President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the Supreme Court decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, in the Cross Hall of the White House. Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz/Flickr
CV NEWS FEED // In a First Friday presentation on forgiveness, Catholic Bishop Robert Gruss of Saginaw, Michigan, encouraged people who hold onto anger toward President Joe Biden to go to Confession.
The Bishop made his presentation, “Forgiveness as the Heart of Christianity,” on April 5 at the Cathedral of Mary of the Assumption.
The Bishop shared how, while he was on retreat while studying at a seminary in Rome, he wrote a letter of forgiveness to his father, who was in Wisconsin. Bishop Gruss’ parents had brought five kids, including a set of twins and a child with Down syndrome, into the world in four years, and his father had alcoholism. Bishop Gruss said he blamed his father for the death of his mother, who died of cancer when he was 25 and she was 50. While the Bishop came to understand and accept that alcoholism is a disease, he struggled to forgive, and he found it incredibly difficult to write and send the letter, as he always wondered how his father would react.
In the letter that the Bishop sent his father, he told him what it was like, from his perspective, for him to grow up with a father who was alcoholic and who would demean the children. The Bishop also told his father that he loved him and forgave him and that he sought his forgiveness for any time he, out of anger and resentment, did not love his father as he ought to have.
Because the Bishop believed that God wanted him to send the letter, he did. The letter reached the father before he died, but the Bishop could not make it back to the U.S. in time.
“In forgiving my father, I was set free,” Bishop Gruss said, explaining that joy can only be present if resentment is absent. He noted that forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing. Reconciliation involves making amends.
Bishop Gruss said that people who feel wronged by the Church, the government or any other institution have to forgive.
“Forgiveness is not just about people. It’s about relationships, and we have a relationship to the Church. We have a relationship to the government,” the Bishop explained. “So if you’re harboring bad, negative, resentful feelings toward our president, you’re not free. You’re not. The Lord’s inviting you to forgive him.”
Otherwise, people are allowing the President to control their thoughts, words and actions, according to the Bishop.
“I guarantee you, if he is a problem for you, then those thoughts, words and actions are negative, and they’re going to come out and then we commit sin,” he said.
Bishop Gruss encouraged listeners to ask God to help them forgive the President or whomever else they hold anger toward. The Devil, not other people, is the enemy.
“I don’t have any anger toward the President. I feel sorry for him. I’m not angry. He’s just stupid,” the Bishop remarked.
He said that the President’s “stupidity” is that he is ignorant about the Catholic faith.
“I’m sad for him (the President) because he’s not living the life Jesus wants for him. His life could be so much more, just like ours could be if we’re living the life Jesus wants for us,” Bishop Gruss said.