The publication of "Laudato Si'" was a landmark moment in the fight against climate change.

Secular environmentalists were encouraged to see such a prominent global leader devote one of his most powerful tools to their cause. Many American Catholics hoped the encyclical would inspire their bishops to make climate change a priority.

Almost as soon as the document was published, however, the US bishops showed signs that they would largely ignore the pope's exhortation in their teachings and action.

In 2019, we began looking at the American bishops' writings to their flocks to see what they have said about climate change and "Laudato Si'" over the previous five years.

We asked: Did the American bishops faithfully communicate church teachings on climate change before and after "Laudato Si'"?

Our research shows clearly that US Catholic bishops' communications collectively diminished the impact of the encyclical on climate change.

Our study focused on ordinary bishops: those who lead a geographic segment of the Catholic Church known as a diocese.

We compiled 12,077 columns published by these bishops in the official publications for 171 of the 178 Catholic dioceses in the U.S. from June 2014 — one year prior to "Laudato Si'" — to June 2019.

The bishops' columns are not only a matter of personal viewpoints.

Bishops have a duty to share the fullness of faith, including church teaching on climate change, with their diocese.

They also oversee buildings and lands, school curricula, investments and advocacy that could be used to help mitigate the climate crisis.

Overall, American Catholic bishops have been overwhelmingly silent about climate change.

Of the 12,077 columns we studied, only 93 (0.8%) mention climate change, global warming or their equivalent at all.

Those 93 columns come from just 53 of the 201 bishops in our data set. The other 148 (74%) never mentioned climate change in their columns.

Secondly, when the bishops did mention climate change, they distanced themselves from church teaching on this issue: 44 of the 93 columns (47%) that mention climate change do not refer to church teaching on the issue.

Of the 49 columns that do, many fail to substantively communicate the contents of church climate change teaching.

In six columns, the bishop downplayed the pope's authority to teach about climate change.

In nine columns, the bishop minimized focus on climate change within the church's broader ecological teachings.

Additionally, 29 columns do not clearly convey the bishop's personal view about the teaching.

Since silence can be a form of climate change denial, readers could interpret their bishop's silence as disagreement — and license for dissent.

When the bishops did mention climate change, they downplayed the parts of "Laudato Si'" that conflict with a conservative political identity or ideology.

Because US political conservatives have a history of denying, ignoring and sowing doubt about climate change, it's reasonable to assume that many bishops — who are recognized as becoming increasingly aligned with the Republican Party politically — may have experienced tension between their political ideology and their duty to communicate church climate change teaching.

The bishops, after all, fall into other demographics besides being faith leaders: They are by and large older, white Catholics. In 2016, 47% of U.S. bishops who responded to a survey said the conservative Fox News Channel was their primary source of cable news.

According to a recent academic study, conservative U.S. Catholics "devalued the pope's credibility on climate change" after "Laudato Si'" and appeared more guided on the issue by political ideology than by the pope's teaching.

This political ideology holds that climate change is not really happening, not caused by humans or not urgent.

Conversely in "Laudato Si'," Francis reiterated 25 years of papal teaching from St John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI that human-caused climate change is real and pressing.

Yet only 56 of 12,077 bishops' columns (0.46%) describe climate change as real or happening. Only 14 columns (0.12%) affirm the scientific consensus about climate change.

Only 29 columns (0.24%) describe climate change as urgent.

In "Laudato Si'," Francis approvingly cited scholarly analysis that growth-based, deregulated capitalism is the predominant cause of climate change.

The American bishops, however, were nearly silent about the economic causes of climate change.

Fifty-four of the 56 columns (96%) that do discuss climate change as real or happening fail to describe its economic roots — a phenomenon known as "ideological denialism."

The bishops who made mention of climate change also deviated from Francis on what to do about it.

The church teaches that internal and external actions are complementary and that social justice is essential to Christian love.

In "Laudato Si´," Francis calls for internal action (e.g., prayer and education) and external action, including social justice (e.g., political advocacy).

However, the U.S. bishops who discussed climate change emphasized internal over external action and widely ignored public policies.

