There’s a rift in the Catholic Church about how a leading church official welcomed President Biden to power.
Asked about the controversy, the new bishop in western Massachusetts appears to be choosing his words on the matter carefully.
On Wednesday morning, the archbishop of Los Angeles, José Gomez, released a statement as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Gomez said his prayers were with Biden and his family. He noted that Biden is the “first president in 60 years to profess the Catholic faith.”
“In a time of growing and aggressive secularism in American culture, when religious believers face many challenges, it will be refreshing to engage with a President who clearly understands, in a deep and personal way, the importance of religious faith and institutions,” Gomez wrote.
Gomez also said he “must point out” Biden “has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender.”
The statement led to a sharp rebuke from another top U.S. Catholic, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich.
“Today, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued an ill-considered statement on the day of President Biden’s inauguration,” Cupich said in a series of tweets Wednesday afternoon. “Aside from the fact that there is seemingly no precedent for doing so, the statement, critical of President Biden, came as a surprise to many bishops, who received it just hours before it was released.”
America, a Jesuit magazine, quoted an unnamed Vatican official that said Gomez’s letter was “likely to create even greater divisions” in the U.S. church. The Pillar, a Catholic news website, reported the statement was “debated hotly late into Tuesday evening,” also citing unnamed sources.
Asked for comment on Gomez’s letter and Cupich’s criticism, a spokesman for the Catholic Diocese in Springfield, Massachusetts, forwarded a statement from Bishop Bill Byrne.
"Archbishop Gomez's statement underscores the reality that the Church is not in the business of politics, we are in the business of truth,” said Byrne, who was installed in Springfield on December 14. “We preach the Gospel that is not ours but is from Jesus. It is both unerring and unchanging and cannot be tailored to suit this year‘s fashion. It must always and only be spoken in love."
The diocesan spokesman did not respond to a follow-up email and call seeking clarification on Byrne's statement.
