In 2014, Pope Francis moved Bishop Blase Cupich from the Diocese of Spokane (Catholic population: 100,000) to the Archdiocese of Chicago (two million). With his neatly parted hair and clear, quick speech, he could easily pass for a priest of Opus Dei. Yet his promotion set off alarm bells with conservatives, who had not seen it coming.
Cupich’s tenure in Spokane had been overshadowed by questions about his commitment to the pro-life cause – specifically, his decision to ban seminarians from demonstrating outside Planned Parenthood clinics and the way he placed abortion next to “joblessness and want” on the hierarchy of evils. Then, in 2016, Francis appointed him to the College of Cardinals, pointedly passing over the archbishops of some of America’s oldest and largest sees.
Last week, Cardinal Cupich ran for chair of the pro-life committee, which plays a disproportionally large part in setting the theological tone of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). His opponent was Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, an articulate critic of Cupich-style relativising. “Those issues that involve intrinsic evils – direct attacks on human life, abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, or direct attacks on the institution of the family… must assume a moral priority,” he wrote in First Things back in 2007.
Archbishop Naumann is also willing to be a bit cheeky when it comes to his differences with the Pope. Responding to a comment Francis made about Amoris Laetitia in July, he joked: “I’ve heard individuals say that he shouldn’t give interviews above a certain altitude, because it seems like he creates teaching moments for us at that point!”
Cupich was expected to win by force of Francis’s implicit endorsement. As George Weigel pointed out in a post-election write-up for the National Review: “There are few episcopates in the world more loyal to Rome or more deferential to legitimate papal prerogative than the American bishops.”
This is especially true of the conservatives, which is why the so-called “Francis Party” in the American Church isn’t neatly synonymous with progressivism: there are roughly as many ultramontanes, who dutifully follow the Roman line, as there are dogmatic liberals. Commentators expected the ultramontanes to bite their tongues and vote for the company man, despite his perceived theological flaws.
Then, to general astonishment, Naumann won 96 to 82. The liberal Catholic media went into panic mode. How did Cupich miss his own coronation?
Several right-wing news outlets announced that conservative bishops staged a “coup”, or a Brexit-style referendum on the current Vatican regime. But that’s not quite right. This was, rather, a fracturing of the Francis Party in America. And it was a long time coming.
The loyalty of the “Francis conservatives” was tested during the fallout from Amoris Laetitia. Only a minority of American bishops, such as Naumann and Cardinal Raymond Burke, publicly voiced their disquiet. Most defended the Pope, stressing the fact that the exhortation didn’t alter Church teaching. Several ultramontanes, however, privately intimated their reservations, as Herald sources confirm.
There was no such ambiguity about Cupich’s candidacy. His record is clear, and his relativising of abortion would have become the more or less official position of the USCCB. That is one line the bishops apparently were not willing to cross.
Which of the ultramontanes was first to break ranks? Did a senior figure convince the notoriously deferential Americans to vote against the Pontiff?
If so, it must have been someone with an ironclad reputation for loyalty – someone they could be sure would only break ranks if it was a matter of grave importance.
What’s undeniable is that several bishops unexpectedly crossed the floor to hand the Pope an embarrassing, highly publicised defeat. At the moment, the press can only guess who they were. But we can be sure that a list of the rebellion leaders’ names has got back to the Vatican by now.
That means there will be no return to the status quo. Naumann voters will be marked as potential troublemakers. Yet the loss of the Holy Father’s confidence – and possibly future promotion – was a sacrifice they were willing to make if it meant standing up for their principles. That can only mean the emboldening of the conservative resistance to Francis’s agenda. Bishops who voted for Cupich but see this weakening of the Francis Party may quietly defect.
Naumann’s election was a watershed moment for the American Church. The liberal bishops overplayed their hand, allowing their spokesmen to alienate moderate Catholics with public statements that came across as smug and triumphalist. It’s possible that Cardinal Cupich’s friends damaged him more than his enemies.
The Pope can, of course, make further radical episcopal appointments in order to strengthen his hand. But time is running out and the fourth-largest Catholic nation in the world may already have slipped through his fingers.
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