Examining the role of Catholic bishops in the 2020 presidential race
In 2015, then-Vice President Joe Biden, who is a Roman Catholic, greeted Pope Francis upon his arrival in the United States. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
(OPINION) You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
It’s like being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
No good deed goes unpunished.
These are three clichés that we can all relate to. Life is made up of a series of decisions. As Americans prepare to decide who will be their next president this November, the Catholic hierarchy finds itself in a no-win situation.
Do they speak favorably of President Donald Trump, helping him potentially to win re-election, or do they lend a hand to Democratic challenger Joe Biden in trying to help the former vice president become just the second Catholic to ever serve as a U.S. president? Catholic leaders — be it the pope, cardinals, bishops or your local parish priest — don’t openly endorse candidates for political office.
There is a reason for that. The main reason is that it fosters division among a very large spectrum of people who are all part of the same denomination. IRS rules also forbid nonprofit institutions like churches from engaging in partisan politics — something some pastors avoid by saying they are speaking on behalf of themselves, not the church they represent.
While other Christian denominations see it as part of their mission to openly back a candidate (for example, evangelicals and Trump; African-American church leaders and Biden), Catholic prelates see an endorsement as something that could weaken the church’s own authority and belief system.
In other words, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t if you’re a Catholic leader.
Which brings us to Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York City. He was the target of outrage on the part of left-leaning Catholics for the way he spoke favorably of Trump following a phone call the president had with several U.S. bishops. Dolan, it should be noted, has also received abuse from the church’s right-wing cheering section for the way he’s handled the issue of gay priests.
Trump, on a call with bishops, called himself the "best [president] in the history of the Catholic Church.” In response, Dolan, during an appearance on Fox News Channel, said, “The president has seemed particularly sensitive to the religious community. I’m in admiration of his leadership.”
Depending on the issue, U.S. bishops have been at odds with Trump when it comes to immigration (so has Pope Francis), but have been largely happy with him on issues like abortion and the appointment of anti-abortion federal judges. Dolan, for example, in an op-ed in the New York Post last year, did attack New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for approving what he called “ghoulish radical abortion-expansion law.”
The National Catholic Reporter, in a recent editorial, expressed its frustrations with Dolan’s praise of Trump. This is what the editorial argues:
Without a whimper from any of his fellow bishops, the cardinal archbishop of New York has inextricably linked the Catholic Church in the United States to the Republican Party and, particularly, President Donald Trump.
It was bad enough that Cardinals Timothy Dolan of New York and Sean O'Malley of Boston, joined by Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez, currently also president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, participated in Trump's phone version of a campaign rally on April 25. With hundreds of others on the call, including Catholic educators, the bishops were once again masterfully manipulated. They previously gave Trump certain campaign footage when they delivered Catholics to his speech at the March for Life rally in Washington early in the year.
Now Trump will have Dolan's language from the call, telling everyone that he considers himself a "great friend" of Trump, for whom he expressed mutual admiration as "a great gentleman." The cardinal went on to say that he was "honored" to lead off the comments on the call.
The whole cringe-worthy exchange (yes, Trump did self-describe as "the best" president "in the history of the Catholic church") was made worse the next day when Dolan provided more campaign footage from inside St. Patrick's Cathedral in announcing that the president was "worshiping with us," purportedly livestreaming the Mass at the White House.
In People of Hope, a book-length conversation Dolan conducted with noted journalist John L. Allen, Jr. in 2012, the cardinal was quoted as saying: “My experience is that we bishops are actually fairly scrupulous in wanting to avoid any partisan flavor.”
While many Christian denominations are split along theological and ideological lines, the Roman Catholicism is a monolith, featuring members who span a large spectrum of opinion when it comes to hot-button issues such as gay marriage, immigration, abortIon, prison reform and religious freedom.
This divide has been seen in recent polling among Catholic voters. In February, a poll found that U.S. Catholics remain sharply polarized when it comes to both the president and church teachings. The survey conducted by EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research Poll, found that 47% of all Catholics approve of Trump’s job performance.
Practicing Catholics, like evangelicals, make up a very large chunk of Trump’s base. The poll found that among devout Catholics (those who regularly attend Mass), 63% approve of the president. The poll found that 59% of devout Catholics say plan to vote for Trump, while another 8% say there’s a very good chance they will do so come November. These numbers reflect a world before it was thrust into the grips of a pandemic, where houses of worship were shuttered across the country and debate over allowing people to become infected in an effort to save the economy became a religious debate.
Meanwhile, right-wing Catholic media has never looked favorably on Dolan. Last year, the website Church Militant blasted Dolan for not being tougher on pro-abortion politicians like Cuomo, specifically for not saying he would refuse giving communion to politicians, like Biden, who supports abortion.
That takes us back to the former Vice President. Biden was denied communion by a South Carolina priest in October 2019, a story that drew attention from both secular and Catholic media, in a state that would eventually propel him to the nomination.
Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law states: “Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.” In 2004, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (and future Pope Benedict XVI) wrote a memorandum to the U.S. bishops, explaining the application of Canon Law 915, saying, “The minister of Holy Communion may find himself in the situation where he must refuse to distribute Holy Communion to someone, such as in cases of a declared excommunication, a declared interdict or an obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin.”
As for Dolan and the other U.S. bishops, the next few months will be tough to navigate politically. They’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
Clemente Lisi is a senior editor and regular contributor to Religion Unplugged. He is the former deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and teaches journalism at The King’s College in New York City. Follow him on Twitter @ClementeLisi.