{"id":2613491,"date":"2026-06-11T20:10:02","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T00:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/catholic-bishops-consecrate-us-white-house-says-trump-and-melania-join-in-prayer-in-unprecedented-gesture\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T20:10:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T00:10:02","slug":"catholic-bishops-consecrate-us-white-house-says-trump-and-melania-join-in-prayer-in-unprecedented-gesture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/catholic-bishops-consecrate-us-white-house-says-trump-and-melania-join-in-prayer-in-unprecedented-gesture\/","title":{"rendered":"Catholic bishops consecrate US, White House says Trump and Melania &#8216;join in prayer&#8217; in &#8216;unprecedented&#8217; gesture"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcatholic-bishops-consecrate-us-white-house-says-trump-and-melania-join-in-prayer-in-unprecedented-gesture%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2613491&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<article class=\"fn-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">President <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/donald-trump\" type=\"link\" id=\"washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/donald-trump\">Donald Trump<\/a> is offering support for Catholic bishops\u2019 consecration of the United States to the <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/christianity\/\">Sacred Heart of Jesus<\/a>, an unprecedented act of solidarity with the Catholic Church as the animosity between the White House and the Vatican is seemingly in the rearview.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Members of the <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/catholic-church\/\">United States Conference of Catholic Bishops<\/a> \u2014 which is currently gathered in Orlando, Florida, for its spring assembly \u2014 came together for the consecration service on Thursday in honor of the nation\u2019s 250th anniversary. The occasion, marked by a presidential statement, is seen as a high point in acceptance of the Catholic Church in the historically Protestant country.<\/p>\n<section class=\"explore-more-section\" id=\"wex-recommended-widget\">\n<div class=\"magazine-container single\">\n<h1 class=\"magazine-title mt-2\">Recommended Stories<\/h1>\n<p>             <i class=\"fa-solid fa-play icon\"><\/i>         <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-grid\">\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/world\/4604185\/trump-promises-another-round-strikes-iran-operation-kharg-island\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>Trump promises another round of strikes against Iran and operation on Kharg Island<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/world\/4604070\/uk-defense-minister-john-healey-resigns-concerns-funding-makes-country-less-safe\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>UK Defense Secretary John Healey resigns over concerns funding pitfalls make country \u2018less safe\u2019<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/4603976\/three-indian-mariners-killed-by-us-strikes-on-tanker-in-gulf-of-oman\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>Three Indian mariners killed by US strikes on tanker in Gulf of Oman<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cToday, Melania and I join in prayer with Catholic Bishops gathered in Orlando, Florida, as they consecrate the United States of America to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the occasion of our 250th year of American Independence \u2014 a powerful moment in our national story and a poignant reminder that America has always been guided by the loving hand of God,\u201d the president said in a <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefings-statements\/2026\/06\/presidential-message-on-u-s-catholic-bishops-honoring-the-250th-anniversary-of-american-independence\/\">statement<\/a> from the White House.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap\" style=\"min-height:5px;\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" style=\"display:none;\">Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-15\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-1\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A bishop venerates relics of the 17th century St. Mary Margaret Alacoque, a French nun whose reports of visions of Jesus has led to the modern devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in front of the Basilica of the National Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe in Orlando, Florida, before a service Thursday, June 11, 2026, in which U.S. Catholic bishops consecrated the United States to the Sacred Heart upon the nation\u2019s 250th anniversary. (AP Photo\/Peter Smith)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To consecrate a nation to the Sacred Heart is to spiritually entrust its people to God\u2019s care. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a distinctly Catholic devotion that emphasizes Jesus\u2019s heart as a symbol for God\u2019s mercy and love for humanity, as well as his suffering in death. It is the first time such a consecration has been made in the U.S., as such ceremonies typically take place in majority-Catholic countries with strong overlap between their civic and spiritual spheres.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMay your holy Catholic Church serve as a sign, pointing all people to your infinite love,\u201d <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=j1WyC4TSeoo\">prayed the bishops and lay worshippers <\/a>at the Basilica of the National Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe. \u201cO desire of nations and center of history, we ask you to bless these United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In his statement, Trump lauded the post-Revolutionary War archbishop, John Carroll, who helped Catholics in Boston integrate into the fledgling nation as an often unwelcome religious minority. He also celebrated the friendship between President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, the two leaders most celebrated for standing athwart the spread of communism.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap\" style=\"min-height:5px;\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" style=\"display:none;\">Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-16\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-2\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cToday, nearly four decades later, our Nation and our culture confront a new set of menacing ideologies seeking once again to cast God out from our society,\u201d the president said. \u201cBut today, as Catholic Bishops consecrate the United States of America to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in this 250th year of our Independence, we recommit ourselves, like President Reagan and Pope Saint John Paul II, to defending our spiritual identity and great civilizational inheritance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/world\/4571273\/bishop-barron-freedom-religion-us-rededicate-250\/\">Bishop Robert Barron<\/a>, one of the church\u2019s most widely-followed clerical leaders and a member of the White House\u2019s Religious Liberty Commission, told the <em>Washington Examiner<\/em>: \u201cThis seems to me to be unprecedented and demonstrates the esteem Trump Administration has for the [Catholic] Church in the United States and how mindful the President is of the many positive contributions Catholics have made to this country.