I don't know if +Cdls. Cupich, Tobin and McElroy's memo was an attempt to subtly muddle the "preeminence" waters by listing immigration alongside abortion and euthanasia. But their record of walking on the border of heterodoxy, if not crossing it, makes me skeptical of any suggested higher motive. And I certainly don't think this helps US bishops' unity (see "Eucharistic coherence"), which I believe at least +Cdl. Cupich used to value greatly.
In fairness, I think +Cupich is out on a limb much more than Cardinals Tobin or McElroy. Notably, none of them came to +Cupich's defense when he was going to give Dick Durbin a lifetime achievement award. I don't like the way +Tobin has run the Archdiocese of Newark at all. I think he has a big heart, is pastoral, and is strong on the pro-life cause. But he's taken an Archdiocese that already had some of the most highly publicized scandals in the country and done....nothing. He does a lot of "listening" but very little in the way of action. There are expensive investigations about investigations (I'm not even remotely kidding). +Tobin named Monsignor Joseph Reilly as president of Seton Hall University despite recommendations, which the university adopted, that he be removed from school boards and the leadership position he held at the time because a 2019 report prepared by uber expensive law firm Latham Watkins concluded Monsignor Reilly knew of abuse allegations against a member of the clergy when he was rector at Immaculate Conception Seminary (affiliated with Seton Hall) and failed to report the accusations. In February +Tobin announced an investigation by another law firm into it. The Archdiocese of Newark is very good at making lawyers rich. I know and have worked with some of them. But do not despair! This just reinforces what Hillaire Belloc famously said: "The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine – but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight." I like to think Mr. Belloc was prescient and thinking of the Archdiocese of Newark when he made that statement 120 or so years ago.
Considering the cloud of sexual scandal following his own conduct, I hardly expect +Tobin to to go hard on investigations of sexual misconduct (see "Francesco Castiglione"). +McElroy may be even more unambiguously heterodox on homosexual matters. Considering that they were all appointed by +Francis, whose own pattern of coddling sex offenders is a scandal in its own right, it's certainly a demoralizing sight.
That's not to say they don't have a right to speak out on issues, or to govern. But being so badly wrong, on faith and morals as well as governance, makes it naturally hard to take them seriously on other matters.
As soon as I saw "[t]hree U.S. cardinals" I knew: +McElroy, +Tobin and +Cupich (sounds like a law firm). Prominent members of the episcopate releasing statements like this undercuts the credibility of the bishops and the Church in America when 48 hours after issuing the statement the tariff threats are pulled and the president walked back the perceived threat to take Greenland by force. As I said in a comment on another article, not everything that happens in American politics warrants public commentary or critique from the episcopate.
The main thing I want from bishops, priests, and laity is a sense that our religion influences our politics, not the other way around. When do we boldly repeat church teaching like a biblical prophet, and when do we hem and haw about prudential judgment and complex realities--does it neatly align with a partisan political perspective? Does it feel like less of a betrayal to attack a bishop who calls out your side than to attack a politician on your side who runs afoul of Church teaching? Politics has always been totalizing and existential, but it feels like it's gotten worse with social media.
To repeat a phrase I have written in these comments before, we have rendered unto Caesar the things that are God's. I want to know that when a churchman preaches about politics, what I hear is a reflection of who he worships, not who he voted for.
Does anyone actually read and follow "Faithful Citizenship" anyway? I'm pretty capable of making my own moral and political decisions without needing bishops to tell me how to vote, or even how to go about deciding who to vote for. I also don't recall my Catholic parents ever needing to go look at whatever the US Bishops had to say before they went to the polls.
I've read it! And yes, done my best to follow it. It didn't say "who to vote for".
In terms of usefulness, I found some parts helpful and some parts seemed so vague as to not me that insightful, or just repetitive of stuff I already knew - but that's always going to be true of a document written for a broad audience.
The people I see reading it usually seem to be new to Catholicism and trying to follow all the Catholic teachings correctly. I read it once a few years ago and like you I found a lot of it either vague or just telling me stuff I already knew.
Ok but consider the American catholic catechetical experience for the last 40 years - perhaps the stuff you already know isn’t as well known as it seems to you 🤷🏽♀️
Realizing we are politically homeless has its sad aspects (it doesn't speak all that well for where our country's headed, to be sure) but it's ever so freeing, for those who want to be freed.
