More US bishops are finding their prophetic voice

By Johnny Zokovitch

Earlier this month, Pope Leo XIV delivered a powerful address to members of the Vatican’s Diplomatic Corps, touching on current events and intractable problems ranging from the recent US military action in Venezuela to the scapegoating attacks on immigrants and refugees to the embrace of “might makes right” policies over adherence to international humanitarian law. 

In his address, Pope Leo examines the current moment through St. Augustine’s framework of The City of God, in which Augustine “interprets events and history itself according to the model of two cities … the city of God, which is eternal and characterized by God’s unconditional love (amor Dei), as well as love for one’s neighbor, especially the poor… [and] the earthly city, which is a temporary dwelling place where human beings live until death.” Augustine, like his more modern counterpart H. Richard Niebuhr in his book Christ and Culture, tries to unpack the tension that Christians live with as people caught between the vision of the reign of God that Jesus proclaimed and the reality of the historical time in which we live, including our social, political and economic engagement. 

Pope Leo’s challenge to the members of the diplomatic corps, as articulated by Augustine,  “emphasizes that Christians are called by God to dwell in the earthly city with their hearts and minds turned towards the heavenly city, their true homeland. At the same time, Christians living in the earthly city are not strangers to the political world, and, guided by the Scriptures, seek to apply Christian ethics to civil government.” The pope (a member of the Augustinian order) goes on to suggest that while Augustine – and the Church – aren’t proposing particular political programs, the Christian vocation should be concerned with “social and political life, such as the search for a more just and peaceful coexistence among peoples” and take seriously “grave dangers to political life arising from false representations of history, excessive nationalism and the distortion of the ideal of the political leader.”

In times such as the ones we are living through now, such engagement means flexing the “prophetic” muscles of the Christian proclamation, speaking truth to power. Scripture scholar Walter Brueggemann suggests that the prophetic vocation both denounces – calling out and critiquing the failures of our social projects to uphold basic human dignity – and announces – proclaiming the vision of mercy, love, justice, peace and compassion inspired by Jesus’ own words and deeds.  

That’s why for Catholics who have long lamented the relative silence of many US bishops to speak out boldly on issues of peace and justice, Pope Leo’s address, like God touching Jeremiah’s lips, has opened the mouths of many US bishops to proclaim the prophetic word in a moment so desperate for it.  

Last week, US Cardinals Robert McElroy, Joseph Tobin and Blase Cupich jointly issued a powerful statement criticizing US foreign policy, condemning the use of (or threat of) military force, referencing Venezuela and Greenland and directly attributing their concerns to Pope Leo’s earlier address. Bishop John Stowe, OFM Conv. of Kentucky didn’t mince words in his statement to the people of his diocese in the wake of the US military assault on Venezuela: “I also lament how the Pope’s words for January 1, the World Day of Prayer for Peace, in which he reiterated the call for an ‘unarmed and disarming peace’ were completely ignored by the US administration in pursuit of its own ill-defined goals and with reckless disregard for human life and rule of law.”

And it wasn’t only members of the US hierarchy long associated with the Church’s progressive wing. The president of the US bishops conference, Archbishop Paul Coakley, a conservative, lent his support to “the emphasis placed by the (three) cardinals on Pope Leo’s teaching in these times,” according to a USCCB spokesperson. The day before the statement from the cardinals, Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese of the Military asserted that it would be morally acceptable for Catholics in the US military, “within the realm of their own conscience,” to disobey orders to attack Greenland, a statement akin to the recent statements of Democratic lawmakers reminding US service personnel of their duty to refuse unethical, immoral, unjustifiable orders. 

Catholic bishops like Archbishop Bernard Hebda in Minnesota have been outspoken about the church’s support of immigrants in the wake of the federal invasion of Minneapolis that has resulted in the deaths of two protesters, and Bishop Patrick Neary, CSC has pointedly criticized the actions of ICE officers, calling them “physically violent.” 

Reminiscent of the prophetic pleas of Archbishop Oscar Romero as the people of El Salvador suffered under the repression of their own government, Cardinal Tobin this week begged members of Congress to vote against ICE funding: “We ask them, for the love of God and the love of human beings, which can’t be separated: vote against renewing funding for such a lawless organization.”

• Use this link to watch Cardinal Tobin on a January 25 webinar hosted by Faith in Action
• Use this link to watch the “Taken, broken, shared: Catholic witness today” webinar which includes, in addition to many strong voices, four Catholic bishops: Bishop Brendan Cahill (Diocese of Victoria, TX), Bishop Oscar Cantú (Diocese of San Jose, CA), Bishop Joseph Tyson (Diocese of Yakima, WA), and Bishop Emeritus John Ricard (Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee).

The contrast between Augustine’s “city of God” and what we are experiencing in the United States couldn’t be more stark. The prophetic words of these US bishops make that undeniably clear. 

Johnny Zokovitch is the former executive director of Pax Christi USA. He currently serves on the board of thePax Christi International Fund for Peaceand is in pastoral leadership atSt. Cronan Catholic Churchin St. Louis.