Bishops’ conference expected to change tack after visit

Church and political leaders began assessing the impact of Pope Francis’ visit as soon as his aircraft left for Rome on Sunday, writes Michael Sean Winters.

The most likely effect of the papal visit will be on the US bishops’ conference (USCCB). At their June meeting, some bishops urged that the USCCB’s priorities and plans be altered better to align with Pope Francis’ new magisterial pronouncements, but overall the bishops voted to keep their old priorities, focusing on same-sex marriage, abortion and religious liberty. It is expected that at their November plenary meeting, the push to align their agenda with the Pope’s will be even stronger.

Some conservative commentators bemoaned the fact that the Pope did not focus on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage more clearly. The theologian Fr Brian Harrison, writing at LifeSiteNews, expressed “disappointment” at the Pope’s “minimal and indirect reference to abortion”. In fact his approach was allusive rather than rhetorical. In his address to the UN General Assembly on Friday last week he referred to “a moral law written into human nature itself”, which includes “absolute respect for life in all its stages and dimensions”.

Environmentalists, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, hailed the Pope’s repeated calls for decisive action to protect the environment. Dan Misleh, director of the Catholic Climate Covenant said: “I think there were a lot of expectations for the Pope to ... ‘let people have it’.” Instead, he was “urging us to get involved ... to become the people who God intends us to be.”

Francis urged Congress to overcome its polarisation, but that only seemed to worsen after the visit, with Speaker John Boehner, a Catholic and Republican moderate, resigning in the face of pressure from Tea Party members.

Some US commentators suggested that the Pope’s positive mentions of and meeting with immigrants would prompt Hispanics to mobilise, especially in swing states, ahead of the presidential elections next year.