High-ranking Catholic bishops join call for Trump to apologize over racist video

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Two more Catholic bishops issued statements objecting to a video posted on President Donald Trump’s Truth Social account late at night Feb. 5 that depicted former first couple President Barack and Michelle Obama as apes — a well-known racist trope used to disparage Black Americans.

The video was deleted by noon the following day after widespread outrage denounced the content as racist, but Trump has refused to apologize over the incident.

White House officials at first defended the post — an AI-generated clip, set to music from “The Lion King,” that depicted prominent Democrats as animals and superimposed the Obamas’ faces over two apes — and called the bipartisan condemnation “fake outrage.” But they later claimed Trump did not post the now-deleted video and alleged an unnamed staffer did it.

In comments to reporters on Air Force One the evening of Feb. 6, Trump declined to apologize for the video’s posting but claimed he had not watched it in its entirety.

“I gave it to the people, generally they’d look at the whole thing, but I guess somebody didn’t,” he told reporters.

Lawmakers and faith leaders — including prominent Black Catholic leaders — were among those who condemned the video and its apparent promotion by the president.

But two high-ranking Catholic prelates issued statements Feb. 9, calling on the president to take responsibility and apologize.

In a Feb. 9 statement posted to social media, Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger of Detroit said, “It is very disturbing that anyone, much less the President of the United States or his staff members, should see racist memes as humorous or appropriate expressions of political discourse. They are deeply offensive and must be condemned in the strongest terms.”

“I join my voice to the many calling for a public apology with full acceptance of responsibility, and I also bristle at claims from the White House that the rage many of us feel is ‘fake,'” Archbishop Weisenburger said. “Beyond the necessary apology, I also believe that we all must examine our conscience, individually and collectively. We need to recognize and acknowledge how prevalent racism continues to be in our society and commit ourselves to vigilance in counteracting its harm.”

“As Catholics, we believe that every person is made in the image and likeness of God. This sacred truth compels us to treat every human being with dignity, respect, and love,” he continued. “We must recommit ourselves to vigilance in counteracting the wounds caused by the evil of racism as truly we are called to be one human family.”

Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago said in a Feb. 9 statement that “Portraying human beings as animals — less than human — is not new.”

“It was a common way in past centuries for politicians and others to demean immigrant groups as each arrived, the Chinese, Irish, Italians, Slavs, Jews, Latinos and so on,” he said. “Cartoons, ‘news’ articles, even theatrical productions carried the message that these ‘others’ were worthy of ridicule. It made it easier to turn a blind eye to their privation, pay them pitiful wages and mock their ‘foreign’ religion even as the country needed their labor. It immunized the national conscience when we turned away shiploads of refugees, lynched thousands and doomed generations to poverty.”

“We tell ourselves that those days belong in the past — that even sharing that history is harmful to the fantasy of equality we strive to create,” he continued.

Cardinal Cupich argued, “If the President intentionally approved the message containing viciously racist images, he should admit it. If he did not know of it originally, he should explain why he let his staff describe the public outcry over their transmission as fake outrage.”

“Either way he should apologize,” he said. “Our shock is real. So is our outrage. Nothing less than an unequivocal apology — to the nation and to the persons demeaned — is acceptable. And it must come immediately.”

The Baltimore-based Josephite order released a statement, saying in part, “The posting of resist imagery portraying President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as monkeys is morally reprehensible, deeply offensive, and unmistakably racist. Such imagery is rooted in a violent and degrading history of ant-Black racism and has no place in public discourse, especially from those who wield influence and power.”

In a Feb. 8 statement, The Ancient Order of Hibernians, the oldest Irish Catholic fraternal organization in the U.S., made similar observations in stating the group “condemns in the strongest possible terms the racist depiction of President Barack Obama and Mrs. Michelle Obama as apes that was shared from President Trump’s social media account.”

“This is not a political statement, but a moral one founded in our Irish history and Catholic faith,” the statement said. “We recognize this tactic because it was used against us as Irish Americans.”

According to EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin, “Derogatory representation of the Irish” in Britain and the U.S. included depictions of them “as harmless dimwits to ape-like beasts,” aiming to treat the Irish “as lesser humans.”

“While it’s true that the Irish often debarked coffin ships ragged, poor and sickly, this pervasive narrative painted them as something to fear,” the museum said on its website.

As an order that was first founded to “combat attacks against Irish immigrants,” the statement said, “we know intimately the weaponization of simian imagery.”

“These depictions were used to justify discrimination, exclusion, and violence. They stripped our people of dignity and humanity,” it continued. “The claim that this video was merely an ‘internet meme’ or that critics were engaging in ‘fake outrage’ is both morally bankrupt and historically ignorant. There is nothing lighthearted about reducing any people to apes. This imagery has been used for centuries as a tool of oppression, designed to dehumanize and justify subjugation. It is not humor; it is bigotry.”

The statement argued that “leadership means accountability.”

“As a leader, the President should be well aware that the captain of a ship is responsible for all who serve under him,” it said. “When this content appeared on the president’s account, the president bears responsibility, regardless of whom he empowered to press the button.”

The Ancient Order of Hibernians, they said, “is a nonpartisan organization. We do not endorse political parties or candidates. But we cannot — and will not — remain silent when any human being is dehumanized through the racist imagery that once targeted our own community.”

Previously, Bishop Daniel E. Garcia of Austin, Texas, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion of Racial Justice and Reconciliation, said in written comments to OSV News, “I am glad to see that the egregious post has been taken down.”

“As my brother bishops and I have said in our pastoral letter against racism: ‘Every racist act — every such comment, every joke, every disparaging look as a reaction to the color of skin, ethnicity, or place of origin — is a failure to acknowledge another person as a brother or sister, created in the image of God,'” he said.

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