Current:Home > FinanceOusted Texas bishop rallies outside US bishops meeting as his peers reinforce Catholic voter values -ProfitEdge
Ousted Texas bishop rallies outside US bishops meeting as his peers reinforce Catholic voter values
View
Date:2025-04-14 18:06:40
BALTIMORE (AP) — Soon after U.S. bishops inside a Baltimore hotel approved materials on how Catholics should vote in 2024 elections, their recently ousted colleague and dozens of his supporters rallied outside the annual fall business meeting.
Bishop Joseph Strickland, a conservative cleric recently removed by Pope Francis as head of the diocese of Tyler, Texas, following his increasingly severe criticisms of the pontiff, prayed the rosary with dozens of supporters along the waterfront.
Inside their conference room, the bishops approved a document that didn’t say who Catholics should vote for, but rather how they should rely on the church’s teachings, like its anti-abortion and pro-immigrant stances, when making their ballot choices.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the top Catholic clergy body in America, approved supplements on Wednesday to its voter guide, which is known as “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.”
The materials, which include bulletin inserts and a video script, restate many longstanding positions of “Faithful Citizenship” but put a particular emphasis on some current issues. The bishops restate that opposition to abortion is “our pre-eminent priority,” call for school choice and parents’ right to protect their children from “gender ideology” and make a plea for the de-escalation of anger-driven politics.
U.S. Catholics are called to stand in “radical solidarity” with pregnant women. The document’s approval comes even as efforts to restrict abortion are expected to galvanize abortion rights supporters.
The guide also spells out examples on what it means to uphold human dignity, including rejecting gender transitions, racism, assisted suicide, euthanasia, the death penalty and an economy of exclusion that harms people. It says to support common-sense gun violence prevention, immigrants, refugees and criminal justice reform.
“The church is not simply a policy-making operation,” said Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, the USCCB vice president, in a press conference about the voter guide. “We are a full-service church. We are at the border. We are serving migrants in our dioceses.”
Outside the meeting’s last day of public sessions, Strickland, the ousted bishop, continued to make his presence known.
Strickland said he was asked not to attend the meeting by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, who as papal nuncio is Pope Francis’ diplomatic representative to the United States. Strickland said he wasn’t in Baltimore to start a movement, and he respected the Vatican’s decision: “The holy father has the authority to do what he’s done.”
Several supporters held signs voicing support for Strickland, including Mary Rappaport from Alexandria, Virginia, and Suzanne Allen from Westport, Connecticut. They traveled to Baltimore to stand with Strickland after his ouster.
“We’re in a spiritual battle. When the pope asked Bishop Strickland to resign, it was a wound to the whole church,” Allen said.
Rappaport thinks Strickland’s removal was a sign of greater issues, including that “this pope is trying to change the church in dangerous ways.”
Strickland supporters mentioned disagreeing with the pope’s focus on climate change and his moves to welcome LGBTQ+ Catholics.
Also on Wednesday, the bishops voted overwhelmingly to write a letter to Pope Francis in in support of naming the late 19th century Cardinal John Henry Newman a “doctor of the church” — an honorific for saints whose writings and theological contributions are deemed of great value.
Many U.S. Catholic student centers are named in honor of Newman, which Bishop William Byrne, a former college chaplain, pointed out. An affirmative vote sends the message that these young adult ministries are “an important part of our evangelization.”
Newman is revered by both Catholic liberals and conservatives, said Bishop Robert Barron of the Winona-Rochester diocese in Minnesota, who offered that a study of his writings “might heal some divisions in the church.”
___
Smith reported from Pittsburgh.
___
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
veryGood! (1)
Related
- The Louvre will be renovated and the 'Mona Lisa' will have her own room
- Sober October? Sales spike shows non-alcoholic beer, wine are on the drink menu year-round
- Coast Guard ends search for 3 missing Georgia boaters after scouring 94,000 square miles
- As the ‘Hollywood of the South,’ Atlanta has boomed. Its actors and crew are now at a crossroads
- Sarah J. Maas books explained: How to read 'ACOTAR,' 'Throne of Glass' in order.
- 6 of 9 deputies charged in death of man beaten in Memphis jail plead not guilty
- Why the number of sea turtle nests in Florida are exploding, according to experts
- Canadian fishing boat rescues American fisherman from missing vessel based in Washington state
- Meet first time Grammy nominee Charley Crockett
- Britney Spears reveals in new memoir why she went along with conservatorship: One very good reason
Ranking
- Will the 'Yellowstone' finale be the last episode? What we know about Season 6, spinoffs
- The economy surged 4.9% in the third quarter. But is a recession still looming?
- Americans face still-persistent inflation yet keep spending despite Federal Reserve’s rate hikes
- All you can eat economics
- Nearly 400 USAID contract employees laid off in wake of Trump's 'stop work' order
- 2 bodies found in Vermont were missing Massachusetts men and were shot in the head, police say
- 3 sea turtles released into their natural habitat after rehabbing in Florida
- Inside Tom Sandoval and Jax Taylor's Reconciliation Post-Vanderpump Rules Cheating Scandal
Recommendation
Meta releases AI model to enhance Metaverse experience
3 sea turtles released into their natural habitat after rehabbing in Florida
3 teens were shot and wounded outside a west Baltimore high school as students were arriving
How FBoy Island Proved to Be the Real Paradise For Former Bachelorette Katie Thurston
Juan Soto praise of Mets' future a tough sight for Yankees, but World Series goal remains
Brie Larson's 'Lessons in Chemistry': The biggest changes between the book and TV show
About 30 children were taken hostage by Hamas militants. Their families wait in agony
At least 32 people were killed in a multi-vehicle pileup on a highway in Egypt, authorities say