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Members of the faith swung for the GOP in the 2024 elections, and the White House responded to that realignment by <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/world\/3919767\/catholicism-uncomfortable-prominence-trumpworld-us-politics\/\">commemorating Catholic feast days<\/a> such as the Immaculate Conception and the feast of St. Michael the Archangel. Observers have also credited the government\u2019s favor toward the Catholic Church to the fact that the administration is flush with believers.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap\" style=\"min-height:5px;\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" style=\"display:none;\">Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-17\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-3\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI have had the pleasure to work with and get to know many Catholics who work for President Trump\u2019s administration,\u201d Barron said. \u201cI have been heartened by not only their love for this country, but the manner in which their Catholic faith informs their work and shapes their lives. I am sure that they too are delighted and grateful for this Presidential Proclamation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The gesture comes after Trump\u2019s feud with Pope Leo XIV over the pontiff\u2019s opposition to the war in Iran. The president called the bishop of Rome \u201cweak on crime and terrible for foreign policy.\u201d He even brought the pope\u2019s family into the matter, writing on social media: \u201cI like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA. He gets it, and Leo doesn\u2019t!\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">U.S. Catholic bishops are seated at the Basilica of the National Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe in Orlando, Fla., for a service Thursday, June 11, 2026, consecrating the United States to the Sacred Heart upon the nation\u2019s 250th anniversary. (AP Photo\/Peter Smith)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/4526603\/hegseth-pastor-doug-wilson-trump-do-better-ai-jesus-debacle\/\">Doug Wilson<\/a>, a Reformed pastor close with <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/pete-hegseth\/\">Secretary of War Pete Hegseth<\/a> who operates a church in Washington, D.C., popular with members of the Trump administration, wrote off the proclamation as Trump \u201csimply trying to be nice to the Catholics in the same way that politicians want to be courteous to all faiths.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wilson has become a prominent voice of Christian nationalist thought on the Right. He has previously explained that in a hypothetical future where the U.S. recovers its historic faith identity, public celebrations of Catholic belief at odds with Protestant sensibilities ought to be restricted. Yet, the Thursday consecration was not a major stumbling block for Wilson.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI don\u2019t think there are any monumental theological issues at stake, other than our modern tendency to throw all religions into a blender, and to call the resultant puree somewhat inspiring,\u201d he told the <em>Washington Examiner.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Trump administration has sought to maintain productive relationships with a wide pool of religious communities, ranging from Jews to Latter-day Saints.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Appealing to such a broad base of faith communities has occasionally proved difficult, such as the Department of War\u2019s decision last week to <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense\/4599218\/pentagon-religious-classification-backlash-mormon-senators\/\">reduce and simplify its religious affiliation codes<\/a>. The initial reformed list included a Christian category with several denominations tagged under that label.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/world\/4568327\/pope-leo-ai-warfare-moral-challenge-rome-speech\/\">POPE LEO FRAMES AI WARFARE AS MORAL CHALLENGE IN ROME SPEECH: \u2018INHUMAN EVOLUTION\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints \u2014 formerly known as the \u201cMormons\u201d \u2014 was not included under the \u201cChristian\u201d umbrella, resulting in statements of indignation from LDS politicians such as Republican Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis of Utah. Christians argued  LDS members were correctly excluded due to their radically idiosyncratic theology.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Department of War eventually removed itself from the debate by erasing the \u201cChristian\u201d category entirely and referring to faith traditions by their denominational names, such as \u201cMethodist\u201d and \u201cPresbyterian.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Donald Trump is offering support for Catholic bishops\u2019 consecration of the United States to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, an unprecedented act of solidarity with the Catholic Church as the animosity between the White House and the Vatican is seemingly in the rearview. Members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops \u2014 which<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3468,"featured_media":2613492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AP26162752808730-e1781222118718.jpg?w=696","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[538],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2613491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-washington-examiner"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AP26162752808730-e1781222118718.jpg?w=696","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2613491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3468"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2613491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2613491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2613492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2613491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2613491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2613491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}