A Genial Enforcer of Rome’s Conservative Line
By MICHAEL POWELL
The New York Times
February 24, 2009
MILWAUKEE — For a few deeply unpleasant days, the Rev. David Cooper found himself in the crosshairs of the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
It was 2003, and the priest had opined to a reporter that women should be ordained. Faraway bishops rumbled about censure. Then he picked up the telephone and heard the baritone of Milwaukee’s archbishop, Timothy Michael Dolan. Father Cooper immediately offered to resign.
No, no, the archbishop replied, we just need to repair the damage. “He was very pastoral and caring,” Father Cooper recalled.
And how was it resolved? “Oh, I agreed to recant,” he said. “He effectively silenced me.”
Right photo shows Archbishop Dolan concelebrating Mass Monday morning at St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Archbishop Dolan, who Pope Benedict XVI named on Monday to lead the Archdiocese of New York, is a genial enforcer of Rome’s ever more conservative writ, a Falstaffian fellow who talks of his love of the Brewers baseball team and Miller beer, and who takes obvious joy in donning his bishop’s robes and pounding his bishop’s staff as he tromps into church. When talking with parishioners, he places his hand on their shoulders, sidles in close and, out of the corner of his mouth, cracks a joke.
Asked this month about rumors of his departure for New York, he shrugged. “I don’t think I’m on Pope Benedict’s speed dial,” he said. “I hope to be here for the rest of my life. I’ve even picked out my burial spot in the crypt — want to see it?”
On matters of doctrine, the archbishop 59, adheres to the line laid down by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict, including firm opposition to abortion, birth control, divorce, gay marriage and any crack in the wall of priestly celibacy.
A native of St. Louis, Archbishop Dolan has scaled the Roman Catholic high cliffs, earning a Ph.D. in church history and serving in the stations sought out by the church’s high achievers: secretary to the papal nuncio, the pope’s envoy, in Washington; rector of the Pontifical North American College, a school for American seminarians in Rome; and auxiliary bishop of St. Louis, before being installed as archbishop of Milwaukee in 2002. He speaks fluent Italian.
In Milwaukee, he proved a prodigious fund-raiser, staving off the bankruptcy that seemed to beckon as the priest sexual abuse scandal, and earlier efforts at a cover-up, led to lawsuits. He closed a $3 million budget deficit last year, and started a fund-raising campaign that he says is more than halfway to its goal, with $57.5 million in pledges. He has combined shrinking parishes and reached out to young people over beers, and recruited new seminarians — the Milwaukee archdiocese expects to ordain six men this year, as opposed to a single ordination a few years ago.
He has vigorously courted the booming exurban white Catholic churches and the Hispanic congregations of the city’s south side. Such experiences could serve him well in New York, where the church also has grown more suburban and Latino. (He traveled to a Spanish class in Mexico and tries out a stray “hola!” and “como estas?” on his Hispanic parishioners.)
But the woes afflicting his 10-county archdiocese are many. The sex abuse scandal remains an open sore. The church has paid $26.5 million to settle lawsuits, and officials expect a new raft of suits in the next year. Critics say that Archbishop Dolan has not defrocked at least three priests who were found to have committed sexual abuse, and a state judge held last year that the archdiocese’s insurance company is not responsible for paying claims in cases where diocesan officials committed fraud by transferring abusive priests without notifying their new parishioners.
Attendance at Mass has declined steadily, from 40 percent of parishioners in the early 1990s to 27 percent last autumn. Sixty parishes have closed since the late 1990s and nearly three dozen parishes share priests or have lay leaders, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. A few parishes remain split, sharply, over questions of birth control and divorce, and over archdiocesan attempts to promote a more traditional liturgy.
The archdiocese remains so strapped for cash that officials have put its headquarters, alongside a cobalt blue stretch of Lake Michigan, up for sale. A billboard along the lakeshore drive promises: “Development Opportunity. Approximately 44 Acres.”
Archbishop Dolan hails from American Catholicism’s now-dominant conservative wing, which has grown stronger and more assertive during the past decade. Under his predecessor, Rembert G. Weakland, the Milwaukee archdiocese had a national reputation as a liberal Catholic outpost, where debate about doctrine was vociferous and to be gloried in. Many Catholics predicted a theological war upon the arrival of the new bishop. This did not materialize.