Of the 93 columns that refer to climate change, 73 (78%) mention internal action.

Only 36 columns (39%) mention any external environmental action.

Only nine columns (9.7%) name a particular climate change policy such as the Paris Agreement.

Bishops' relative silence on environmental politics is especially notable since they were not silent in their columns about politics around other social issues, such as abortion, that show up only rarely in "Laudato Si'."

While Francis mentioned climate change 24 times and abortion only once, the bishops mentioned both issues with equal frequency when discussing the encyclical.

Our findings do not definitively show that U.S. Catholic bishops' conservatism was the primary cause of their silence on climate change or skewed teachings around "Laudato Si'."

Additionally, individual bishops may have addressed climate change in their dioceses in ways other than writing columns.

Nevertheless, our data found that as group, U.S. Catholic bishops were silent, denialist and biased about climate change in their official diocesan publications around "Laudato Si'."

We especially found them to be so in ways that correlate with conservative political identity.

Our findings raise questions about whether U.S. Catholic bishops will embrace the Vatican's new Laudato Si' Action Platform.

Our findings also suggest the U.S. bishops are squandering opportunities to connect with youth and young adults who as a demographic prioritize climate change and are increasingly less affiliated with religion, including Catholicism.

Bishops' silence on climate policy raises serious questions about how many U.S. bishops will support Vatican advocacy for an international climate agreement at the 2021 U.N. Climate Change Conference, which begins Nov. 1.

The U.S. Catholic Church has unprecedented capacity to help avoid climate catastrophe.

It also has a responsibility to address the climate emergency as an essential part of its mission.

To realise this potential and fidelity, however, individual U.S. bishops must fulfill their duty to teach the fullness of faith that includes church teaching on climate change.

• Daniel R. DiLeo is an associate professor and director of the Justice and Peace Studies Program at Creighton University.
• Sabrina Danielsen is assistant professor of sociology at Creighton.
• Emily E. Burke is a doctoral student in the joint Sociology and Community & Environmental Sociology Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• This essay is adapted from their article published in Environmental Research Letters with support from Creighton and the Louisville Institute.
• First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

It will include a section regarding standards for politicians and public figures who support laws allowing abortion, euthanasia and other "moral evils."

The proposed document has already caused controversy. The Vatican has warned against exclusively focusing on abortion and euthanasia and cautioned that the document could further divide U.S. Catholics.

As a Catholic scholar of religion, I would argue that battles over Holy Communion are nothing new in the Catholic Church.

The importance of Holy Communion

In the Catholic Church, the Communion service is one of seven rituals called sacraments that have a primary significance. During this service, called a Mass, Catholics believe that the bread and wine, when especially blessed by a priest, become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Ritually consuming this bread and wine is a special way to "commune," or be united, with Jesus Christ.

Catholics call both the celebration of Mass and the blessed bread and wine the Eucharist, from the Greek word meaning "thanksgiving." Receiving Communion can also be called receiving the Eucharist.

The Catholic Church teaches that in order to receive Communion, a person must not be conscious of serious sin - such as murder or adultery - that has not already been absolved through confession to a priest.

In early Christianity, rules about receiving Communion could be strict. Christians who were known to be guilty of serious sins were not supposed to receive Communion until they went through a process of reconciliation with a local bishop.

In the Middle Ages, very few Catholics actually received Communion at all, as many believed that they were unworthy to do so.

The possibility of scandal

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Catholic Church encouraged a more frequent - even daily - reception of Communion.

Still, one of the main concerns surrounding Communion is that someone publicly known to be committing serious sins would receive Communion. Such cases create "scandal."

In the Catholic Church's terminology, scandal is "an attitude or behaviour which leads another to do evil." So, someone who accepts Communion while at the same time publicly continuing in sinful behaviour encourages others to continue to do the same as well.

When it comes to public policy, the compendium of Catholic doctrine, the Catholic Cathechism, specifically states, "they are guilty of scandal who establish laws or social structures leading to the decline of morals and the corruption of religious practice."

Denying Holy Communion

There is a history of the Catholic Church denying Communion to those participating in what is considered publicly sinful behaviour.

