Across the Atlantic, the episcopate never ceases to replay the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns. With American sauce, as it should be. Latest episode, March 14, 2023, with the election of the Archbishop of Portland (Oregon) to the executive committee of the United States Conference of Bishops (USCCB), the body which helps in his government the boss of the episcopate.
An election that makes the most progressive prelates cringe: Bishop Alexander Sample is indeed considered a conservative in the line of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, in other words closer toThe gospel of life than’The joy of love…
For some observers, this is a demonstration of force – rather successful – by the most conservative part of the episcopate which intends to show that its weight remains intact within the USCCB, despite the discordant voices of several high progressive prelates widely relayed in the media.
Last January, Cardinal Robert McElroy, Archbishop of San Diego, high prelate could no longer bergoglienpublished a column in the magazine America Magazinewhere he openly defended the most heterodox clichés: access of divorced-remarried and homosexual couples to communion, place of women in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, etc.
A few weeks later, Bishop Thomas Paprocki, conservative bishop of Springfield (Illinois), attacked his colleague by evoking “unorthodox opinions which, not so long ago, would have been professed only by heretics”.
A reaction that had infuriated Cardinal Blaise Cupich: the very liberal Archbishop of Chicago saw fit to come to the aid of his colleague from San Diego, calling on the American episcopate to react as it should to the bishop’s remarks of Springfield.
The response of the USCCB, by electing Bishop Alexander Sample to its executive committee, therefore sounds like a snub for the bishops close to Pope Francis.
A setback that is all the more bitter for the Archbishop of Chicago since the latter undertook more than a year ago to remedy what he describes as “the institutional failures of the episcopal conference”, meaning: to undermine the influence of conservative prelates who do not intend to let go of natural law. No more than on Christian marriage or the traditional discipline of access to sacramental communion.
It should be remembered that the USCCB, structured into sixteen commissions, meets twice a year, in November and June. Between these two meetings, the conference is governed by an administrative committee and an executive committee, on which sit out of office the president of the conference, the vice-president and the secretary.
In addition, several members of the administrative council are elected to the executive committee: this is the case of Bishop Sample who now has the difficult task of advising the president of the USCCB in all important appointments, and in the various works of the Conference. bishops.
A way for the USCCB to recall that across the Atlantic, the bishops do not really recognize themselves in the priorities of the host of Sainte-Marthe: the cause of migrants, the climate or the fight against the traditional mass cannot here prevail over the fight for traditional values such as life, family or marriage between a man and a woman.
But the conservative wing of the episcopate cannot claim victory, because another fact must be taken into account: by 2025, thirty-four diocesan seats are called to be renewed in the United States. The Argentine pontiff is therefore far from having lost the game.