Obedient soldier of Rome though many say he is, Archbishop Dolan remains more politician than ideologue. He has not joined the American bishops who barred Catholic politicians who favor abortion rights from taking holy communion. And, with a notable exception or two, he has declined to ferret out the liberals in his midst.
There are, the archbishop told his priests by email two years ago, speakers who are “are ‘not my cup of tea’ but who will stay ‘within the boundaries,’ and I trust your judgment. We need dialogue.”
But, he warned, there are a few — like Daniel C. Maguire, the Catholic theologian and professor at Marquette University, in Milwaukee — who favor abortion rights and are “so radically outside church teaching that his appearance at any parish would be a grave scandal.”
William J. Thorn, a journalism professor at Marquette, has spoken often with Archbishop Dolan.
“He is what you would expect of an archbishop appointed by John Paul II,” he said. “ He is with Rome on the big issues and on the little ones. But he does not do it in a dictatorial fashion.”
In personal style, it is hard to imagine a sharper contrast between this affable bishop and the distant, often diffident man he will replace in New York, Cardinal Edward M. Egan.
Cardinal Egan declined to reveal much about church finances and clashed with his priests. Archbishop Dolan gets good grades from Catholic reformers for the transparency of his archdiocese’s finances, and takes pleasure in schmoozing with his priests, asking after their elderly parents. At day’s end he might invite a few to share a glass of whiskey at his residence, a converted barn on the grounds of a lakeside seminary.
One recent Sunday, the bishop participated in the Mass at St. Benedict the Moor, a liberal church in Milwaukee. As it ended, a white-haired parishioner, Chuck Boyle, 79, rose in the pews and challenged him to rethink the church’s opposition to ordaining women, a plea which the audience, including nine former priests and their wives, met with sustained applause.
The archbishop kept his poker face and did not respond. Fifteen minutes later, he worked the food line in the church basement before easing into a steel folding chair to chat. A woman inquired if he wanted milk with his coffee.
“I’d prefer a bit of Jameson’s,” he said. “But milk will do.”
Thirty blocks to the south, at St. Adalbert Church, the past and future of the Milwaukee archdiocese are on display. A sign outside the church lists the English-language Mass: 10 a.m. Sunday. On its opposite side is the Spanish-language schedule: 8 a.m., noon and 7 p.m. And on a recent Saturday, 900 or so Mexican worshipers — wives and husbands, babies in serapes, teenagers and small children — crowded the aisles for a 5 p.m. Spanish Mass.
Few churches in the archdiocese are as packed. For this the priest, the charismatic and barrel-chested Rev. Eleazar Perez Rodriguez, credits himself, his Mexican community, and not least his middle-aged, Irish-American bishop.
Unlike most churches, St. Adalbert’s keeps its doors open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., to suit intense devotees and irregular work schedules. The style of music and worship owes more to Oaxaca than Milwaukee. Congregants knock at Father Perez’s door day and night, and visitors often sit four deep in his antechamber.
“The church must understand and harness this community, and that hadn’t happened until Bishop Dolan came on the scene,” he said. “The bishop is kind of interesting; he doesn’t say ‘yea’ or ‘nay’, he just lets me work.”
When Archbishop Dolan arrived in Milwaukee, women and lay people occupied key positions, and he displeased some conservative supporters by leaving most in place. His chancellor, Barbara Anne Cusack, is a nationally respected canon lawyer. One of his auxiliary bishops spoke long ago in favor of ordaining woman.
The archbishop is no crusader. He speaks against abortion and the death penalty. When some parishes affiliated with a national organizing group and began pushing for a health insurance cooperative, he gave his blessing and kept his distance. Like Cardinal Egan, he seems wary that crusading could distract, not least from the fund-raising needed to keep the church afloat.
Nor is Archbishop Dolan known as a particularly sophisticated theologian; his homilies are homespun, often touching on baseball and football before turning to the importance of Christ as savior. At St. Benedict he delivered an affecting homily on the hopelessness and joy that can accompany those who care for the poor. But many priests say he lacks the lyricism and textual insight of a great homilist.
