The first two weeks of President Donald J. Trump’s second term have been marked by a flurry of executive actions, ranging from a trade war with China—and, pending negotiations over the coming month, Canada and Mexico—to the pardoning of Jan. 6 insurrectionists and the firing of 12 federal inspectors general. The Catholic bishops of the United States have been measured in their response to the new administration’s avalanche of activity and remained true to their nonpartisan position, reserving sharp criticism on points of divergence from Mr. Trump while offering praise for his actions in areas where they find alignment.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has attracted considerable attention—including pushback from Vice President JD Vance—for its criticism of Mr. Trump’s immigration policy. Mr. Trump’s push for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, a central plank of his 2024 campaign, has been a particular area of concern. Cardinal Robert McElroy, the incoming archbishop of Washington, deemed this policy “incompatible with Catholic doctrine.” Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Tex., a noted advocate for immigrants and refugees, co-authored a statement declaring that human dignity “is not dependent on a person’s citizenship or immigration status.”
However, some bishops have responded positively to Mr. Trump’s moves on issues related to sex and gender. Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the current president of the U.S.C.C.B., issued a statement on the third day of Mr. Trump’s administration summing up the bishops’ overall approach. “Some provisions contained in the Executive Orders, such as those focused on the treatment of immigrants and refugees, foreign aid, expansion of the death penalty, and the environment, are deeply troubling and will have negative consequences, many of which will harm the most vulnerable among us,” he wrote. “Other provisions in the Executive Orders can be seen in a more positive light, such as recognizing the truth about each human person as male or female.” On the evening of Inauguration Day, Mr. Trump signed an order declaring the existence of only two genders—male and female—while decrying so-called “gender ideology extremism” and stating that gender identities not assigned at birth do not “provide a meaningful basis for identification.”
Another notably positive reaction has been the response of Bishop Daniel Thomas of Toledo, the chair of the bishops’ pro-life committee, to Mr. Trump’s decision to reinstate the Mexico City Policy, which cuts off federal funding to foreign organizations that perform abortions. “I am grateful for the strengthening of policies that protect us from being compelled to participate in a culture of death and that help us to restore a culture of life at home and abroad,” Bishop Thomas said on Jan. 26.
Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minn., the chair of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, also praised Mr. Trump’s Jan. 28 executive order that aims to prohibit certain types of medical or surgical gender reassignment procedures for minors who identify as transgender. “I welcome the President’s Executive Order prohibiting the promotion and federal funding of procedures that, based on a false understanding of human nature, attempt to change a child’s sex…. It is unacceptable that our children are encouraged to undergo destructive medical interventions instead of receiving access to authentic and bodily-unitive care,” Bishop Barron wrote in a statement on Jan. 29.
The bishops offered similarly wide-ranging reactions to the executive actions taken by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. during the first weeks of his presidency.
While the bishops’ criticism of Mr. Biden’s support for legal abortion often made headlines during his tenure in the White House, they also responded positively to multiple early initiatives from his administration.
On Jan. 20, 2021, his first day in office, Mr. Biden issued executive orders rejoining the Paris Climate Accords, from which Mr. Trump had pulled the U.S. in 2017 (Mr. Trump has again withdrawn from the accords) and ending Mr. Trump’s ban on travel to the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries.
The following day, Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City and Bishop David Malloy of Rockford, Ill., issued a joint statement alongside the president and chief executive officer of Catholic Relief Services, Sean Callahan, praising Mr. Biden’s actions on the environment. The authors said that Mr. Biden’s decision to rejoin the Paris climate accords would allow the United States to “[implant] successful policies that both preserve the environment and promote economic development through innovation, investment and enterprise.”
Meanwhile, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and the late Bishop Mario Dorsonville, then an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Washington, said of the repeal of the travel ban: “We welcome yesterday’s Proclamation, which will help ensure that those fleeing persecution and seeking refuge or seeking to reunify with family in the United States will not be turned away because of what country they are from or what religion they practice. This policy reversal signifies the United States’ renewed commitment to our vulnerable brothers and sisters around the world who are in need.”
At the same time, several bishops—including Archbishop Coakley and Cardinal Dolan—took issue with Mr. Biden’s order extending federal nondiscrimination protections to L.G.B.T. people. In the joint statement, these bishops claimed that Mr. Biden’s order could threaten the religious liberty of Catholics who expressed opposition to same-sex marriage or belief in the existence of only two immutable genders. “This may manifest in mandates that, for example, erode health care conscience rights or needed and time-honored sex-specific spaces and activities,” they said.
Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, then the president of the U.S.C.C.B., greeted Mr. Biden’s inauguration with a press release decrying proposed policies “that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender.” Archbishop Gomez appealed to Mr. Biden’s pledges of concern for social justice by noting that “abortion rates are much higher among the poor and minorities, and that the procedure is regularly used to eliminate children who would be born with disabilities.”
Yet roughly two weeks into Mr. Biden’s presidency, Thomas J. Reese, S.J., a former editor in chief of America, wrote that the U.S. bishops’ press releases on Mr. Biden’s early actions were “noteworthy not only in their number but also in their positive tone,” and suggested that media outlets were playing up the bishops’ areas of disagreement with the Biden administration in order to generate conflict. In his article, Father Reese listed 10 press releases in which bishops praised Mr. Biden’s policies, including on racial equity,Covid relief (which would later become his signature American Rescue Plan Act) and the environment.
As Father Reese alluded to, the bishops most closely involved with advocacy for and ministry to immigrants were more supportive of the Biden administration and more critical of the new administration. Likewise, those more focused on abortion and gender issues were critical of the Biden administration and welcomed the Trump administration’s initiatives in those domains with approbation.
In his Jan. 22 press release, Archbishop Broglio said that “no matter who occupies the White House or holds the majority on Capitol Hill, the Church’s teachings remain unchanged.” The bishops’ responses to the beginnings of Mr. Biden’s and Mr. Trump’s tenures reveal a central truth of U.S. Catholicism: Aligned with neither major party, the church will almost never approach a president with total acclamation or complete condemnation.
