At fall meeting, US Catholic bishops turn toward Pope Francis’ agenda

BALTIMORE (RNS) — After years of complaints that they have ignored Pope Francis’ teachings in their biannual meetings, the U.S. Catholic bishops’ fall meeting this week seemed to make up for lost time, discussing the pope’s 2015 environmental encyclical “Laudato Si’,” and his more recent declaration “Dignitas Infinita,” on human dignity, as well as migration, a core interest of the pope, and a key issue in the 2024 presidential campaign. 

On Tuesday (Nov. 12), the first day of the public sessions, the bishops dove deep on synodality, the topic of the just-concluded three-year-long synod, which Francis called with the aim of engaging Catholics at every level of the church in dialogue.

The topic prompted unusually lively engagement from the floor as bishops discussed how to implement the theological posture of listening and discernment in their dioceses.

After years of conservative fears that the synod would bring radical change, Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, a synod delegate often seen as sympathetic to that camp, told reporters at a news conference, “It’s about culture change, not necessarily structure change or not necessarily canonical changes.”

Brownsville Bishop Daniel Flores, who led the synod process in the U.S., told his fellow bishops in a presentation that it should be possible to both “be strengthened in our witness to the faith we have received from the apostles” as well as to “make every effort to welcome the poor, the wounded, those who struggle with our teaching.” He told reporters that genuine listening “to understand from the perspective of the one who speaks” could help the U.S. church move past polarization.

In implementing synodality, however, he said in his presentation,“each diocese in this country has its unique history and organizational habits, so the move towards implementation will have a decidedly local impetus. The priorities that emerge in one diocese may differ from those in a neighboring diocese.”

The bishop emphasized, “If it does not reach the parishes, it hardly reaches the people of God.”

Archbishop William Lori, right, speaks alongside Bishop Daniel Flores, center, and Maura Moser at a press conference during the fall meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. (RNS photo/Aleja Hertzler-McCain)

But San Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy, speaking from the floor of the bishops’ public meeting on Tuesday, proposed that the conference launch a national task force for implementing synodality. Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich and Newark, New Jersey, Cardinal Joseph Tobin both supported the idea, as did the majority of bishops in a voice vote.

The presentation on “Laudato Si’,” a central document approaching its 10-year anniversary next year, was notable because the bishops have previously sidelined Francis’ environmental teaching. In 2021, a research team from Creighton University found that in diocesan media, the U.S. bishops were largely silent on “Laudato Si’” and that when they did mention the environmental teaching, they often undermined it.

Wednesday’s presentation on environmental teaching was the first such discussion at the USCCB’s national meetings since a brief presentation after the encyclical’s release nine years ago. When Francis released “Laudate Deum,” a follow-up to “Laudato Si’,” a year ago, it was nowhere to be found on the bishops’ agenda.

“Our efforts around Laudato Si’ need not be weighed down by many new programs and tasks; rather, Laudato Si’ can be integrated into our core mission of evangelization,” said Metropolitan Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, the conference’s chair of domestic justice and human development.

“When it comes to religiously disaffiliated or unaffiliated youth, care for creation is especially potent because it speaks to both the path of justice and the path of beauty,” Gudziak said. “Young people are drawn to the environment. They know its importance for them and for future generations.”

Evangelizing religiously unaffiliated people, especially young adults and youth, was adopted by the conference at the meeting as their new “mission directive” — the strategic focus of the U.S. bishops’ and their staff through 2028.

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But the bishops also looked at how “Laudato Si’” could find its way into existing Catholics’ piety and practice. Gudziak suggested bishops should implement pilgrimages, Masses and preaching focused on creation, and suggested renewing the tradition of abstaining from meat on Fridays throughout the year, a practice that was revived in England and Wales in 2011.

Citing the environmental benefits of abstinence from meat, Gudziak said, “A return to Friday abstinence would be good for the soul and for the planet, maybe for something else, uniting our devotion to the Lord and reverence for the Lord’s creation.”

After the presentation, the bishops, seated at tables of about five, considered how to mark the 10th anniversary of “Laudato Si’” in their dioceses and at the USCCB level, as well as the connection between the anniversary and the mission directive to evangelize unaffiliated people.

