Two Catholic Bishops Regret White House Prayer Photo With Trump. Pray for Rulers, but Never Become a Prop.
Two bishops who prayed with President Trump on Oct. 22 say the White House released photos and video without permission and turned the meeting into a political moment.
The facts come first below. My opinion follows in the section marked as opinion.
Two Catholic bishops have publicly expressed regret over a White House meeting last week that produced photos and video of them praying with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, saying the private gathering was turned into a political display less than two weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, CBS News reported.
Milwaukee Archbishop Jeffrey Grob, in a statement titled "A Public Apology," said Sunday that he had received many questions and comments, some of them distraught, about the Thursday meeting that he and 11 other bishops attended. He said the White House speedily publicized the meeting with photos and a video without the consent of the participants, according to CBS News.
"I feel a heavy sadness, not only over the pain I caused, but also for the fact that something so sacred to a group of religious leaders, prayer to our Heavenly Father, would be manipulated in that way," Grob said, CBS News reported.
What the bishops say they were told
Bishop William Joensen of Des Moines, Iowa, said the Oct. 22 meeting was arranged by officials with the White House Faith Office to discuss issues including immigration, visas for international clergy and the "exploitation of vulnerable poor persons," the BBC reported. "I wish I had been more shrewd and less simple, like those who exploited our meeting for partisan political purposes," Joensen said in his statement.
Grob wrote that the meeting "was in no way an endorsement of the president, his policies, or his party." He said the bishops were told it would be a private discussion and that there could be an opportunity to pray privately with the president. "I did not go without reservations. I wish I had heeded them," he wrote, according to CBS News.
Grob said that after 90 minutes of meetings with officials, the bishops were ushered into the Oval Office to pray with Trump, and that none of the participants gave permission for the images to be distributed. The video was released by Margo Martin, a special assistant to the president who often shares behind-the-scenes images of Trump on social media, the BBC reported.
The White House response
Asked whether it had the bishops' consent to release the images, the White House press office declined to answer. Spokesperson Taylor Rogers instead said, "There has never been a greater president for Catholic Americans than President Trump, and his strong record proves it," CBS News reported.
The bishops' views on the administration vary. Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota and former New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan agreed to serve on the president's Religious Liberty Commission, while other bishops have criticized the administration's immigration enforcement. A Pew Research Center survey this month found 30 percent of U.S. Catholics approved of Trump's job performance, down from 47 percent when he returned to office in 2025, the BBC reported.
Opinion: Pray for rulers, but do not let prayer become a prop
Christians are commanded to pray for those in authority, and I do not fault any bishop for accepting an invitation to pray with a president. Praying with a leader is not the same as endorsing him, and the bishops said plainly that they went to discuss real concerns, from immigration to the poor.
But prayer before God is not campaign material. If the bishops were told the prayer would be private, as Grob says, then publishing it without their consent less than two weeks before an election was wrong, no matter which party did it. The White House had a chance to answer that question directly and chose to talk about the president's record instead. That record is a fair subject for debate. It is not an answer to whether a promise was kept.
The bishops also deserve some credit for doing what public men rarely do: they said they were wrong. Grob admitted he had reservations and ignored them. Joensen said he should have been more shrewd. That is honest, and it echoes the Lord's own instruction to His disciples: "be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves" (Matthew 10:16).
The lesson reaches beyond these twelve men. In the final week of a hard campaign, every pastor and priest will be courted. Some, as we noted in Clergy to Serve as Poll Chaplains in Nine States on Election Day, are choosing to serve voters of every party. That is the better path. The church speaks to power. It must never be worn by power.
