[2][3] The USCCB is composed of all active and retired members of the Catholic hierarchy in the United States and the territory of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

[6] During the 19th century, the bishops in the United States met periodically to discuss issues facing the American church and to set policies and rules for its operation, with approval from the Vatican.

[8] In August 1917, each bishop in the United States sent one priest and one lay person to meet at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

With the end of World War I, the general feeling among the American Catholic hierarchy was that they should create a new association of bishops to build on the successes of the NCWC.

In February 1920, Archbishop William O'Connell, leader of one of the largest archdiocese in the nation, petitioned the Consistorial Congregation in Rome to ban the NCWC.

The pope agree to lift the suppression, but asked the bishops to change the organization's name in 1922 to the National Catholic Welfare Conference.

[13] The charter committed the American Catholic Church to providing a "safe environment" for all children and youth participating in church-sponsored activities.

To accomplish this, the American bishops pledged to establish uniform procedures for handling sex-abuse allegations against priests, lay teachers in Catholic schools, parish staff members, coaches and other people who dealt with children.

[16][17] In 2004, the USCCB commissioned the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York to conduct an independent investigation to determine the scope of sexual abuse allegations from 1950 to 2002.

[18] Subsequent decades have seen the USCCB grappling with the fallout,[19] which included dozens of court cases resulting in financial settlements with the victims of almost $4 billion.

In 1990, the USCCB hired the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton in New York City to launch a campaign to persuade Catholics and non-Catholics to oppose abortion rights for women.

[25] In the November 2023 assembly, the bishops again stated that abortion was a greater threat to life than gun violence, racism, climate change and inequality in health care and was the preeminent priority of the American Catholic Church.

It was sued by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on the grounds that the directive in some cases caused doctors to refuse treatment of women in an emergency medical situation.

The USCCB argued that protecting the innocent "is a proper consideration" when regulating firearms:[33] "As the Church teaches, and this Nation's historical traditions demonstrate, the right to bear arms is not an unqualified license that must leave vulnerable family members to live in fear.

"[33] In January 2017, Bishop Joe S. Vásquez, the chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration, criticized Executive Order 13769, issued by the Trump Administration.

DACA had allowed nearly 800,000 young people who arrived in the United States as children of undocumented immigrants to apply for protection from deportation.

[35] At the 2018 USCCB meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, President Cardinal Daniel DiNardo criticized the Trump administration's policies of family separation of undocumented immigrants and the denial of asylum in the United States to women fleeing domestic violence in their home country.

In June 2020, a USCCB committee praised the Trump Administration for changing a US Department of Health and Human Services ruling regarding sexual discrimination based on gender identity.

[32]The statement said that it; "...will help restore the rights of health care providers—as well as insurers and employers—who decline to perform or cover abortions or 'gender transition' procedures due to ethical or professional objections.

[38] In 2020, some conservative American bishops complained to Gómez after he congratulated US Senator Joe Biden, a Catholic, on his election as president of the United States.

However, Gómez also stated that some of Biden's policies,"...would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender.

"[41][42]On March 30, 2021, Gómez wrote to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in Rome, telling them that the USCCB was drafting a new document on the worthiness of Catholic politicians to receive communion.