Pope Francis, center, poses with participants at the second session of the 16th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in the Paul VI Hall, at the Vatican, Oct. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Also on Wednesday, the bishops listened to a presentation on “Dignitas Infinita,” a declaration issued in April, where Francis spoke against a host of “violations of human dignity,” from poverty, war and difficulties faced by migrants and the victims of human trafficking and sexual abuse to abortion, surrogacy, euthanasia and assisted suicide, the marginalization of disabled people and gender transition.

Led by Bishops Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota; Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia; and Thomas Daly of Spokane, Washington, the presentation homed in on abortion, euthanasia and gender identity and their impact in Catholic education.

Barron, who heads the bishops’ committee on laity, marriage, family life and youth, encouraged the bishops to be bold about Catholic teaching, especially in the face of celebrities who advocate differently. “I think we have been too hand-wringing. We have been too apologetic for too long,” he said, attributing rising depression and suicidal ideation among young people to “a loss of moral mooring.”

He highlighted the declaration’s teaching that sexual difference is “the greatest possible difference that exists between living beings,” and said the committee will add toolkits on gender to its Love Means More website.

Burbidge emphasized the declaration’s passages on abortion and euthanasia, pointing to efforts to support women to avoid abortion such as the Walking with Moms in Need parish initiative, a program that encourages Catholics to pray with and provide resources for mothers in need.

“Our defense of the lives of pre-born children necessitates our commitment to serve and support their mothers before and every birth. Because we are for every woman. We are for every child. We love every mother. We love every child,” Burbidge said.

Many observers closely watched the Baltimore meeting for signs of resolution to an earlier backlash to the conference leadership’s decision to restructure the bishops’ anti-poverty program, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, as well as the department that housed it, Justice, Peace & Human Development. The decision to institute layoffs shortly after the bishops’ June meeting, where some bishops mounted a spirited defense of CCHD, had outraged some in the body.

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Bishop Timothy Senior said that, at the request of the bishops, the program had increased its spending to support those experiencing poverty, including through the pandemic, despite a decrease in collections from the pews to support CCHD.

Senior said because of the financial situation, the bishops had instituted the layoffs, a reduction in grants and the broader restructuring of the department, as CCHD had helped fund it.

On Saturday, the subcommittee for CCHD met and approved 93 grants totaling nearly $2.3 million to community organizations across the country, he said.

Despite bishops’ earlier criticism of the layoffs and questioning the financial rationale for the decision, Senior’s presentation prompted no comments from the floor. Santa Fe, New Mexico, Archbishop John Wester, who penned an outraged opinion piece on the layoffs in early July, told RNS he had to miss the meeting to officiate a funeral. Several other bishops did not respond to requests for comment from RNS after the presentation.

The yearly CCHD reception, where the committee recognizes a young adult working against poverty and injustice with the Cardinal Bernardin New Leadership Award, like the criticism of the decision, also seemed to disappear into thin air.

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The meeting, held in the shadow of fears about President-elect Donald Trump’s promise of mass deportations, ended Wednesday with a presentation from El Paso, Texas, Bishop Mark Seitz, who said his committee on migration was launching an education campaign to “help reshape the national narrative on migration.”

After conducting focus groups on attitudes toward immigrants, Seitz said a key finding was that “the clergy continues to have a strong moral voice to which the laity listens, and consistent and intentional teaching from church leaders can significantly impact public opinion.”

Seitz requested that bishops set up meetings between their priests and seminarians and a representative from the conference’s migration and refugee services to speak about how to better address the issue.

The migration presentation received an enthusiastic response from the floor, with many bishops speaking in support.

“There is a lot of fear in our people,” Seattle Auxiliary Bishop Eusebio Elizondo said.

Orange, California, Auxiliary Bishop Thanh Thai Nguyen spoke about his experience being resettled by Catholics after coming to the U.S. from Vietnam as a refugee. “I wanted to express my deep appreciation to all your work and pray for the (continuation) of that work.”

Seitz told him, “You and so many like you have really made us proud, proud as Americans, proud as Catholics, proud as the church in the United States.”