J. Scott Applewhite, File/AP Photo Congress House retains chaplain who survived earlier, messy fight

The House on Thursday voted to keep the Rev. Patrick J. Conroy as the body’s chaplain, after the historically uncontroversial position became a subject of contention when then-Speaker Paul Ryan was seen as essentially firing the Jesuit priest.

Conroy was kept on in his role, but much like the past year, even that vote was not without pushback. The House had moved for Conroy and a group of other officials to be installed by voice vote. But Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the party’s newly elected conference chair, pushed for a separate action on Conroy, who was then also approved by voice vote.


POLITICO reported last April that Ryan sought to quell the uproar after Conroy’s resignation by emphasizing that it was not political in nature. The chaplain had mysteriously resigned that month, but Democrats soon began saying that Ryan forced Conroy out in an unprecedented move. As the outrage spread, Ryan told his members that there had been multiple complaints about their “pastoral needs” not being met.

One possible reported reason for the episode was that Ryan, a devout Catholic, was caught in the middle of a dispute between his fellow Catholic members and Evangelical Republicans who wanted a religious leader more in tune with their own beliefs. Democrats seized on the lack of answers for Conroy’s ouster and stoked GOP ire by pushing for a special investigation into the matter — a decision that later led two prominent members to engage in a shouting match on the usually staid House floor.

Conroy himself later pulled his resignation and said Ryan did not have the authority to fire him. Seeking to end the negative headlines, Ryan in early May accepted Conroy’s decision not to resign and allowed the priest — first appointed in 2011 by then-Speaker John Boehner, also a Catholic — to stay on the job.