Washington — The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released its annual religious liberty report this week, offering a carefully balanced verdict on what the bishops called a year of significant gains and persistent dangers for people of faith in America.
The 2026 "State of Religious Liberty in the United States" report, compiled by the USCCB's Committee for Religious Liberty, credited the Trump administration with moving swiftly to roll back policies that the bishops had long argued placed undue pressure on faith-based institutions. Chief among the actions praised was President Trump's reversal of Biden-era directives that had interpreted federal sex-discrimination protections to include gender identity — rules that had created friction for religious schools, Catholic hospitals, and faith-based adoption agencies that maintain traditional teachings on sex and marriage.
"The administration recognized the biological reality of sex," the report stated, "and moved to protect women's and girls' sports while reducing the risk of government coercion against religious Americans."
The bishops also welcomed the creation of a White House Religious Liberty Commission, the establishment of an Anti-Christian Bias Task Force, and the reactivation of the White House Faith Office — initiatives they described as meaningful institutional commitments to religious pluralism in public life.
Archbishop Alexander K. Sample of Portland, Oregon, chairman of the Committee for Religious Liberty, framed the moment in historical terms. Writing in the report's foreword, he noted that the United States is approaching the 250th anniversary of its founding — and argued that now is an appropriate time to reflect on how the Church has shaped, and been shaped by, American democracy.
Yet the report was not a simple endorsement. On immigration — the issue that has most visibly divided the Trump administration from Catholic leadership — the bishops were pointed in their concern. Many dioceses and Catholic Charities affiliates have found themselves in direct conflict with federal immigration enforcement, as deportation operations have affected parishioners, and some faith-based social service organizations have faced pressure not to assist undocumented individuals. The report identified immigration policy as the single most pressing religious liberty concern for 2026.
The bishops also raised alarms about what they described as a rising tide of political violence targeting Catholic institutions, though they stopped short of attributing it to any specific faction or ideology. Several churches and pro-life pregnancy centers reported vandalism and arson attempts in the past year, a pattern that Catholic advocacy groups have been tracking since the 2022 Dobbs decision.
The USCCB report lands at a moment when the relationship between American Catholicism and the political right is being renegotiated in real time. The Church's positions — socially conservative on marriage and abortion, but progressive on immigration, poverty, and capital punishment — have long resisted clean partisan alignment. Under Francis, the Vatican has pushed back against what it sees as the weaponization of Catholicism by nationalist movements worldwide.
For now, the bishops appear to be threading that needle with deliberate care: accepting the administration's help on the issues where interests align, and pressing firmly where they do not.
"Religious liberty is not a partisan cause. It is an American one."