Some days, I think Catholics have a masochistic streak, as they appear to yearn to live in a state of oppression. I find no other explanation for the actions of clerics who reflexively criticize America-first policy while they are faced with enormous political and social problems across the globe. America continues to be a model of freedom and a testament to the foresight of our ironically protestant forefathers. Before criticizing the administration, the bishops would be wise to note which party is aligned with those who would like to tear down our system of government and culture. They also should recognize that we continue to be one of the most charitable nations of citizens who attend church more regularly than an almost any other Western country. If the US falls, there is not much else left except oppression and misery. (Please let’s discuss current Europe if you disagree.)
With all of this in mind, the positions of the bishops on social justice should be examined more closely. We are told that immigration enforcement is generally bad, as it is not welcoming. However, let’s do a thought experiment. What if we welcomed the masses of the world without limit? What happens to our political structure and our social networks? They all collapse and we become like the nations from which those individuals immigrated. Then, what happens to our charity? What happens to our freedom including that of religion? This is a fine outcome if you have the leanings of a 3rd world dictator, but it is repulsive to most US citizens. To say welcome the immigrant, without reservation – is simplistic and only looks at first order effects. It would be far better for the bishops to push for social justice in the dysfunctional countries from which these individuals originate.
On a higher level, charity cannot be legislated, despite the pleadings of the USCCB. Forced charity by the government becomes theft to one and entitlement to the other. Only charity freely given transforms the soul of the charitable and engenders gratitude to God on the part of the recipient. Forced charity by law supplants the role of God with the state in this process. And we are amazed at the rates of atheism in socialistic Europe? If we are to be good, if we are to be free, if we are to remain Christian – we also need to remain a strong nation with Western ideals. It baffles me that the bishops do not seem to recognize this.
"Before criticizing the administration, the bishops would be wise to note which party is aligned with those who would like to tear down our system of government and culture."
With all respect, please stop the Hannity talking points on the Pillar. Some of us graduated college my friend. Instead of attacking those who vote for healthcare, the poor and climate change how about we simply focus on Pope Leo’s view on the humanistic side of an issue. We already know what monied interest paid tv entertainers to tell you.
Ps- these threads don’t end well so I won’t respond to any comments for the good of the community. Just know Pope Leo has had enough of hate and division and nobody in Washington seems able to man up. The Templars are back and Leo is leading the way.
The unjust and uncharitable attack on those who didn’t get a bachelors degree is really really gross. Like you need a formalized institution to be intelligent and or educated and or a well catechized catholic.
Please stop coming into every comment thread like this. State your arguments without ad hominems or don’t state them at all. Beating people with the truth is not a conversion technique Christians should be using.
Janus, you responded similarly on another thread, mentioning your education and later, your financial means. You need to think about why you are bringing up personal characteristics that have no relevance to the topic. --- Your value extends far beyond these. --- I think you are buying into a false media narrative that only poor, dumb, uneducated people support the administration. For good or bad, I am none of these. In fact, I graduated with degrees from college multiple times.
I challenge you to defend your ideas if you think they have worth. If it is difficult, keep working at it; keep thinking about it. Maintain an open mind to the thoughts of others too. However, do not diminish your own value as a person by hiding behind some characteristic of dubious importance.
That vision of USA doesn’t exist today in 2026. The president just brought us to the brink of a war with NATO. Obama was a hawk against Putin and so was Hillary. I would say being tough on Putin is more in line with the spirit of our blessed mother’s apparitions at Fatima. 47 and parts of GOP seem to be “in line” with the menace from the east with the hammer and the sickle. Whatever good the Republican Party once had they have no more. The Democrats are bad and one is to stay away from them as well, but even they do not rise to the level of betraying this country and its people to this depth and degree.
I begin with the words from Pope Leo to American Catholics in Indianapolis on November 21, 2025: “Please be careful not to use political categories to speak about faith, to speak about the church. The church does not belong to any political party, rather she helps form your conscience so you can think and act with wisdom and love.” This as you know is a citation from the Church’s constitution Gaudium et spes. You speak of a shift that would require demanding more of lay Catholics when you write: “It would also involve demanding more of lay Catholics’ exercise of civil responsibility than simple voting.” While those demands are many, Leo cites the main demand, the task ahead: the people of God are to form their consciences with the assistance of the Church so they can decide and act for themselves with wisdom and love.
Oh my gosh shepherds calling out both sides equally and catechizing the faithful about flawed positions slash correct teaching on those positions regardless of “whose side” says them?!?!
