The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act heading to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature will provide relief to Americans in need amid the pandemic, but it lacks “protections for the unborn,” the U.S. bishops said.

“As with every administration, there will be areas where we agree and work closely together and areas where we will have principled disagreement and strong opposition,” Archbishop Gomez said.

President Biden’s memo rescinding the “Mexico City policy” on the eve of the March for Life, “is a deeply disturbing move, especially when the president says he wants national unity,” tweeted Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life Defense and Education Fund.

The wide-ranging nondiscrimination executive “threatens to infringe the rights of people who recognize the truth of sexual difference or who uphold the institution of lifelong marriage between one man and one woman,” said the chairmen of five U.S. bishops’ committees.

"Being vaccinated safely against COVID-19 should be considered an act of love of our neighbor and part of our moral responsibility for the common good."

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Biden's choice to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has stirred the partisan fires Biden says he hopes to quell.

The health care issue looming over the debate was the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It was illustrated by the 12 feet between the seated debaters and the panels of protective plexiglass barriers installed next to them.

Bishop Barber said Oct. 1 the "economic devastation" in this country wrought by the pandemic "has already led to the closure of at least 150 Catholic schools, many in low-income areas that serve children of color."

Some of the country’s most prominent church leaders appealed to Congressional negotiators to include financial support for families to continue to send their children to Catholic and non-public schools in a coronavirus relief bill currently being negotiated.

Barr is scheduled to receive the Christifideles Laici award, which is named for St. John Paul II’s post-synodal exhortation. The award is given “in honor and gratitude for fidelity to the church, exemplary selfless and steadfast service in the Lord’s vineyard.”