(RNS) — One week after Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, posed for a smiling photo standing next to a seated President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, three U.S. cardinals leading archdioceses released a statement criticizing Trump’s foreign policy.
These two contrasting scenes could appear to paint a USCCB at odds over how to approach Trump — who has this month escalated an aggressive foreign policy in capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and demanding the U.S. acquire Greenland, and has defended increasingly violent domestic immigration enforcement at home. But some experts and bishops told RNS that dialogue and public criticism can be complementary strategies.
The bishops’ conference has not disclosed the contents of the meeting between Trump and Coakley, an ecclesiastical adviser to the conservative Napa Institute, whose co-founder called the Trump administration “the most Christian” he’d ever seen. Two days after the meeting, the administration proposed a change to a visa requirement that forced foreign priests and other religious workers to exit the U.S. for a year between R-1 visas, a change long sought by the conference.
“We are tremendously grateful for the Administration’s work to address certain challenges facing foreign-born religious workers, their employers, and the …