Where do I sign? How do I donate?!? I’ve been willing to kill puppies for this FOR TWENTY PLUS YEARS (my adulthood lol)
I’ve been politically homeless as a catholic since my first presidential election I could participate in in 2004 and i would be so grateful if my shepherd would join us in the “there is no good side” abyss 🤣
Your willingness to engage in animal sacrifice is noted. ;)
Admittedly, I'd be willing to do a lot if the united US bishops would publish a complete catechesis on marriage and sexual ethics less than 10 pages long and spread it among Catholics relentlessly. I'll leave the specifics of "a lot" unstated.
LOL. My family doesn't use that precise expression, but I do enjoy absurdist hyperbole as well as puppies. Unfortunately I also enjoy the humor of absurdist precision, and would like to point out that loving puppies and offering them as animal sacrifice can be performed by the same person.
I've voted for the person who won precisely once in all these years...and in retrospect that clearly wasn't the best of my choices, even if it also wasn't the worst.
The moral calculus and hazards of voting have approximately nothing to do with the effect of our vote on the outcome (we all have just one vote among millions, yes?), and everything to do with the effect on us.
One prime concern is that once we decide to vote for a lesser evil, most of us prove incapable, most of the time, of continuing to see the evil for what it is. We come to own "our" guy. (How bad could he really be, after all, if *we* voted for him?) We have a side. And we will have an instinctive impulse to justify, excuse, and defend them, on just about everything, against just about anyone.
And clerics are not immune from any of that either. (Less immune, when they rise to positions where they get to be buddies with mid- to high-level politicos.)
*waves in American Solidarity Party* if I'm a prominent member of the ASP reading this, I'm doing everything I can to begin making overatures to the bishops, as it's a party every Catholic can quickly & easily get behind.
It would be great if ASP was a major party (it ain’t happening), but even if it were, the history of explicitly Catholic parties is not great.
I’m sure someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d think Germany’s CDU is the most successful, and at this point that’s just a pretty standard center-right party that does nothing to strengthen Catholicism in the country.
The Republican sycophants will be in the comments any minute now
I don't know if +Cdls. Cupich, Tobin and McElroy's memo was an attempt to subtly muddle the "preeminence" waters by listing immigration alongside abortion and euthanasia. But their record of walking on the border of heterodoxy, if not crossing it, makes me skeptical of any suggested higher motive. And I certainly don't think this helps US bishops' unity (see "Eucharistic coherence"), which I believe at least +Cdl. Cupich used to value greatly.
In fairness, I think +Cupich is out on a limb much more than Cardinals Tobin or McElroy. Notably, none of them came to +Cupich's defense when he was going to give Dick Durbin a lifetime achievement award. I don't like the way +Tobin has run the Archdiocese of Newark at all. I think he has a big heart, is pastoral, and is strong on the pro-life cause. But he's taken an Archdiocese that already had some of the most highly publicized scandals in the country and done....nothing. He does a lot of "listening" but very little in the way of action. There are expensive investigations about investigations (I'm not even remotely kidding). +Tobin named Monsignor Joseph Reilly as president of Seton Hall University despite recommendations, which the university adopted, that he be removed from school boards and the leadership position he held at the time because a 2019 report prepared by uber expensive law firm Latham Watkins concluded Monsignor Reilly knew of abuse allegations against a member of the clergy when he was rector at Immaculate Conception Seminary (affiliated with Seton Hall) and failed to report the accusations. In February +Tobin announced an investigation by another law firm into it. The Archdiocese of Newark is very good at making lawyers rich. I know and have worked with some of them. But do not despair! This just reinforces what Hillaire Belloc famously said: "The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine – but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight." I like to think Mr. Belloc was prescient and thinking of the Archdiocese of Newark when he made that statement 120 or so years ago.
Considering the cloud of sexual scandal following his own conduct, I hardly expect +Tobin to to go hard on investigations of sexual misconduct (see "Francesco Castiglione"). +McElroy may be even more unambiguously heterodox on homosexual matters. Considering that they were all appointed by +Francis, whose own pattern of coddling sex offenders is a scandal in its own right, it's certainly a demoralizing sight.
That's not to say they don't have a right to speak out on issues, or to govern. But being so badly wrong, on faith and morals as well as governance, makes it naturally hard to take them seriously on other matters.
As soon as I saw "[t]hree U.S. cardinals" I knew: +McElroy, +Tobin and +Cupich (sounds like a law firm). Prominent members of the episcopate releasing statements like this undercuts the credibility of the bishops and the Church in America when 48 hours after issuing the statement the tariff threats are pulled and the president walked back the perceived threat to take Greenland by force. As I said in a comment on another article, not everything that happens in American politics warrants public commentary or critique from the episcopate.
This feels like a post where JD's oft-repeated admonition to be charitable in the comments will be needed sooner rather than later.
