(RNS) — Archbishop Paul Coakley, the recently elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, met with President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other officials at the White House on Monday (Jan. 12). It marks the first time a U.S. president has met with the president of the bishops’ conference in nearly a decade.
According to a statement from Chieko Noguchi, a spokesperson for the bishops’ conference, Coakley, Trump and other leaders “discussed areas of mutual concern, as well as areas for further dialogue” at the meeting.
“Archbishop Coakley is grateful for the engagement and looks forward to ongoing discussions,” Noguchi wrote.
As the ecclesiastical adviser for the Napa Institute, Coakley, who is archbishop of Oklahoma City, has ties to several prominent conservative Catholics. The institute’s co-founder, Tim Busch, wrote in March that “Donald Trump’s administration is the most Christian I’ve ever seen” and praised many Catholics who surround the president, noting he’d met and worked with many of Trump’s senior staff.
At the November bishops’ meeting where Coakley was elected, they released a rare “special message” opposing the “indiscriminate mass deportation of people.” Though a mass deportation campaign has been a key priority of Trump’s second term, the message did not mention Trump by name.
In a video released during that meeting, …