NEW YORK (NY)
First Things
Nov. 19, 2019
By Philip Lawler
During the most significant debate of last week’s meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia rose to decry any suggestion that the American bishops are at odds with Pope Francis, “because that isn’t true.” That interpretation of the relationship between the U.S. and Rome “sets up an artificial battle between the bishops’ conference of the United States and the Holy Father which isn’t true,” he said. He rejected a brother bishop’s argument, based on that interpretation, “because it isn’t true.”
In the space of less than 30 seconds, Chaput said three times that a popular narrative “isn’t true.” Was he stating a fact, or voicing a plaintive hope? Or was he protesting too much?
The perception of tensions between the USCCB and the Roman pontiff might be traced back to the pope’s remarks during an in-flight interview in September, when he told a New York Times reporter: “For me it’s an honor that Americans attack me.” (To be fair, the pope was not then referring to the American bishops; he was speaking about a new book, How America Wants to Change the Pope, in which author Nicolas Seneze posits an American media campaign to subvert papal authority.) Father Antonio Spadaro, the pope’s close Jesuit adviser, has on several occasions complained that Americans are leading the opposition to the papal agenda.
Or the tensions could date back to last year’s USCCB meeting, when the Vatican intervened at the eleventh hour to stop the American bishops from voting to hold bishops accountable for negligence in handling sex-abuse complaints—and then hinted to reporters, inaccurately, that the American prelates had not given the Vatican proper notice of their plans.
Or the tensions could reflect the “great frustration” that Cardinal Sean O’Malley reported last week, as he told his fellow Americans that the Vatican was still not ready to produce a long-overdue explanation of Rome’s involvement in the rise of Theodore McCarrick.
Then, on the eve of the bishops’ meeting in Baltimore, the leadership of the USCCB felt compelled to issue a highly unusual negative appraisal of a book about the pope. Wounded Shepherd, by Austen Ivereigh, “perpetuates an unfortunate and inaccurate myth that the Holy Father finds resistance among the leadership and staff of the US bishops’ conference,” lamented the USCCB’s administrative board. It is noteworthy that the same book was reviewed favorably by the Vatican News Service.
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