Milwaukee Archbishop Jeffrey Grob has publicly apologized for taking part on October 22 in the meeting of twelve Catholic bishops with President Donald Trump at the White House, which ended with a prayer for the president in the Oval Office. In a letter titled “A Public Apology,” published on Sunday, October 25 on the archdiocese’s website, Grob maintains that the Administration publicized the event without the participants’ consent, that a video was recorded without the bishops’ knowledge, and that a prayer addressed to God was manipulated. “I apologize for any harm my actions may have caused,” he writes, in words translated by this editorial team.
The archbishop, who signs the letter from the Dominican Republic, where he is accompanying a group of parishioners from the parish of La Sagrada Familia, explains that the meeting was the second of two organized by the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank in Washington, and that the invitation spoke of the enforcement of immigration laws, religious visas, and human dignity. According to his account, the bishops spoke for about ninety minutes with White House staff and advisers and were then taken to the Oval Office, where the president greeted them, they received commemorative gifts, prayed standing behind him, and posed for photographs. The images and video were later posted online without their permission.
Grob attempts to dispel any political reading of the gesture. “The meeting was in no way an endorsement of the president, his policies, or his party,” he states, and insists that his intention was never to cause confusion, anger, or disappointment among the faithful entrusted to him. He acknowledges, however, that he had doubts before going: “I did not go without reservations,” he admits, and adds that he wishes he had listened to them. He says he has received messages of serious concern over having joined what appeared to be a political act less than two weeks before a national election, as well as from people who feel hurt by the president’s policies. He expresses deep sadness, not only over the pain caused, but because the prayer was used in that way. He closes the letter by recalling that the faithful are, as always, a pilgrim people, and that this includes the bishops.
The apology contrasts with the defense offered by Denver Archbishop James Golka, who led the prayer at the presidential desk. In remarks to Denver Catholic, his archdiocese’s publication, reported by EWTN News, Golka acknowledged that he knew some might be upset and that the act could be used for political purposes, but maintained that praying for those in authority is what Catholics do. “I was being a Catholic priest,” he replied to friends who criticized him, according to the same source. Golka also denied that the gesture constituted electoral support and recalled that the bishops of the United States teach that the Church cannot promote any candidate or party.
Among those present at the meeting were, according to EWTN News, the bishop of Dallas, Edward Burns; the bishop of Gallup, James Wall; the bishop of Des Moines, William Joensen; the bishop of Oakland, Michael Barber; the archbishop emeritus of Kansas City in Kansas, Joseph Naumann; and the Maronite bishop of Los Angeles, Abdallah Elias Zaidan. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has stated that it did not participate in organizing the meeting. Grob does not name any of the other bishops in his letter, and at the time of this report, none of them had joined his apology.
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Three days after the prayer in the Oval Office, one of the twelve bishops who prayed asks forgiveness for it, while the one who led it maintains that he was only acting as a priest.
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