House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Monday that “feedback I’ve been getting for quite a while from members” about the lack of adequate pastoral services led to his recent decision to dismiss the House chaplain, Father Patrick Conroy.
Ryan, speaking to The Weekly Standard’s Steve Hayes, denied the decision had anything to do with a November opening prayer offered by Conroy that referenced the need for fairness in upcoming tax reform legislation.
“This is not about politics or prayers, it’s about pastoral services,” Ryan told Hayes at the Midwest Conservative Summit. “A number of our members were not being adequately served or offered services, so I made a decision on behalf of the House, on behalf of making sure we could have adequate pastoral services.”
Ryan said he is forming a bipartisan committee to select a new House chaplain.
Ryan called Father Conroy “a good man,” and said “you some times have to make decisions on behalf of the institution that are not going to be politically popular.”
Conroy told the New York Times that Ryan didn’t like the tax reference in his prayer and told him “Padre, you just got to stay out of politics.”
Democrats and a few Republicans are in an uproar over the firing and are demanding more information. Conroy was selected by former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in 2011 and until last week, was supported by lawmakers to keep his position.
