Most people – and most Catholics – think the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is just when all the Catholic bishops in the country get together and make decisions.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s biting words on the USCCB’s immigration work were a “dog whistle” to the “professional Catholic” class.
It has become popular in speaking about the words of politicians in the United States to use the term “dog whistle” – usually implying the politician is pushing racism or homophobia to his target supporters.
However, the term just means a sound that only the dog can understand, and “ordinary people” can’t hear. To those with ears to hear, Vance was saying he knows that isn’t really the case and is aware of the inner divisions in the U.S. Church.
Vance questioned the Catholic Church’s role in supporting undocumented immigrants on CBS’s Face the Nation on Jan. 26.
“I think that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line?” Vance said.
Writing for RNS, Father Thomas Reese SJ thanked Vance for highlighting the issue of support for immigration.
“Vice President J.D. Vance has done what the U.S. bishops have been incapable of doing: He has made their position on migrants and refugees national news,” Reese wrote. “He said the bishops’ support for refugees was motivated by their desire to get money from federal programs aimed at helping refugees,” the Jesuit added.
Except that’s not what Vance did.
Looking through the transcript of the Face the Nation interview, Vance uses the word “Catholic” five times. Twice, he refers to his own religious faith: Near the beginning he refers to himself as “a practicing Catholic” and near the end he refers to himself as “a devout Catholic.”
The other three times are also the only times he uses the word “bishop” – and what he says is “the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.”
Vance also says, “I believe the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, if they’re worried about the humanitarian costs of immigration enforcement, let them talk about the children who have been sex trafficked because of the wide-open border of Joe Biden.”
Later, he is even more blunt.
“I think the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has, frankly, not been a good partner in common sense immigration enforcement that the American people voted for, and I hope, again, as a devout Catholic, that they’ll do better.”
After the Vice President’s remarks, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement acknowledging it received funds from the government under a 1980 law, but added “these funds are not sufficient to cover the entire cost of these programs. Nonetheless, this remains a work of mercy and ministry of the Church.”
The U.S. bishops all get together twice a year, the USCCB – with around 300 employees – meets five days a week, all year long.
They form the committees, write the documents, and do most of the work. Most of the time, when you see a bishop’s signature on a USCCB document, they didn’t actually write it (this is of course the situation in most places – churches, governments, and institutions – it isn’t a judgement.)
One of the not-too-much-talked-about facts of life in the U.S Catholic Church is the division between the more conservative “Pro-Life” wing – which is deeply committed to policy areas like abortion, sexuality, bioethics, etc. – and the “Justice and Peace” wing – which is particularly concerned with policy areas like immigration, poverty, and anti-war advocacy.
Although this is somewhat of a generalization, they don’t always get along.
When the USCCB was formed in 2001, by the merger of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and United States Catholic Conference (USCC), a common joke in the coffee room was, “Did the NCCB have to pay the Democratic Party for the USCC?”
In other words, a lot of the programs supported by the USCCB are related to the “Justice and Peace” wing; and the Trump administration has spent its first week in office letting the “Pro-Life” wing know the administration is on their side.
Vance spoke at the March for Life and Trump issued several executive orders on issues going against transgender supporting policies.
Society has changed over the past 40 years, but the division between these two sides has changed as well, but the division persists.
It used to be the “pro-life” wing was weak on the support of the use of the military (again, admittedly a generalization) and the “justice and peace” wing was weak on abortion, often saying “pro-choice” didn’t mean you thought it was the right choice to make.
Now, the “Justice and Peace” wing is dealing with new issues often endorsed by non-religious liberals, such as transgenderism, support for assisted suicide, and gay marriage.
Practically speaking, this means the “pro-life” wing is making up more of the people who you find actually going to Mass regularly, even if the “justice and peace” wing – at least the “professional Catholic” members – still has a large presence in diocesan chanceries and various departments of the bishops’ conference.
The Trump Administration must have noticed the situation in Texas, where conservative Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued to revoke the license to operate of Annunciation House in the border city of El Paso. (As an aside, the conservative Republican Governor of Texas, Gregg Abbott, is a Catholic.)
Despite the opposition of the USCCB to this strong assault against a Catholic charity, Trump actually had huge gains among Hispanic voters in Texas, even winning a majority of the male Hispanic electorate.
The new administration seems to realize it can get away with battling the institutional Church structure, without losing Catholic voters.
Follow Charles Collins on X: @CharlesinRome
