You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

It’s like being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Religion-beat pros will understand if cliches such as these are being muttered by members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops these days. Why? As Americans prepare to decide who will be their next president this November, members of the Catholic hierarchy are finding themselves in a no-win situation.

Do they speak favorably of President Donald Trump, helping him potentially to win re-election, or do they lend a hand to Democratic challenger Joe Biden helping the former vice president become just the second Catholic to ever serve as a U.S. president? Catholic leaders — be it the pope, cardinals, bishops or your local parish priest — don’t openly endorse candidates for political office.

There is a reason for that. The main reason is that it fosters division among a very large spectrum of people who are all part of the same denomination. IRS rules also forbid nonprofit institutions like churches from engaging in partisan politics — something some pastors avoid by saying they are speaking on behalf of themselves, not the church they represent. 

While a few members of other Christian bodies choose to openly back a candidate (for example, some evangelicals and Trump; African-American church leaders and Biden), Catholic prelates see an endorsement as something that could weaken the church’s own authority and belief system.

In other words, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t if you’re a Catholic leader. Still, this election will raise all kinds of unavoidable moral and religious questions for Trump and Biden.

Which brings us to Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York City. He was the target of outrage on the part of left-leaning Catholics for the way he spoke favorably of Trump following a phone call the president had with several U.S. bishops. Dolan, it should be noted, has also received abuse from the church’s right-wing cheering section for the way he’s handled the issue of gay priests.

Trump, on a call with bishops, called himself the best president in “the history of the Catholic Church.” In response, Dolan, during an appearance on Fox News Channel, said: “The president has seemed particularly sensitive to the religious community. I’m in admiration of his leadership.”

Depending on the issue, U.S. bishops have been at odds with Trump when it comes to immigration (so has Pope Francis), but have been largely happy with him on issues like abortion and the appointment of anti-abortion federal judges. Dolan, for example, in an op-ed in the New York Post last year, did attack New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for approving what he called “ghoulish radical abortion-expansion law.”

The National Catholic Reporter, in a recent editorial, expressed its frustrations with Dolan’s praise of Trump. This is what the editorial argues:

Without a whimper from any of his fellow bishops, the cardinal archbishop of New York has inextricably linked the Catholic Church in the United States to the Republican Party and, particularly, President Donald Trump.

It was bad enough that Cardinals Timothy Dolan of New York and Sean O'Malley of Boston, joined by Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez, currently also president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, participated in Trump's phone version of a campaign rally on April 25. With hundreds of others on the call, including Catholic educators, the bishops were once again masterfully manipulated. They previously gave Trump certain campaign footage when they delivered Catholics to his speech at the March for Life rally in Washington early in the year.

Now Trump will have Dolan's language from the call, telling everyone that he considers himself a "great friend" of Trump, for whom he expressed mutual admiration as "a great gentleman." The cardinal went on to say that he was "honored" to lead off the comments on the call.

The whole cringe-worthy exchange (yes, Trump did self-describe as "the best" president "in the history of the Catholic church") was made worse the next day when Dolan provided more campaign footage from inside St. Patrick's Cathedral in announcing that the president was "worshiping with us," purportedly livestreaming the Mass at the White House.

In “People of Hope,” a book-length conversation Dolan conducted with noted journalist John L. Allen, Jr. in 2012, the cardinal was quoted as saying: “My experience is that we bishops are actually fairly scrupulous in wanting to avoid any partisan flavor.”

While many Christian denominations are split along theological and ideological lines, the Roman Catholicism is a monolith, featuring members who span a large spectrum of opinion when it comes to hot-button issues such as gay marriage, immigration, abortIon, prison reform and religious freedom.

This divide has been seen in recent polling among Catholic voters. In February, a poll found that U.S. Catholics remain sharply polarized when it comes to both the president and church teachings. The survey conducted by EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research Poll, found that 47% of all Catholics approve of Trump’s job performance.

Practicing Catholics, like evangelicals, make up a very large chunk of Trump’s base.

Continue reading, “Examining the role of Catholic bishops in 2020 presidential race” by Clemente Lisi at Religion Unplugged.