All Rev'd Up: Why Some Catholic Bishops Lobbied Against National Suicide Prevention Hotline

In this Sunday, June 7, 2020 file photo, Archbishop Jose H. Gomez is serving as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops president since 2019.

Hannah Uebele is a producer for Under the Radar with Callie Crossley and previously worked as associate producer for Boston Public Radio. She graduated from Tufts University with a B.S. in English and Environmental Studies. She's a proud Delawarean but has found herself saying "wicked" more and more often, so the Bostonian metamorphosis is well underway.Contact: hannah_uebele@wgbh.org

March 29, 2021

Updated August 07, 2023

Congress passed the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act last fall, establishing a nationwide hotline for suicide prevention. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops lobbied against the bill because it included resources for the LGBTQ community.

Reports show that this isn't the first time the USCCB has opposed legislation for similar reasons, the Rev. Irene Monroe and the Rev. Emmett G. Price III told Boston Public Radio on Monday. USCCB opposed the 2013 Violence Against Women Act for containing "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" classification. It also spoke out against the 2021 Equality Act, which would add protections for LGBTQ people in the workplace to federal law.

"I don't even understand the arguments here, because the whole notion of the suicide prevention lifeline is for everybody," Price said. "The whole notion of the Gospel is about life and the preservation of it, so the stance from these bishops in terms of isolationing LGBTQ people is so horrible."

Monroe wondered why Pope Francis has remained silent on the USCCB's efforts at discrimination.

"The [USCCB] has taken a really hard right, and it's really meanspirited," she said. "But where is the pope on this? His silence makes him complicit."

Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist, the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail and a visiting researcher in the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at Boston University School of Theology. Price is a professor of worship, church and culture and founding executive director of the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Together they host the All Rev’d Up podcast, produced by GBH.