Same. Gonzo and I will meet you at the finale.
The main thing I want from bishops, priests, and laity is a sense that our religion influences our politics, not the other way around. When do we boldly repeat church teaching like a biblical prophet, and when do we hem and haw about prudential judgment and complex realities--does it neatly align with a partisan political perspective? Does it feel like less of a betrayal to attack a bishop who calls out your side than to attack a politician on your side who runs afoul of Church teaching? Politics has always been totalizing and existential, but it feels like it's gotten worse with social media.
To repeat a phrase I have written in these comments before, we have rendered unto Caesar the things that are God's. I want to know that when a churchman preaches about politics, what I hear is a reflection of who he worships, not who he voted for.
Does anyone actually read and follow "Faithful Citizenship" anyway? I'm pretty capable of making my own moral and political decisions without needing bishops to tell me how to vote, or even how to go about deciding who to vote for. I also don't recall my Catholic parents ever needing to go look at whatever the US Bishops had to say before they went to the polls.
I've read it! And yes, done my best to follow it. It didn't say "who to vote for".
In terms of usefulness, I found some parts helpful and some parts seemed so vague as to not me that insightful, or just repetitive of stuff I already knew - but that's always going to be true of a document written for a broad audience.
The people I see reading it usually seem to be new to Catholicism and trying to follow all the Catholic teachings correctly. I read it once a few years ago and like you I found a lot of it either vague or just telling me stuff I already knew.
Ok but consider the American catholic catechetical experience for the last 40 years - perhaps the stuff you already know isn’t as well known as it seems to you 🤷🏽♀️
We stopped teaching *so* many things because everybody already knew them.
And then it turns out, nobody knew them 🤷🏽♀️
Realizing we are politically homeless has its sad aspects (it doesn't speak all that well for where our country's headed, to be sure) but it's ever so freeing, for those who want to be freed.
Some days, I think Catholics have a masochistic streak, as they appear to yearn to live in a state of oppression. I find no other explanation for the actions of clerics who reflexively criticize America-first policy while they are faced with enormous political and social problems across the globe. America continues to be a model of freedom and a testament to the foresight of our ironically protestant forefathers. Before criticizing the administration, the bishops would be wise to note which party is aligned with those who would like to tear down our system of government and culture. They also should recognize that we continue to be one of the most charitable nations of citizens who attend church more regularly than an almost any other Western country. If the US falls, there is not much else left except oppression and misery. (Please let’s discuss current Europe if you disagree.)
With all of this in mind, the positions of the bishops on social justice should be examined more closely. We are told that immigration enforcement is generally bad, as it is not welcoming. However, let’s do a thought experiment. What if we welcomed the masses of the world without limit? What happens to our political structure and our social networks? They all collapse and we become like the nations from which those individuals immigrated. Then, what happens to our charity? What happens to our freedom including that of religion? This is a fine outcome if you have the leanings of a 3rd world dictator, but it is repulsive to most US citizens. To say welcome the immigrant, without reservation – is simplistic and only looks at first order effects. It would be far better for the bishops to push for social justice in the dysfunctional countries from which these individuals originate.
On a higher level, charity cannot be legislated, despite the pleadings of the USCCB. Forced charity by the government becomes theft to one and entitlement to the other. Only charity freely given transforms the soul of the charitable and engenders gratitude to God on the part of the recipient. Forced charity by law supplants the role of God with the state in this process. And we are amazed at the rates of atheism in socialistic Europe? If we are to be good, if we are to be free, if we are to remain Christian – we also need to remain a strong nation with Western ideals. It baffles me that the bishops do not seem to recognize this.
"Before criticizing the administration, the bishops would be wise to note which party is aligned with those who would like to tear down our system of government and culture."
That would be both of them, friend.
Embrace the homelessness.
There is only one party who sued the Little Sisters of the Poor and the Sisters of Life.
With all respect, please stop the Hannity talking points on the Pillar. Some of us graduated college my friend. Instead of attacking those who vote for healthcare, the poor and climate change how about we simply focus on Pope Leo’s view on the humanistic side of an issue. We already know what monied interest paid tv entertainers to tell you.
Ps- these threads don’t end well so I won’t respond to any comments for the good of the community. Just know Pope Leo has had enough of hate and division and nobody in Washington seems able to man up. The Templars are back and Leo is leading the way.
Don't respond, then; just consider.
Were you more respectful than the person you replied to, or less respectful?
Were you more partisan than the person you replied to, or less partisan?
(Or perhaps, in one or both cases it was close enough as makes no difference?)
