A group of Catholic bishops from the United States met on Thursday, October 22, with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House and prayed for him and for the country. The prayer was led by the Archbishop of Denver, James Golka, appointed by Leo XIV in February and installed in his see last March. The images were shared by Margo Martin, the president’s communications advisor, and Trump’s campaign account, twelve days before the midterm legislative elections on November 3.
In the video, the president appears seated at his desk while several bishops surround him and some place their hands on him in a gesture of prayer. Golka, standing to his right, gives thanks to God for the nation, for its government, and for the presidency, and asks for divine blessing upon the president. Behind the president was Paula White-Cain, the evangelical pastor who heads the White House Office of Faith. According to journalist Rocco Palmo, the image also shows the Bishop of Dallas, Edward Burns, the Bishop of Rapid City, Scott Bullock, and the Archbishop Emeritus of Kansas City in Kansas, Joseph Naumann.
The archdiocese’s explanation
The Archdiocese of Denver confirmed the meeting in a statement to its diocesan publication. It expresses respect for the presidential institution and its willingness to continue dialogue on the sanctity of life, from conception to natural death, and on the dignity of every person. It also invites the faithful to pray for the nation and its leaders. In a later clarification, the archdiocese recalled that praying for those in public office is an ancient practice of the Church, rooted in St. Paul’s exhortation to pray for all who hold authority, and clarified that the gesture does not imply support for any candidate or party.
According to The Pillar, the meeting was organized by an official from the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank in Washington. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has stated that it did not participate in its preparation.
An archbishop in the spotlight
The meeting comes in a week in which Golka was already making headlines. Two days earlier, on Monday, October 19, the Archdiocese of Denver announced that the archbishop had asked the well-known exorcist Chad Ripperger to suspend his public conferences and interviews for one year, a decision the priest accepted and which has sparked considerable controversy among American Catholics. The archdiocese has not explained the reasons for the request nor announced any canonical sanction.
The form of the gesture in the Oval Office also merits observation. Praying for a leader by surrounding him and laying hands on him is a custom rooted in the evangelical world, and Protestant pastors close to Trump have repeated it in that same office since his first term, turning it into an almost annual event. In the Catholic tradition, by contrast, the laying on of hands is reserved primarily for the sacraments, and blessings follow the formulas of the Book of Blessings, with the Trinitarian invocation and the sign of the cross. What was seen on Thursday was a prayer of intercession in which the archbishop asked God to bless the president, closer to the evangelical style than to a Catholic blessing in the proper sense.