The double scandal of the ‘DEI means God’ essay

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Sep 17, 2025

After Catholic World News reported that astonishing little essay entitled “DEI Means God” had appeared on the web site of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Chieko Noguchi, the USCCB director of public affairs, told The Pillar: “It was mistakenly posted to the website, and has been taken down.”

That is reassuring, I suppose—although I wonder how something could appear by mistake on a site representing the bishops of the United States.

But in an important sense the brief appearance of the essay (which is now hard— but not impossible—to find online) is only the second of two mistakes. The first and more serious mistake was made by Bishop Campbell when he wrote this puerile piece.

Bishop Campbell—who remains active as an auxiliary in the Archdiocese of Washington, although at 77 he is beyond the normative retirement age—is critical of the Trump administration. He is entitled to his political opinions. But he paints with a very broad brush when he claims that the administration “is working to separate us from one another, not just migrants, but many, especially people of color, who have been denied for far too long, equal opportunities in education, social recognition, and economic growth, truly denying the DIGNITY OF EVERY HUMAN BEING!” (Here and wherever I quote Bishop Campbell’s piece I am preserving his emphasis) He laments: “This administration wants to erase Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion from the American conscience.”

There is no real argument in his 3-page tirade; the bishop does not set out to explain why opposition to the DEI ideology is harmful. He takes it for granted that the reader will see that rejection as an attack on human dignity. His reference to “conscience” suggests that any decent person has an innate understanding that DEI is morally right and necessary.

Next Bishop Campbell makes the stunning observation that explains the title of his essay:

D.E.I, Dei means God in Latin, and
God is Diversity: “Then God said to him, I am God Almighty; be fruitful and multiply. A nation, indeed an assembly of nations, will stem from you, and kings will issue from your loins.” (Genesis 35:11)

To say that God is diversity is problematical at best. The Godhead is an undivided unity. In that citation from Genesis, God is addressing Adam—that is, Man—and saying that Man will multiply and become diverse.

The bishop goes on to assert that God is equity and God is inclusion. Readers who take the time to read the essay can judge for themselves whether those claims make sense. In my view the most appalling part of the essay is that first claim that “God is diversity.”

Bishop Campbell wraps things up by explaining what he means by DEI:

D.E.I. to me means that God is always working among us and through us for the eternal life of each of us.

If that is what DEI means—if DEI refers to the Providential action of the Almighty—then there was no point in writing this essay. The Trump administration cannot stop God’s work. Yet Bishop Campbell did find it necessary to write. He writes with purpose and with passion, clearly intending to defend DEI policies against the Trump administration’s attacks on them.

With that purpose in mind, return to that shocking claim. If “DEI is God,” it follows by the symmetric property that “God is DEI.” I doubt that the bishop would endorse the latter statement, which reeks of blasphemy. Yet insofar as there is logic to be found in his essay, that is where the logic leads us. The thrust of this essay is to make DEI not merely a political goal but a false idol.

In explaining that the essay by Bishop Campbell had been posted online by mistake, Chieko Noguchi told The Pillar that it “is yet to be discussed and given to a definitive publication plan.” Let’s kick off that discussion with a suggestion that the piece by placed in the circular file.