One of the most famous examples is of Ambrose, bishop of Milan, who baptized the theologian Augustine of Hippo, who later became one of the most influential figures in Christian history.

Ambrose denied Communion to the Roman Emperor Theodosius in the fourth century. Enraged by the lynching of a leader of a Roman army garrison, Theodosius gave orders that led to a massacre in the port city of Thessalonica, which killed 7,000 citizens. In a letter calling for Theodosius to take responsibility for his actions, Ambrose wrote, "Are you ashamed, O Emperor?"

From 1208 to 1214, Pope Innocent III asked his bishops to place England and Wales under "interdict," or "prohibition," which banned the performance of all sacraments - including the Eucharist - except for baptism and confession of the dying.

The reason for this extreme act was said to be that King John had rejected Innocent III's candidate for the important position of archbishop of Canterbury.

In the early 20th century, Irish bishops spoke against continuing acts of violence by Irish nationalists who opposed the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921, which established the Irish Free State and ended the Irish War of Independence.

In a letter published on 22 October 1922, the Irish bishops denied absolution and Communion to "irregulars" using violence against the "legitimate authority" of the government.

More recently, it was reported in 2011 that priests in Malta were denying Communion to Catholics who supported legalizing divorce.

In the United States, presidential candidate John Kerry was denied Communion in 2004, reportedly for his support for abortion rights. The same issue saw Joseph Biden denied Communion in 2019 by a church in South Carolina.

Holy Communion controversies

At the same time, the Catholic Church has also been questioned for not denying Communion to Catholic public figures who have behaved sinfully.

In his trip to Chile in 1987, Pope John Paul II criticized the military dictatorship under the Army General Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet led a revolt that toppled the elected government.

Thousands were tortured and executed under his rule. But the pope still gave Pinochet Communion.

When Pope John Paul II was beatified - a crucial step in becoming named a saint - Zimbabwe's ruler, Robert Mugabe, was in attendance.

Among many human rights abuses, Mugabe sanctioned the killing of 20,000 people belonging to the Ndebele ethnic minority who were loyal to his rival, Joshua Nkomo. Nonetheless, Mugabe was allowed to take Communion at the Vatican, in St. Peter's Square. Some in the African Catholic media called this a "scandal."

The path forward

Pope Francis has stated: "The Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak."

And so one of the key issues that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' proposed document will surely need to address is when human weakness becomes a serious sin and scandal.

While the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops will issue guidelines for the reception of Communion, it will be the task of individual bishops to decide how to put them into practice.

And some Catholic bishops, notably Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington D.C., have said they will not deny communion to President Biden in their jurisdictions.

At the present time, the Catholic Church in America is highly polarized. For his part, President Biden, who goes to Mass every week, has said that he has no plan to change how he worships.

In such a context, U.S. Catholic bishops will have to move forward very carefully.

• Mathew Schmalz Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross
• First published in The Conversation

The US bishops are drafting new guidance on the abortion-communion issue, which they expect to release in November.

Their decision to vote about this matter flouts a letter from the Vatican in May.

The letter explicitly urged the bishops to avoid the vote.

The decision also disregards Francis's pleas for them to de-emphasise culture war issues and expand the scope of their mission to climate change, migration and poverty.

The US bishops' vote resulted in a large majority - 168-55 - agreeing to begin drafting guidance on the sacrament of the Eucharist at the bishops' virtual meeting last Friday. Six bishops abstained from the process.

Although the guidance's details have not been divulged, it is assumed that conservative leaders in the U.S. church will use it as a vehicle to deny communion to prominent Catholics who support abortion rights. Biden is one such Catholic.

Church law, however, says for the bishops to pass a doctrinal declaration on banning communion, the conference needs either unanimous support - and at this stage not all US bishops are in agreement. The alternative is for the bishops to have two-thirds support and the Vatican's approval.

Vatican approval seems unlikely.

"It's not going to get to that point," says a senior Vatican official with knowledge of the thinking inside the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the church's doctrinal watchdog.

