EXCLUSIVE: USCCB Releases New Pastoral Letter, Titled "You're Welcome"
This is a big get for us
[Grift of the Holy Spirit is proud to exclusively share this first look at the newest pastoral letter by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, titled “You’re Welcome”]
Gaudium et Spes boldly proclaims that “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community composed of men. United in Christ, they are led by the Holy Spirit in their journey to the Kingdom of their Father and they have welcomed the news of salvation which is meant for every man.” We, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, are that community composed of men, united in Christ, and as we have recently reached the end of a political era, we hope that you share in our joy at all we have accomplished. To you, our congregation, we say, first and foremost: you’re welcome.
The past four years have represented the pinnacle of Catholic living in American public life, thanks to our guidance and leadership. For the first time in the history of our conference, all of our engagement with the federal government went exactly as we had hoped, and all of the results produced by the Trump administration have been exactly the results that we, the bishops of our country’s 197 diocese, have longed for, with zero tradeoffs or compromises. We celebrate, and receive your thanks and acclaim, for every single thing that the Trump administration did in their monumental four years, each of which was something that we, the bishops, openly desired and cheered on. It’s why we enthusiastically and joyfully supported President Trump’s campaigns of 2016 and 2020, why we urged Catholics to re-elect him, and why we pray that he continues to have a meaningful impact on our body politic moving forward. For our advocacy work, for our forceful communication of what Catholics desire in public life, we say again to you: you’re welcome.
From the first week of the Trump administration, it was clear that we were going to accomplish great things to build the Kingdom of God on Earth. Starting with the early executive order banning immigration from key Muslim countries, it was clear that President Trump was concerned, in a way that none of his other predecessors dared to be, with keeping us safe; the travel ban, once enacted and eventually upheld by the Supreme Court, truly enfolded us in safety, just like the everlasting arms of the Blessed Virgin, which also carefully filter and shove out the brown people. For your safety from the dangers of the world, we say: you’re welcome.
President Trump’s picks for his cabinet also truly helped bring Catholic teaching to life in a way never before seen in this country. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson recognized, as we do, that poverty is a choice, and that poor people should consider shutting the hell up and not being poor. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was a critical advocate for us on school choice, a key non-negotiable “life issue” for the church; just as John the Baptist leapt in Saint Elizabeth’s womb, affirming the sanctity of life from the moment of conception, Saint Elizabeth was known for using vouchers to siphon her tax funds out of the local public school system, and we draw our teachings from these important Gospel moments. General John Kelly, as Secretary of Homeland Security, did more to keep us safe than any of his predecessors, carefully identifying the most pressing threats to America and placing them in key “tender age” camps for toddlers, some of which were operated by Catholic organizations. By forcing hysterectomies on detained women, the Department of Homeland Security also took critical steps to make sure America - and, by extension, our Catholic values - would stay protected long into the future. We’re pretty sure Rick Perry also did something in the cabinet. For the brave and courageous members of the executive branch over the past four years, we say: you’re welcome.
Still, none of President Trump’s nominations were as consequential as his three Supreme Court justices, and we look forward to their continued decades of service. Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and most recently Amy Coney Barrett have all delivered critical victories for the Kingdom of God on our most important issues - religious freedom and abortion - while expanding the church’s thought with a wide variety of opinions on labor rights, immigration, public health, voting rights, public education, sexual assault, and capital punishment; most of this thinking has never before been seen in the Catholic church, and we find this a refreshing addition to our intellectual tradition. In particular, the justices’ tireless work to uphold the rights of the federal government to slam as many lethal injections as possible through the lame-duck period was a powerful statement in favor of the justice that Christ brings to the world, specifically to criminals who stand accused of decades-old crimes and also don’t possess the mental capacity to even recognize that they’re in prison. This is not the work of the Supreme Court alone, of course; much credit is due to good and faithful servant Attorney General Bill Barr, who once alerted the Notre Dame Law School to “the force, fervor, and comprehensiveness of the assault on religion we are experiencing today. This is not decay; it is organized destruction. Secularists, and their allies among the “progressives,” have marshaled all the force of mass communications, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.” We could not agree more, our church is under attack, and every step that Attorney General Barr took, from tear-gassing protestors at a church to resuming federal executions to investigating voter fraud claims in the most recent presidential election, were powerful blows for our values; we were proud to honor him at the 2020 National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, at which one of us gave a keynote. Retired Archbishop Charles Chaput even wrote of AG Barr last year: “As an added bonus, he’s disliked by all the right people. I want to thank the various and interesting critics of General Barr for confirming me in that judgment”; these powerful words affirm the church’s commitment both to upholding our teaching and to owning the libs. For standing up and encouraging these values, and for being vocal advocates for AG Barr and our new justices, we say again: you’re welcome.