“He is no theologian,” said Professor Maguire, the Marquette theologian banned from speaking on archdiocesan property. “He is in keeping with church policy that theologians are to listen and obey. It turns theology into a form of magic, expertise without study.”
About the theatrics of his business, there is no doubt: the archbishop is a master. As he walks into church, head bowed, he peers here and there, seeking eye contact and flashing smiles. When he sings, his deep voice echoes loudest.
“I was at the vespers when he was installed at bishop,” recalled the Rev. Steven M. Avella, a history professor at Marquette. “And there’s a part where the bishop knocks on the door. Most do it timidly. Tap, tap. Not him — ‘Bang! Bang!’ ”
Father Avella laughed at the memory. “It echoed through the cathedral and let everyone know that Timothy Dolan was there.”
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Pope Names Milwaukee’s Dolan as New York Archbishop
By Flavia Krause-Jackson and Peter S. Green
Bloomberg.com
Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Pope Benedict XVI named Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan to replace Cardinal Edward Egan as archbishop of New York, a post the late Pope John Paul II once called “the archbishop of the capital of the world.”
Dolan, who will be installed in a ceremony at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan on April 15, will become the city’s 13th bishop and its 10th archbishop, a post held throughout history almost entirely by Irish-Americans. He served Mass this morning at the cathedral and is scheduled to hold a press conference later today.
“I pledge to you my love, my life, my heart, and I can tell you already that I love you, I need so much your prayers and support, I am so honored, humbled, and happy to serve as your pastor,” Dolan, 59, said in a statement addressed to Catholic New Yorkers this morning.
The Vatican announced the new appointment in its midday bulletin. Dolan will lead the Archdiocese of New York, which has 388 parishes and more than 650 priests, according to its Web site. It serves some 2.5 million Catholics. Egan, 76, who had been archbishop since 2000, announced plans to retire last year.
“He’s smart, he’s very personable, he’s good with people and I think the people in the pews will like him,” Father Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at Woodstock Theological Center of Georgetown University in Washington, said of Dolan.
Conservative Loyal
Dolan is known to be loyal to the conservative teachings of Pope Benedict, Reese said in an interview before the announcement. “He doesn’t want to play policeman and chase down heretics and burn them at the stake.”
“He’s not afraid to get good people around him,” said Ed Zore, the president of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance in Milwaukee, who has worked with Dolan to raise money for the diocese there.
“We have a shrinking number of parishes, a shrinking number of priests and the whole financial problem, and what he has been able to do is get good people to come and help him figure this stuff out,” said Zore.
The appointment comes as high-ranking Catholic officials seek to distance themselves from allegations that they turned a blind eye to priests who abused children.
A Tough Issue
Dolan won praise for tackling the issue openly and early on while Egan, who suspended six priests in 2002, drew criticism for not acting fast enough to address sex-abuse cases in his parishes, according to BishopaAccountability.org, a Web site set up by victims in 2003 that includes court files.
Benedict met with a small group of victims of clergy sexual abuse in Washington last April, and called for a “time of healing” in his Mass at St. Patrick’s on April 19. Relations with the 69 million American Catholics have suffered over what some called the Vatican’s reluctance to deal with the child-abuse scandal, in which more than 5,000 clergymen have been accused of molesting about 12,000 victims.
Dolan was born in St. Louis of Irish heritage. He studied theology at the Pontifical North American College in Rome and was ordained in 1976. He returned to his alma mater as rector in 1994. He was named auxiliary bishop to St. Louis in 2001 and became archbishop of Milwaukee in 2002, according to the statement issued by the New York Archdiocese.
In the history of the archdiocese, only John Dubois, a Frenchman appointed in 1826, wasn’t Irish, the Associated Press reported.
Pope John Paul II once greeted Egan’s predecessor, Cardinal John O’Connor, with the words “Welcome to the archbishop of the capital of the world,” according to George Weigel’s “Witness to Hope: The Biography of John Paul II.”