Biden, who attended Mass on Sunday (pictured) and was named several times during the bishops' debate, says whether he is allowed to receive holy communion is a "private matter".

He agrees with the Vatican that it's unlikely to happen.

The grave issue of Friday's vote is that it particularly threatens the unity of the American church itself.

"Bishops now want to talk about excluding people at a time when the real challenge before them is welcoming people back to the regular practice of the faith, and rebuilding their communities," Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich says.

Another critic, NCR's Michael Sean Winters takes particular aim at USCBC President Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez.

"If you look to Gomez for leadership, you are going to be severely disappointed.

"When he was named to Los Angeles in 2010, I held out hope that his pastoral instincts would triumph over the culture warrior attitudes of some of his colleagues. I was wrong.

"Gomez has led the bishops to this point.

"His inability to stand up to the bullies in the conference has crippled it.

"Now, this man who once said, 'There are no single-issue saints,' has allowed the conference to descend into a functional schism.

A Vatican spokesperson commented that Francis understood that only time would change the composition of the American Bishops conference and put the American church in alignment with Rome.

"There has to be a biological solution," he said.

"Francis has to wait for them to retire."

Source

• People
• National Catholic Reporter
• NY Times
• NCR
• Image: NY Times

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gómez, 67, was the conference's vice president, and in line with tradition where the vice president is elected president, there was little surprise when on Wednesday, he was elected on the first ballot.

When the results were announced, the room erupted in a standing ovation.

As well as the first Mexico-born US Bishops Conference president, Gómez is the first bishop elected to lead the conference to be associated with the very conservative and sometimes controversial Opus Dei.

Gómez however is considered a practical-minded conservative, and an outspoken advocate of a welcoming immigration policy that would include a path to citizenship for many immigrants living in the US illegally.

In August, after a gunman targeting Mexicans killed 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, Gómez condemned white supremacy, noting that Spanish was spoken in North America before English was, reports CNA.

"Men and women do not become less than human, less a child of God, because they are 'undocumented,'" Gómez wrote.

"Yet, in our nation, it has become common to hear migrants talked about and treated as if they are somehow beneath caring about."

Gómez, who has relatives and friends on both sides of the US-Mexico border, describes the situation surrounding the border and the Trump Wall as "tragedy".

"Our encouragement to elected officials is to find a good, solid immigration reform that allows people to move legally", he said responding to the border-suffering.

Humbled by the other US Bishops he calls his election, "A blessing for the Latino community."

"He's a man of faith," Doris Quinania, who attended the celebration with a group from St. Frances X. Cabrini in Los Angeles, describes Gómez as 'a man of faith who has a heart for all the poor, especially immigrants'.

Following the election of Gómez, the US bishops chose Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron, 71, as the new vice president.

By tradition, that puts Vigneron in line to become Conference president in three years, although, at that point, he would be close to the mandatory retirement age of 75.

Sources

• CNA
• Associated Press

The accused priest is from the Houston archdiocese which DiNardo leads.

DiNardo is also heading the Church's response to sexual misconduct in the US.

The intensifying investigation has raised questions about how DiNardo and his staff dealt with complaints against Fr Manuel La Rosa-Lopez.

La Rosa-Lopez is accused by two people of fondling them two decades ago when they were teenagers.

Both victims say they have met with DiNardo but felt he didn't take their complaints about La Rosa-Lopez seriously.

The County District Attorney, Brett Ligon, whose office conducted the search, says authorities were looking for employment records and disciplinary records related to La Rosa-Lopez and anything that might lead to the discovery of other potential crimes.

"This is not a search warrant against the Catholic Church," Ligon says.

"We're going to go wherever the investigation requires us to go."

The archdiocese issued a statement saying it was fully cooperating with the investigation and confirmed it holds "confidential documents kept in a secure manner for the protection of the privacy of individuals."

Prosecutors have also searched three other Catholic institutions around Houston:

• Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Conroe, where La Rosa-Lopez was assigned when the abuse allegedly occurred
• the Shalom Center in Splendora, where church officials acknowledged La Rosa-Lopez received treatment
• St John Fisher Catholic Church in Richmond, where La Rosa-Lopez was a priest until his arrest.

