May 20, 2025 // Vatican

Trump Names Bishop Rhoades, Others to Religious Liberty Advisory Board

OSV NEWS

WASHINGTON D.C. (OSV News) – Bishop Rhoades was one of three U.S. Catholic bishops who were among religious leaders President Donald Trump appointed to an advisory board of his recently established Religious Liberty Commission.

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco and Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, will join Bishop Rhoades to support the commission’s work. Father Thomas Ferguson, pastor of Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Alexandria, Virginia, was also appointed to the advisory board.

Bishop Rhoades is chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Religious Liberty, which issues an annual report on the state of religious freedom in the U.S. He also serves on the bishops’ ad hoc Committee against Racism and their Committee on Doctrine and previously served as that latter committee’s chairman.

In January, members of the Committee on Religious Liberty, led by Bishop Rhoades, released the second annual report, “The State of Religious Liberty in the United States.”

“This Jubilee Year offers us a chance to reflect on the necessity of patience and long-suffering in our work to bear witness to the truth,” Bishop Rhoades wrote in a statement. “Pope Francis refers to the biblical image of the anchor as a symbol of hope: ‘The image of the anchor is eloquent; it helps us to recognize the stability and security that is ours amid the troubled waters of this life, provided we entrust ourselves to the Lord Jesus.’ … In the years since the U.S. bishops established a committee to promote religious liberty, we have indeed seen troubled waters. Trends have come and gone, and political winds have shifted back and forth. The ministry of the bishops to promote our first, most precious liberty has sought to remain anchored to the truth of the Gospel, and we ask for the grace of this Jubilee to continue to remain steadfast in our principles.”

Bishop Rhoades continued: “As we look to 2025, we anticipate that long-standing concerns will continue to require our vigilance, while new concerns, and perhaps opportunities, will also present themselves. Political leaders of countries may change, and public policy priorities may shift amidst various contemporary circumstances, but our patient and steadfast commitment to Jesus Christ and the Gospel must not change.”

Bishop Paprocki is chairman of the USCCB’s Canonical Affairs Committee and Church Governance and initiated the Fortnight for Freedom, the U.S. bishops’ annual June 21-July 4 campaign on defending religious liberty, which was launched in 2012. Archbishop Cordileone sits on, and previously led, the USCCB’s Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth.

Father Ferguson is the author of “Catholic and American: The Political Theology of John Courtney Murray,” published by Sheed & Ward in 1993. A Jesuit, Father Murray was a key 20th-century thinker on religious liberty whose ideas influenced the Second Vatican Council’s 1965 Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae.

The four Catholic leaders join seven other U.S. religious leaders on the commission’s Advisory Board of Religious Leaders.

The commission’s 13 members, announced on Thursday, May 1, include Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York and Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota. Bishop Barron is a member of – and Cardinal Dolan is a consultant to – the USCCB’s Committee for Religious Liberty.

“Religious liberty is a critical issue in our time that needs to be defended and addressed,” Archbishop Cordileone said in a statement on Thursday, May 15, about the appointment published by officials with the Archdiocese of San Francisco. “I am happy to join my brother bishops in providing a Catholic voice on this important topic at a national level.”

On Friday, May 16, officials with the Trump administration also announced the commission’s six legal advisers, including Gerard Bradley, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Notre Dame, and Francis Beckwith, a Catholic who teaches philosophy and politics at Baylor University in Texas. The administration also named nine lay leader advisers.

In its May 1 announcement about the commission, the White House said it will advise its Faith Office and the Domestic Policy Council, and is tasked with producing “a comprehensive report on the foundations of religious liberty in America, strategies to increase awareness of and celebrate America’s peaceful religious pluralism, current threats to religious liberty, and strategies to preserve and enhance protections for future generations,” and that some of its areas of focus include school choice and conscience protections.

“The State of Religious Liberty in the United States,” published Jan. 16, highlighted the targeting of faith-based immigration services, elevated levels of antisemitic incidents, in vitro fertilization coverage mandates, the “scaling back of gender ideology in law,” and promoting parental choice in education as areas of concern for the bishops’ conference.