke relatively warmly of Donald Trump’s election triumph—though he was not explicitly named therein nor at any point during the two days of public assembly sessions. Gone are the days of post-election USCCB emergency meetings over abortion—as with then-USCCB president Archbishop José Gómez over Democrat Joe Biden’s election in 2020—though Trump has said his new administration “will be great for women and their reproductive rights.”

In a welcome change, the USCCB meetings featured, perhaps for the first time, an acknowledgment on stage of Black Catholic History Month, during which the plenary assembly is held each year. Auxiliary Bishop Roy E. Campbell Jr. of Washington, president of the National Black Catholic Congress, led a presentation featuring a video cut from a larger documentary released during the NBCC national gathering last year. In it, the gifts and history of Black Catholics were centered and celebrated, while at USCCB meetings they seem to most often go unmentioned entirely.

On Wednesday, the second set of public sessions featured an interesting revelation on the instituted ministries of catechist, lector, and acolyte. The latter two were regarded as minor orders in canon law, steps on the way to the priesthood, until 1973, when they were expanded to include laypeople. In 2021, Pope Francis opened them both to women, just months before creating a similar status for the ministry of catechesis.

The rub, however, is that the changes are to be instituted at the national level by episcopal conferences. To date, delay has seemed to be the name of the game, though some American bishops have gone ahead with some implementation—for men, that is. The USCCB intended to soon publish a first draft of national (and presumably egalitarian) norms for the ministry of catechist, but Wednesday’s public session featured an announcement from Archbishop Charles C. Thompson of Indianapolis that “feedback from brother bishops and from the Holy See” has led to a new plan to form a “national directory” on all three ministries at the same time.

Ironically enough, Thompson’s remarks came immediately after a relatively lengthy presentation from Knights of Columbus head Patrick E. Kelly on the supposed key to rejuvenation in the Church. His message of note? Focus on the men.

Given the USCCB’s summer gutting of its poverty alleviation wing, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Wednesday’s presentation from CCHD subcommittee chairman Bishop Timothy Senior of Harrisburg was especially fascinating. His deemphasis of the headline-making cuts in June—the outgoing director of 16 years, a Black Catholic in Ralph McCloud, escaped mention—was coupled with the announcement that grantmaking has resumed. 

The financial distribution comes at an admittedly reduced level and with apparently increased vetting of recipient organizations. (Allegedly questionable grants have been a source of controversy for the office over the years.) Whether the larger news satisfied either episcopal party—those bishops who were blindsided by the changes in CCHD leadership and organization, or those who spoke gleefully of the program’s possible demise—is unclear. As it is, the annual collection for the program is coming up this weekend.

Also on the plate was a presentation from celebrity bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester and Word on Fire, whose openly “anti-woke” agenda has dovetailed with his position as chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth. 

Joined by the bishops’ committee chairs on Catholic education and anti-abortion initiatives, Barron spoke on the Vatican doctrine office’s recent declaration “Dignitas Infinita,” which centers on human dignity but has been mostly praised by conservatives for its rejection of gender ideology. 

Despite Barron's own viral social media presence feeding the culture wars with a Catholic veneer, he lamented “cultural and political divisions” in America that speak of apparently competing injustices. In his view, “Dignitas” offers a way forward that—naturally—lines up perfectly with his committee’s own digital outreach “Love Means More.”

Barron’s own mis- (or dis)understanding of even conservative positions on matters such as intersex conditions—fully on display in his recent “Conclave” movie review—notwithstanding, it’s always a curious thing to see some of the bishops’ worst offenders suddenly become the great defenders of the pope, on pet issues only, during the public sessions of their annual meetings. 

Another major example has been the concept of synodality, rejected by many American prelates but construed as a major pillar of U.S. Catholicism when November rolls around, including this year.

In this somewhat radical reappropriation, synodality includes under its umbrella everything from the most basic parish councils to even the National Eucharistic Revival. (The latter, of course, featured several speakers who have allied themselves against the Synod on Synodality, and against Pope Francis more generally.)

A different wing of the USCCB led the high point of the final public session on Wednesday, though it was at the same time a truly head-scratching moment.

A 25-minute speech and Q&A featuring USCCB migration committee chair Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso was remarkably explicit about the need for immigration reform, the U.S.-fueled civil instability in Central and South America, and the current fears of immigrants in the face of a second Trump administration.

Equally striking, though, was the fact that neither Trump nor any other politician (or even a specific office) was named explicitly by Seitz or any of the half-dozen bishops who backed his condemnation of “inflammatory comments from political leaders,” “nativist and anti-immigration sentiment,” and a “recent election” linked to troubling “policy proposals.”

Auxiliary Bishop Eusebio Elizondo of Seattle, a member of the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit who immigrated from Mexico in 2000, visibly hesitated during his remarks, to the point that one wonders if there is an official meeting policy being followed to the T—and not the last initial of you-know-who.

“I sense a lot with the kind of rhetoric that the… recent election had been bringing and all the comments and incredibly negative rhetoric that has been brought against immigrants, that it’s a sentiment that is very much coming from the top,” said Elizondo.

“So there is a lot of fear in our people because he—our leader—promised that he is going to deport 11 million people that are undocumented here in the country.”

At one level, I can empathize: Don’t stoke the political divisions of the country, including your own bishops’ conference, by targeting one party or another. On the other hand, if you’re going to take a stand on an issue seen as crucial to Catholic social teaching, how can you effect real change—and show the watching world your seriousness, no less—without naming the issues and their perpetrators outright?

It’s true that Biden was not named by President Gómez in 2020, either, but the targeting was clear. It could be argued that it was a unique situation because Biden is a Catholic, but that seems to me a cop-out.

Trump’s wife, Melania, is a Catholic who openly supports abortion. His vice president, JD Vance, is a Catholic who dehumanizes immigrants, including Black co-religionists in his own state. His border czar, Tom Homan, is a Catholic who fully supports his mass deportation plan. His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is a Catholic who has received more than a million dollars from the Israel lobby and disregards the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

To this, I think the U.S. Catholic bishops can give a name. I think their public reputation as shepherds of God’s Church depends on it. I think silence, or even equivocation, functions as a tacit endorsement. I think that now more than ever, we cannot afford to lose a moment of clarity in the face of abject Catholic dissent in the party of “life.”

The event in Baltimore was a bishops’ meeting, yes, and not a political rally or town hall, but by the same token, neither was 2020—when Biden’s election was spoken of as a crisis demanding immediate action and firm resolve from the Church.

What has changed? Well, I think we all know.

Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.

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