La Rosa-Lopez's attorney, Wendell Odom, says his client has denied the sexual abuse allegations.

He questioned why prosecutors conducted an on-site search instead of requesting documents through a subpoena, calling it "a little bit alarming."

Source

• America Magazine
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: America Magazine

The "Nuns on the Bus" are focusing on budget cuts proposed by House of Representatives budget committee chair Paul Ryan, a Catholic who has in the past expressed enthusiasm for the views of libertarian author Ayn Rand.

The nuns, a rotating crew of 14 sisters sponsored by the Catholic social justice lobby group Network, say Ryan's plans to cut spending on Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program would harm "people who are already suffering".

In their big, colourful bus, the nuns are attracting rock-band attention, with video crews from CNN, PBS, CBS and documentary makers following their path.

Since the bus tour dates overlap the US Conference of Catholic Bishops' "Fortnight of Freedom", some observers suggest the nuns aim to divert attention from the bishops' campaign.

This campaign, targeted mainly at President Obama's decision requiring most employers to provide health insurance that includes birth control, has been organised around liturgical feasts for martyred defenders of the faith.

It includes prayer vigils, rallies and other events to draw attention to what the bishops see as government attacks on religious freedom.

Independent advocacy groups such as CatholicVote.org and Women Speak For Themselves, have joined the effort with TV ads, videos, Facebook appeals and petition drives.

Sources

• CNS
• Deseret News
• Washington Post
• Nuns on the Bus
• Image: Nuns on the Bus

The slogan picks up on a long-standing evangelical Christian theme: the idea that government policies on a broad range of issues - including abortion and contraception, same-sex marriage, sex education in schools, and even anti-bullying programs that defend gay students - amount to un-American religious coercion. With the bishops' new "liberty'' initiative, the political partnership between the Catholic hierarchy and the largely Protestant religious right is more solid than ever.

It is no surprise that today's Catholic bishops are lining up with Republican aspirants for the White House. After all, these bishops were vociferous in objecting to President Obama's being honored at the University of Notre Dame in 2009; they worked against Obama's signature health care reform in 2010 (and might have succeeded if the Catholic Health Association's endorsement had not given swing-vote Catholic lawmakers cover to support the bill). In September, key bishops denounced federal regulations about the provision of contraception as "a radically new and unprecedented attack on religious freedom.'' This month, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, the conference president, warned the Obama administration that its refusal to stand behind the Defense of Marriage Act would "precipitate a national conflict between church and state of enormous proportions.''

But Catholic participation in this extremist counter-culture is uniquely risky. The Roman Catholic Church is the largest nongovernmental organization in the world, carrying out tremendous works of charity and justice across the globe. In the United States, church agencies like Catholic Charities, and institutions like hospitals and schools, are essential to the common good. A narrowly politicized American episcopate can gravely weaken the integrity of such outreach. Read more

• Source: The Boston Globe
• Image: Canterbury Tales

Dolan framed this central judgment clearly, publicly and graciously. It seems only appropriate, then to respond by citing his position and by indicating policies that might stand in need of further consideration.

In a July 7 letter to John E. Thiel, president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, Dolan wrote: "The document ["Doctrinal Responsibilities"] does not address the particular role of the USCCB Committee on Doctrine and its specific obligations. As you probably know, this document guides rather the work of individual diocesan bishops and does not presume to offer guidance to the bishops' Committee on Doctrine. That having been said, we bishops should always be mindful of improving the manner in which we engage theologians in a necessary discussion of their work."

I would offer the following reflections.

Certainly, "Doctrinal Responsibilities" makes no attempt to address the specific role of the Committee on Doctrine as such, but it necessarily touches upon its concerns insofar as it explores the proper functions of and the relationships between theologians and bishops (the magisterium) — both to encourage positive collaboration and to resolve any problematic areas.

[Jesuit Fr. Michael J. Buckley is professor emeritus of theology in the Department of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University.]

• Source: National Catholic Reporter
• Image: treehugger.com