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January 20, 2021
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
On this inauguration day, we offer prayer for our new president, Joseph Biden and his incoming administration. I pray that the Lord give him wisdom, courage, and grace to lead our country, help heal our wounds, and to work for the common good. As our rich history shows, Catholics stand ready to work with our brothers and sisters to build a civilization of life and love, and to seek the transformation of society and culture so that every human person may realize their immeasurable human dignity, given to us by God.
Together, Americans need to continue to seek solutions to the pandemic, poverty, unemployment, and the immigration question. The Catholic Church will seek to work with the new administration on issues where we find convergence. Regarding the difficult issues of divergence, such as abortion, contraception, religious freedom, and gender, the Church will challenge our leaders to embrace the full vision of the human person, as revealed by God and inscribed in the human heart through the natural law.
Archbishop Gomez, the Archbishop of Los Angeles and the current president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a thoughtful letter today which I recommend everyone to read: https://www.usccb.org/news/2021/usccb-presidents-statement-inauguration-joseph-r-biden-jr-46th-president-united-states. He pledges support of and prayers for President Biden, a willingness to work together to solve our many and vexing problems, and challenges the president to rethink his stance on particular moral issues. Today, we lift our beloved country to the Lord and ask Him to give us the insight to truth, generosity to love, and courage of sacrifice to build a community where every single human being may flourish as a child of God.
Sincerely in Christ,
+Donald J. Hying
Bishop of Madison