The Catholic bishops of the United States will elect their next president and vice president on Tuesday in Baltimore. The vote serves as a measure of the bishops’ priorities, and hinges on whether they choose an outspoken culture warrior as their next leader.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as a whole has often been at odds with Pope Francis’ approach. His successor, Pope Leo XIV continues A similar pastoral focus on the marginalized, poverty and the environment.
Half of the ten candidates on the ballot come from the conservative wing of the conference. The difference is more in style than substance. Most Catholic bishops in the United States are reliably conservative on social issues, but some are more focused on opposing abortion and gay rights.
“The list of 10 candidates perfectly reflects the dynamics of the American hierarchy in that it is split down the middle,” said David Gibson, director of the Center for Religion and Culture at Fordham University.
There is no clear contestant. The candidates were nominated by their fellow bishops, and the winner will succeed the outgoing leader, Archbishop of the Military Services Timothy Broglio, for a three-year term. The current vice president, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, is too close to the mandatory retirement age of 75 to hold the top job.
Among conservatives eyeing the leadership, Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley is seen as a strong contender, having already been elected in 2022 to serve as secretary, the conference’s No. 3 official.
Coakley serves as an advisor to the Napa Institute, an association of conservative Catholic power brokers. In 2018, he publicly supported an ardent critic of Pope Francis. Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganòwho was later excommunicated for dissent.
One well-known name on the ballot is Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota, whose famous “Word Around the Fire” ministry made him a Catholic media star. Serving as President Donald Trump Religious Freedom CommissionWith another candidate, Bishop Kevin Rhodes of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana.
Some Catholic insiders hope for a leader who can help unite the American bishops and work well with the Vatican. They point to contenders such as Archbishop Charles Thompson of Indianapolis and Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas.
As Latinos, Flores and another candidate, Archbishop Nelson Perez of Philadelphia, represent a growing segment of the American Catholic Church. Flores was also the leader of the United States bishops in the United States Vatican Synod Process To modernize the church.
“Certainly the two names that are talked about the most are Flores and Coakley,” said Stephen Millis, professor of public theology at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
Flores has an “ideologically unusual perspective,” according to Melez. From his diocese along the US-Mexico border, he is traditional in his sexual morals and outspoken in his defense of immigrants.
The bishops plan to discuss immigration during the meeting. On many issues, they appear as divided and polarized as their country, but on immigration, even the most conservative Catholic leaders are on the side of immigrants.
The question is how aggressively the entire body plans to speak out about the Trump administration’s harsh immigration tactics.
Fear of immigration enforcement He suppressed mass attendance in some parishes. Local clergy struggle to administer the sacraments to detained immigrants. The Catholic bishops in the United States have already closed their long-standing relationships Refugee resettlement programme After the Trump administration halted federal funding for resettlement aid.
Pope Leo recently called for “deep reflection” in the United States on this topic Treatment of immigrants Detained, saying that “a lot of people who have lived for years and years and years, and never caused problems, are deeply affected by what is happening now.”
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