President Obama met recently with New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the US Catholic bishops’ conference, to discuss issues that have created tension between the administration and the Catholic hierarchy, reports The National Catholic Reporter.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops feels at odds with the Obama administration and Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia told students last week at Assumption College,”The America emerging in the next several decades is likely to be much less friendly to Christian faith than anything in our country’s past.”
“It’s not a question of when or if it might happen. It’s happening today.”
Some of the general items the bishops’ conference feel strongly about include
- a broader culture moving toward accepting gay marriage;
- a White House they often condemn as hostile to Catholic teaching; and
- state legislatures that church leaders say are chipping away at religious liberty.
In September, the conference formed a new committee on religious liberty which included hiring Anthony Picarello a lobbyist.
Recent events has seen the Bishops become more outspoken on preserving the religious identity of Catholic colleges and other institutions, and publicly calling out Catholic politicians and voters who don’t follow church teaching on abortion.
Scott Appleby, a prominent religious historian at the University of Notre Dame, says many church leaders have recently adopted “a more pugnacious style, much more of a kind of culture-wars attitude.”
At the same time, the bishops’ have been stung by their loss of public influence from the sex abuse crisis and the years of bruising revelations that many dioceses moved guilty clergy among parishes without alerting parents or police.
“The church no longer receives deference or the hands-off attitude that it once had for many years. That’s gone,” Appleby said.
The conference of US Catholic Bishops, yesterday, began its meeting in Baltimore.
Sources
- The National Catholic Reporter
- Washington Post
- Image: Lifesite news