New leaders were elected in Baltimore this week at the annual fall meeting of the U.S. Catholic bishops. Their new president is Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, and Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston is vice president. Both are widely seen as moderates. Many had been watching to see how the meetings would play out in light of Pope Francis’s wishes for the church to be less ideological. At the conference DiNardo maintained the church’s position on right-to-life issues:
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo: “We’ll never stand down from our defense of the human person, particularly at the beginnings of life and at the end of life. That’s non-negotiable.”