Throughout the past four years, we took our own steps in our diocese and parishes to continue building the Kingdom. We made sure that gay and transgender people knew that they weren’t welcome as students, employees, or parishoners in our churches. We started insufferable Twitter accounts. Two once-in-a-generation sexual abuse scandals surfaced in 2018, and we did our best to make sure you all understood that we were not going to change a damn thing as a result. As the COVID vaccine rollout begins, we have already started to actively undermine the Vatican’s guidance, and public health guidance in general, on the morality of the vaccine. In all of these actions, we have worked hard to emulate President Trump, who provided an important model of faith and leadership. For carrying that faith and leadership over to your church, we say: you’re welcome.
That all brings us to the final year of the Trump presidency. 2020, in many ways, was the most consequential year in the history of the American Catholic Church. We fought hard - and won - for religious freedom as we kept our churches open to all during the COVID pandemic, emphasizing the value of community and sacrament over fear of our own mortality, or the mortality of any elderly or immunocompromised person anywhere in our communities, or the stability of our already overstretched health care system in general. We kept our parochial schools open and saw our teachers return to the classroom to serve our students; while public school districts struggled to reopen schools because of “collective bargaining rights” or “health and safety hazards”, we were there to provide an alternative to those concerns. We saw tragedy erupt in the summer as storefronts were looted nationwide, but were comforted by the bravery of our police forces as they served, with all of their resources and vehicles and armaments, to keep our communities safe from this destruction and restore the order and peace that Christ promises. For all of these victories, we declare: you’re welcome. Oh, 2020 was also the year that our Holy Father Pope Francis released his encyclical Fratelli Tutti, which is definitely on our list to read.
And 2020, of course, also saw great tragedy, as we witnessed a federal election plagued with irregularities. We may never know who actually won the most votes - popular or electoral - of the two presidential candidates, but we were brave enough to question the election results long after the election had been called, to advocate for overturning these election results, and to attend and even speak at Stop the Steal rallies. What we saw on January 6th - a group of protestors exercising their First Amendment rights, carrying religious symbols into the halls of government - was a powerful demonstration of the church crying out to be heard, in support of the man who has done so much for Christianity. For this unprecedented demonstration of bravery in the name of our church, and in the name of the man who saved our church, we say again: you’re welcome.
There is no question that we are entering a very dark period in our nation’s history, and it will be a jarring shift from the past four years of victories for Catholicism. The Biden administration, beginning its work under a cloud of illegitimacy, threatens to roll back all that the Catholic church has gained, from our freedoms, to the lives of the unborn, to the loud and proud public witness to Christ that we saw every day from our previous president. We have already taken key steps to ensure, right away, that our relationship with Mr. Biden is nothing but adversarial; nobody will ever confuse it with the wonderful cooperative relationship we had with Mr. Trump. Donald Trump, as we ourselves affirmed at a campaign event, is the greatest president in the history of the Catholic church. Every decision we make, every cause we support, stems from that basic truth: we think Donald Trump is good, and him being president makes us feel good about ourselves, the way we felt when we first became priests, back before the job was all about navigating abuse scandals and financial ruin. As the man who best brings to life what we believe, we consider Mr. Trump to be the true “Ur-Sacrament” of our church, and we will do whatever we can in the next four years to protect his vision for our country. And for that, we say to Catholics everywhere: you’re welcome.
Ultimately, we wish to leave the church with two key messages. The first: now that Mr. Trump’s term is over, you have a full, comprehensive list of everything that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is willing to fight for. We never had an impact on government as large as the one we enjoyed with the Trump administration, and it allowed us to be the voice of the true church in the world. The voice of the border patrol agent tearing a toddler away from his mother. The voice of the state legislators preventing too many people from voting. The voice of the father throwing his gay son out onto the street. The voice of the guard laughing at the screams of the children in his ICE camp. The voice of the executioner jamming a needle into the arm of a woman with an IQ of 70. The voice of the CEO firing his workers who voted to unionize. The voice of the police officer standing on a black man’s neck. The voice of the doctor removing the uterus of a woman who doesn’t know what’s happening to her. The voice of the stockholder enjoying a slightly higher return on his portfolio. The voice of the protestor setting up a gallows and storming the Capitol. The voice of white supremacy, of patriarchy, of the dehumanization and extermination of the Other. For being that voice for you, and for doing so much with it over the past few years, we say: you’re welcome.
Our second key message: we can do this job and you can’t. We are literally the direct successors of the Twelve Apostles. You have no oversight of us, you cannot remove us, and we have learned to ignore your criticism. For so-called Catholics out there who doubt us, who say we have traded away too much, who think we should see the past four years as anything other than a massive and resounding success, we counter with the power of our witness, with simply pointing to our glorious Christian country at the end of Mr. Trump’s term, and letting the results speak for themselves.
For those results, we say, once again: you’re welcome.
Grift of the Holy Spirit is a series by Tony Ginocchio detailing stories of the weirdest, dumbest, and saddest members of the Catholic church. You can subscribe via Substack to get notified of future installments.