Tell Pope FrancisStop Catholic bishops' pro-Trump politics

Posted: Feb. 5, 2021

In a damning new editorial called "It's time for the Vatican to investigate the US bishops' conference," the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) says the bishops' pro-Trump politics have left them "unable to represent the full range of Catholic teaching and unfit to act in the name of American Catholics."

The 2020 election had barely ended when leaders of the bishops' conference accused Joe Biden of creating "confusion among the faithful." They doubled down on Inauguration Day, disparaging the new president rather than congratulating him.

Yet the bishops almost never used this same megaphone against Trump -- despite his record of separating families, ramping up the death penalty, and ignoring climate change and COVID-19.

In 2008, the Vatican investigated U.S. nuns for straying from church teaching. Their supposed crime? Putting too much focus on the poor. Pope Francis ended that charade and renewed the global church's focus on poverty -- but conservative U.S. bishops keep going rogue.

The nuns were acting out of love. Many of the bishops are acting out of partisanship. There are notable and inspiring exceptions from Chicago to D.C., yet conference leaders keep signaling their staunch Republican support. It's time for the Vatican to get involved. Let's show Pope Francis that a nationwide movement of grassroots Catholics and other Christians supports NCR's call to investigate the bishops.

Sign the petition:

As fellow Catholics, ecumenical Christians, and allies, we write in support of the National Catholic Reporter's call for Pope Francis to investigate the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and its partisan activity.

For years, the USCCB has neglected those on the margins. The conference did not speak loudly during the Trump years even though the president separated children from their parents, eliminated key environmental protections, ignored the pandemic, and brought back the federal death penalty. Whenever the USCCB did manage to speak, its criticisms rarely mentioned Trump by name and did not match the praise he was offered on other issues -- yet the conference has been nothing but critical of Joe Biden.

His Holiness Pope Francis should order an apostolic visitation to investigate what has gone wrong with the USCCB, institute substantial changes, and direct the bishops to once again speak for all American Catholics in a spirit of cooperation and national audacity.

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