The unjust and uncharitable attack on those who didn’t get a bachelors degree is really really gross. Like you need a formalized institution to be intelligent and or educated and or a well catechized catholic.
Please stop coming into every comment thread like this. State your arguments without ad hominems or don’t state them at all. Beating people with the truth is not a conversion technique Christians should be using.
Janus, you responded similarly on another thread, mentioning your education and later, your financial means. You need to think about why you are bringing up personal characteristics that have no relevance to the topic. --- Your value extends far beyond these. --- I think you are buying into a false media narrative that only poor, dumb, uneducated people support the administration. For good or bad, I am none of these. In fact, I graduated with degrees from college multiple times.
I challenge you to defend your ideas if you think they have worth. If it is difficult, keep working at it; keep thinking about it. Maintain an open mind to the thoughts of others too. However, do not diminish your own value as a person by hiding behind some characteristic of dubious importance.
Touch the grass ... in Minneapolis.
That vision of USA doesn’t exist today in 2026. The president just brought us to the brink of a war with NATO. Obama was a hawk against Putin and so was Hillary. I would say being tough on Putin is more in line with the spirit of our blessed mother’s apparitions at Fatima. 47 and parts of GOP seem to be “in line” with the menace from the east with the hammer and the sickle. Whatever good the Republican Party once had they have no more. The Democrats are bad and one is to stay away from them as well, but even they do not rise to the level of betraying this country and its people to this depth and degree.
I begin with the words from Pope Leo to American Catholics in Indianapolis on November 21, 2025: “Please be careful not to use political categories to speak about faith, to speak about the church. The church does not belong to any political party, rather she helps form your conscience so you can think and act with wisdom and love.” This as you know is a citation from the Church’s constitution Gaudium et spes. You speak of a shift that would require demanding more of lay Catholics when you write: “It would also involve demanding more of lay Catholics’ exercise of civil responsibility than simple voting.” While those demands are many, Leo cites the main demand, the task ahead: the people of God are to form their consciences with the assistance of the Church so they can decide and act for themselves with wisdom and love.
That’s it. All is is secondary.
If we did more forming of and acting on our consciences in everyday life, probably voting wouldn't be quite so hard.
Oh my gosh shepherds calling out both sides equally and catechizing the faithful about flawed positions slash correct teaching on those positions regardless of “whose side” says them?!?!
Where do I sign? How do I donate?!? I’ve been willing to kill puppies for this FOR TWENTY PLUS YEARS (my adulthood lol)
I’ve been politically homeless as a catholic since my first presidential election I could participate in in 2004 and i would be so grateful if my shepherd would join us in the “there is no good side” abyss 🤣
Your willingness to engage in animal sacrifice is noted. ;)
Admittedly, I'd be willing to do a lot if the united US bishops would publish a complete catechesis on marriage and sexual ethics less than 10 pages long and spread it among Catholics relentlessly. I'll leave the specifics of "a lot" unstated.
Sorry I forget not everyone has as morbid sense of humor as my family where we use this expression to indicate hyperbole 🤣
Rest assured I do in fact love puppies, St Francis pray for us etc 😇
LOL. My family doesn't use that precise expression, but I do enjoy absurdist hyperbole as well as puppies. Unfortunately I also enjoy the humor of absurdist precision, and would like to point out that loving puppies and offering them as animal sacrifice can be performed by the same person.
St. Jude, pray for me!
My first presidential election was 1988.
I've voted for the person who won precisely once in all these years...and in retrospect that clearly wasn't the best of my choices, even if it also wasn't the worst.
The moral calculus and hazards of voting have approximately nothing to do with the effect of our vote on the outcome (we all have just one vote among millions, yes?), and everything to do with the effect on us.
One prime concern is that once we decide to vote for a lesser evil, most of us prove incapable, most of the time, of continuing to see the evil for what it is. We come to own "our" guy. (How bad could he really be, after all, if *we* voted for him?) We have a side. And we will have an instinctive impulse to justify, excuse, and defend them, on just about everything, against just about anyone.
And clerics are not immune from any of that either. (Less immune, when they rise to positions where they get to be buddies with mid- to high-level politicos.)
*waves in American Solidarity Party* if I'm a prominent member of the ASP reading this, I'm doing everything I can to begin making overatures to the bishops, as it's a party every Catholic can quickly & easily get behind.
It would be great if ASP was a major party (it ain’t happening), but even if it were, the history of explicitly Catholic parties is not great.
I’m sure someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d think Germany’s CDU is the most successful, and at this point that’s just a pretty standard center-right party that does nothing to strengthen Catholicism in the country.