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Archbishop Timothy Dolan headed to New York
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
National Catholic Reporter
Feb. 23, 2009
Legendary pitcher Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams, who threw for six teams during his pro career, recently described the difference between playing on the West Coast and the East Coast during a segment on the brand new MLB Network.
“In L.A., if the Dodgers are losing in the seventh inning, people just go home and watch the end of the game on TV,” Williams said. “In New York or Philly, if you’re losing in the seventh inning, they go home, get the TV, come back to the ballpark and throw it at you.”
In a word, Williams said, the difference is “intensity.”
In reality, it’s not just sports where things are amped up back East. Church leaders, too, play on a much bigger stage, facing greater scrutiny from the press and higher expectations of national leadership. They also preside over flocks which are often more unruly, and more vocal when they’re unhappy.
Nowhere is that high-octane atmosphere more pronounced than the Big Apple, which means that Archbishop Timothy Dolan, announced at the Vatican and in Washington Feb. 23, as the 13th archbishop of New York, is stepping into the biggest pressure-cooker in American Catholicism.
Dolan, 59, was born in St. Louis in 1950. A former rector of the North American College in Rome and a former auxiliary bishop in St. Louis, he has served as archbishop of Milwaukee since 2002.
By most accounts, Dolan inherits New York from a leader, Cardinal Edward Egan, who never quite felt at home. Egan’s nine-year tenure was marked by a series of unpopular choices, including closing schools, transferring priests and clustering parishes. While many observers say these steps were essential to put the church on a more sound fiscal and administrative footing, critics charge they were sometimes developed without adequate consultation. In their wake, whether fairly or unfairly, Egan acquired a reputation as aloof, isolated, and authoritarian.
(A 2007 episode was symbolic, in which the pastor of a Lithuanian parish in lower Manhattan slated for closing was summoned to an impromptu meeting with the cardinal, and while he was away, security guards dispatched by Egan changed the locks to the church. The New York Post’s front-page coverage was headlined, “Cardinal Sin!”)
In the end, Egan was never able to wield the “bully pulpit” of New York like his legendary predecessor Cardinal John O’Connor. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Egan hesitated to return from a synod of bishops in Rome and generally ceded the stage to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, creating a vacuum in the archbishop’s public standing from which he never seemed able to recover.
In naming Dolan to the post, Pope Benedict XVI is clearly hoping to turn that around.
Dolan shares Egan’s loyalty to Rome and his generally conservative outlook, but in most other ways he’s a study in contrasts. Dolan is endlessly gregarious and self-deprecating; for example, when asked the difference between his ordination to the priesthood and his ordination as an auxiliary bishop of St. Louis 25 years later, the portly Dolan quipped, “about 50 pounds.” He’s also obviously comfortable with the press, a trait that runs in the family; his brother Bob was a popular AM radio talk show host for many years in Milwaukee.
In some ways, observers say that Dolan could be seen as a throwback to the best of pre-Vatican II American Catholicism: rock-solid in his orthodoxy, unapologetic about his loyalty to the papacy and to Rome, yet quintessentially American in his optimism, his practicality and lively sense of humor, with a clear priority on fostering good priests and good parishes.
Where Egan tended to concentrate on the nuts and bolts of internal ecclesiastical administration, Dolan also has an appetite for engaging the wider world. He’s the author of three popular books on the priesthood and Catholic spirituality, offering practical spiritual guidance that draws on eclectic sources such as self-help guru Steven Covey, the late President Ronald Reagan, and the late Belgian Cardinal Désiré Mercier. By reputation, Dolan is also a prelate who prefers to be out in the field rather than behind a desk, spending time in parishes, rectories, seminaries and hospitals.
On a Myers-Briggs test, Dolan’s scores for “extrovert,” according to most observers, would be off the chart.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1950, Dolan obtained a doctorate in American church history from the Catholic University of America in the early 1980s. (His dissertation focused on Archbishop Edwin O’Hara, a founder of the Catholic Biblical Association.) He was a parish priest in St. Louis from 1983-87, but it seemed obvious even then that Dolan was marked for higher office; in 1987, that was confirmed when he was named a secretary to the papal nuncio, or ambassador, in Washington.
