30 bishops, 5 cardinals gather at Fordham to discuss ‘politics of communion and compassion’
March 20, 2025
Eighty-eight Catholics, including more than 30 bishops and five cardinals, gathered at Fordham University from March 12-14 for a conference on the theme of “Fratelli Tutti: Cultivating the Politics of Communion and Compassion.”
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According to the program, the conference’s organizers were David Gibson (Fordham University), Father Mark Massa, SJ (Boston College), Michael Murphy (Loyola University Chicago), and Michael Sean Winters (Sacred Heart University), a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter. Winters wrote that “the conversations were frank and fascinating, conducted under Chatham House rules to encourage candor.”
“I have three major takeaways from the conference,” said Winters. “First, the bishops are, like many Americans, bewildered by some of the actions of the Trump administration, especially the cutoff of foreign aid and the draconian immigration policies.”
“Second, while there is a lot of unpack in Fratelli Tutti, the bottom line is this: A politics that does not start with compassion will miscarry no matter how it is structured,” Winters continued. “The third takeaway is a criticism: There was a dearth of focus on the working class ... Unless the Church meaningfully engages working-class Catholics, we should not be surprised that they seek solidarity in Trump’s empty promises.”
In its article on the conference, “Fordham University hosts conference dedicated to spreading Pope’s vision in US,” the Dicastery of Communication’s Vatican News agency reported:
The goal of the conference, [Michael] Murphy said, was to “host conversations that are helpful to the US Church,” rooted in “the vision of Vatican II in the way that Pope Francis imagines” ... Today, he stressed, bishops are often so busy “putting out fires” that they don’t have much time for study and reflection—and many of them appreciated the conference for exactly that reason, seeing it as “a kind of ongoing formation.”
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