Of Many Things

The bishops who prayed over Trump and apologized—and gave us a lesson in moral responsibility

by Sam Sawyer, S.J. October 27, 2026

Catholic bishops, with Jenny Korn, center left, and Paula White-Cain, center right, pray over President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, in Washington. Credit: Photo via Facebook/Paula White-Cain Illustration: America Media

On Oct. 22, a group of 12 U.S. Catholic bishops who had been meeting with the White House Faith Office were ushered into the Oval Office, where they briefly met and prayed with President Donald J. Trump. Most of what followed—the video being posted by a White House staffer, the storm of online criticism and countercriticism, and a White House spokesperson boasting “there has never been a greater president for Catholic Americans”—was entirely predictable.

US bishops are at a crossroads as they head into their fall assembly

 

NCR Voices

Opinion

US bishops are at a crossroads as they head into their fall assembly

Michael Sean Winters  ncr

Could USCCB have avoided the White House 'manipulation' of bishops meeting with Trump?

 

News

Could USCCB have avoided the White House 'manipulation' of bishops meeting with Trump?

Brian Fraga   ncr

How Catholic dialogue from 1976 informs synodality today

 

October 28, 2026

How Catholic dialogue from 1976 informs synodality today

Michael J. O'Loughlin  ncr

My encounter with JD Vance: Can being attentive to a graced moment create change?

 

Voices of Sisters

October 28, 2026

My encounter with JD Vance: Can being attentive to a graced moment create change?

Sr. Nancy Sylvester  ncr

Loving Your Neighbor

 

 

 

Loving Your Neighbor

Expanding Our Capacity to Love  

Tuesday, October 27, 2026

READ ON CAC.ORG

 

 

Richard Rohr maps the expansion from self-love and group love to the gospel call of universal love: 

We’re told by developmental psychologists that there’s a staging in our growth in love. We have to start with self-love and respecting the self. If we don’t respect ourselves, we won’t know how to respect anybody else. 

Then God moves us to group love, family love, which is basically the love of people who are connected to us or who are like us. A lot of people don’t even get there. They don’t know how to love their family or those close to them or those in their group. 

Havel, Trump, and the Church

Can the tenets that helped align religion and democratic freedom be restored?

Massimo Faggioli

October 26, 2026

Please email comments to letters@commonwealmagazine.org.

President Vaclav Havel walks with Pope John Paul II at the airport in Prague in May 1995 (CNS photo/Giancarlo Giuliani, Catholic Press Photo).

In his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2026, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney referenced Czech dissident and former president Václav Havel and his 1978 essay The Power of the Powerless. Carney cited Havel’s story about a greengrocer who puts up a communist slogan (“Workers of the world, unite!”) in his shop window every day—not out of belief, but to avoid any trouble with the Party. Carney argued that the rules-based international order had become a “partially false” system sustained by performance. He called on middle powers and nations to “take their signs down,” stop living inside a lie, and find a new way forward amid shifting global dynamics.

 

Bishops engaged in ‘synodal charades’, reform groups warn Vatican

Sarah Mac Donald

26 October 2026, The Tablet

Daniel Ibañez / EWTN News

‘Few pastors have promoted synodality, leaving many of the People of God with little awareness of its meaning or practical implications. Many pastors predictably maintain a clericalist and autocratic approach to parish decision-making.’

International Catholic reform groups wrote to the head of the Synod Secretariat raising concerns over the commitment of many bishops to synodality.

The letter to Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, dated 22 October, warned that canon laws mandating synodality will fail without strong papal backing.

It referred to the recent report published by the Synod’s Canonical Commission, titled “For a Synodal Church”, which proposed changes to the Code of Canon Law in accordance with the Final Document of the Synod on Synodality.