A Serious Man
New York cardinal Timothy Dolan was straight-faced while telling Fox’s Maria Bartiromo in December that Donald Trump “takes his Christian faith seriously.” This would have been news to anyone who’s paid attention to Trump the past several decades. Bartiromo then opined that Trump’s narrow miss from a would-be assassin’s bullet last summer could only have been “God’s work.” No argument from Dolan. Instead, he folksily recalled the story of Ronald Reagan telling John Paul II that Mother Teresa said he’d survived his own near-assassination because “the Lord has somethin’ special in mind for me.” Punchline: John Paul II then told Reagan that she said the same thing to him after he was shot. The schtick was familiar to anyone who’s followed Dolan over the years.
A few weeks later, Dolan delivered the invocation at Trump’s inauguration. He made no mention of the president’s religious commitment or of God’s granting him a second term (Trump addressed this later himself). It might have been tough to square with the new administration’s early actions: activating mass-deportation plans, canceling appointments for asylum seekers at the border, moving to end birthright citizenship, pardoning January 6 rioters, and pulling out (again) from the Paris Agreement on climate change. It was good to see Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, leader of the Episcopal diocese in Washington, broach some of these developments at the next day’s inaugural prayer service, where she directly implored Trump to “have mercy” on the people likely to be harmed by his measures.
Trump’s return to office coincides with the arrival of Cardinal Robert McElroy as the new leader of the Washington archdiocese. Pope Francis’s decision to move McElroy from San Diego to the seat of the U.S. government at this time is a good one. There is reason to think that he might serve as a moral counterexample to the new administration and thus a source of hope for those rightfully alarmed about its agenda. McElroy is a serious man, noted for his scholarship in politics and theology as well as his steady, pastoral demeanor. He is capable of articulating the Catholic Christian imperatives of governing and issuing necessary reminders that Catholic faith and identity are not reducible to political beliefs. The obligation to work for the common good, he consistently points out, involves much more than simply opposing abortion. He has shown good sense and admirable courage in pushing back against fellow bishops who would withhold Communion from politicians they find insufficiently committed to making abortion illegal. He is on the record cautioning Trump about mass deportation and has repeatedly declared it “incompatible with Catholic doctrine.” He has supported Pope Francis in advancing synodality and emphasizing the need to address climate change—topics he returned to in addressing his new archdiocese in January. That archdiocese, like many others, faces demographic, financial, and administrative challenges. But McElroy is considered a capable executive and well suited to his new position.
McElroy once authored a book on the work of John Courtney Murray, whose many “reflections on the American proposition” include the observation that democracy “is more than a political experiment; it is a moral and spiritual enterprise. And its success depends on the virtue of the people who undertake it.” Virtue, never to be found in excess in the U.S. capital, is uniquely rare at this moment. McElroy could use the vocal and spiritual support of more of his fellow bishops—which has not been very forthcoming so far—in reminding the country of the virtues that the American enterprise is built on. His new job is bound to be a demanding one. It shouldn’t be a lonely one as well.
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