If Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is waging a quiet crusade against the papacy from the speaker’s lobby, if he fired the congressional chaplain because he harbors anti-Catholic sentiment, well then, damn!
That would mean Ryan was undercover for decades, secretly plotting, quietly using all that talk about fiscal conservatism as cover for the darkness and bigotry growing inside his heart.
At least that’s the conspiracy that Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., spun to Politico. He says, without any evidence, that by dismissing Father Pat Conroy, Ryan is “pandering to anti-Catholic sentiment.”
When he served as an altar boy at St. John Vianney in little Janesville, that means he was really infiltrating the universal church. When he attended St. Mary’s Catholic School, he must have been really learning their methods. When he married a Catholic girl, started a family, and raised his children in the Catholic faith, he was actually building an insidious anti-Catholic movement.
It’s a decent conspiracy theory. It’s also a really stupid opinion, and Connolly should feel bad for airing it.
The exact reasoning for why the priest was put out to pasture isn’t known. Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong would only say, “The speaker made the decision he believes to be in the best interest of the House, and he remains grateful for Father Conroy’s many years of service.”
Some have speculated that the encouraged resignation came after the padre got political during a prayer. If that’s the case, so be it. The House Chaplain isn’t an elected official. He serves at the pleasure of the majority of members who voted him into the office. He has no business sharing his opinion on the floor. His business is ministering to the souls of politicians, souls disproportionately at risk of damnation due to their proximity to power.
Ryan is no monster. Ryan is making a personnel change that can be undone should Democrats retake the majority. And therein lies the political-theological problem. This scandal has nothing to do with Ryan and his religion (if it did, I suspect practicing GOP Catholics like Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., would have worked to exile the speaker long ago). Instead, this looks like a cheap shot.
Connolly has drafted a protest letter signed by 140 other lawmakers, almost all of them Democrats. But that rabble has all the sense of a children’s crusade.
Father Conroy said he was resigning at the request of the speaker. He could have refused. It turns out that Ryan can’t fire the chaplain unilaterally. The Constitution makes allowance for the hiring of a chaplain and other individuals to serve in secretarial offices, and Rule II of the Rules of the House of Representatives offers specific instructions for their hiring and firing. The Congressional Research Service translates:
Read that again. The speaker can tell the clerk, the sergeant at arms, and the chief administrative officer that they’re fired. There is no provision for him to fire the chaplain. That’s why he requested his resignation instead. If Father Conroy wanted a Holy War, he could’ve made one happen.
Ryan is no idiot. And by all accounts, he is a good Catholic. Whatever is going on with this firing, there’s got to be a better explanation than an anti-Catholic conspiracy.
