When Bishops Attack!

When Are Denunciations of Politicians Appropriate?

When Roman imperial soldiers massacred thousands of civilians in the Greek city of Thessalonica in the year 390, Bishop Ambrose of Milan (where the imperial court was then located) wrote a letter to Emperor Theodosius, insisting that he undergo a period of public penance for the act. Theodosius complied, attending church without his imperial robes for several months, during which time he was denied communion.

In 1076, Pope St. Gregory VII excommunicated the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV because the latter had insisted on his authority to appoint bishops and had even attempted to depose Gregory. In January of the next year, Henry and his family made a dangerous winter journey through the Alps where Henry waited barefoot and on his knees at the gates of Canossa Castle, where Gregory was staying, as an act of penance.

And finally, earlier this month, Bishop Robert Gruss of Saginaw, Michigan, at a public lecture at his diocese’s cathedral, referred to President Joe Biden, a Catholic, as “stupid,” and insisted “he doesn’t understand the Catholic faith.” The dig was most likely a reference to Biden’s positions on issues such as abortion and the treatment of transgender persons, which run counter to official Catholic teaching. The bishop’s remarks have so far not elicited a response from President Biden or the White House.

Of course, I’m being a bit facetious with my historical comparisons. We certainly live in a quite different historical context than St. Ambrose or Pope Gregory. And Bishop Gruss didn’t intend his comments to be a public, official response of the Church to Biden administration policies. Still, Gruss’s remarks, for which he has since apologized, are a reflection of the U.S. bishops’ uncertainty about how to respond to the fact that the first Catholic president since John F. Kennedy is pursuing policies out of step with the bishops’ teachings, but also of the polarization and crassness of contemporary politics.

Indeed, Gruss is not the only bishop to recently make a personal attack against President Biden. A couple of weeks earlier, as a guest on CBS’s Sunday morning politics show Face the Nation, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the Archbishop of Washington, DC, accused Biden of being a “cafeteria Catholic” (i.e., a Catholic who picks and chooses among Catholic beliefs), and even of exploiting his faith for political advantage, even while admitting the sincerity of Biden’s faith. Gregory’s remarks were somewhat surprising since, as Biden’s local ordinary, he has insisted that Biden (and other Catholic politicians) should not be refused communion, particularly over the latter’s stance on the abortion issue.