After a brief stint at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in the early 1990s, he went to Rome to serve as rector of the North American College, the American seminary in Rome. Students who knew Dolan in those days say he was a no-nonsense leader, but that his good cheer leavened what can sometimes be a stuffy and formal environment.
“He ran a happy house,” said Fr. Raymond de Souza, a former seminarian at the NAC who today is a pastor and well-known columnist in Canada.
In June 2001, Dolan was named an auxiliary bishop in St. Louis, where then-Archbishop Justin Rigali, today the cardinal of Philadelphia, gave him special responsibility for vocations. Dolan’s connection with Rigali would prove decisive for his rapid rise, as Rigali is a former official in the Vatican’s Secretary of State and today sits on the Congregation for Bishops, the all-important body in Rome that vets episcopal nominations.
In August 2002, Dolan succeeded Archbishop Rembert Weakland in Milwaukee. The assignment was seen as a test of Dolan’s mettle, given that as he arrived, the archdiocese was in the grip of a crisis triggered by revelations that Weakland had secretly used $450,000 in church money to reach a settlement with a man who accused him of sexual abuse. (Weakland acknowledged a sexual relationship, but denied there had been abuse.) Moreover, Weakland was known as a leader of the liberal wing of American Catholicism, while Dolan leans more to the right. Some in Milwaukee worried that Dolan had been sent to bring the archdiocese to heel.
Publicly, Dolan was a quick hit, using humor to defuse tensions. During his installation Mass, for example, he noted that eight cardinals were in attendance, and quipped: “One more and we could field a baseball team … which, considering how the Brewers are playing, might not be such a bad idea.” (The Brewers finished 56-106 in 2002, last in the National League Central.)
On matters of substance, Dolan pledged greater financial accountability, and followed through by hiring an independent auditing firm and mailing their results to every Catholic household in the 10-county archdiocese. He held an emotional series of meetings with victims, and set up an independent mediation process to settle claims that reduced the role of lawyers. That process played to mixed reviews, as some victims’ groups felt Dolan was stacking the deck against people with legitimate grievances.
Dolan indeed struck a more conservative tone than Weakland – for instance, he insisted on following the church’s rules on liturgy more closely – but on most hot-button questions he never veered far from the center. For example, Dolan expressed admiration for bishops such as Raymond Burke who threatened to deny communion to pro-choice politicians, but never took that step himself. When the Vatican issued a document barring gays from the priesthood in 2005, Dolan adopted what would come to be seen as the “moderate” reading – that men with same-sex inclinations could be ordained as long as they were capable of celibacy and not part of a “gay subculture.”
“It’s not a no-gays policy,” Dolan said on CNN.
Though Dolan was a PR success, things did not get off to an auspicious start with his priests. During their first meeting, Dolan delivered a spiritual reflection on what it means for a priest to stand in persona Christi, “in the place of Christ.” Some priests felt Dolan was being pietistic, and peppered him with more practical questions such as his plans for salaries and whether he planned to reverse Weakland’s policy allowing priests to live in private apartments rather than rectories. Dolan, in turn, felt that some of the priests had lost their spiritual “fire in the belly,” and seemed consumed by secondary matters.
Over time, Dolan earned grudging credit for being a capable manager, a good listener, and having a strong pastoral streak, even if some of his theological convictions remain a tough sell for priests more accustomed to Weakland’s almost 25-year tenure.
Among his brother bishops, Dolan likewise draws high marks as a person and a public figure, but some locate him a bit to the right of the conference’s mainstream. In November 2007, Dolan lost a race to become vice-president of the conference to Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, a moderate in the tradition of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, by a margin of 55-45 percent.
On the other hand, Dolan is by no means seen as an ideologue. He serves as the chair of Catholic Relief Services, the major overseas relief agency of the U.S. church, and when CRS came under fire in 2008 for allegedly promoting condoms as part of anti-AIDS efforts, Dolan came to its defense. He issued a letter to the effect that CRS materials were “fully in keeping” with church teaching. Dolan has also taken an interest in Jewish/Catholic relations, traveling to Auschwitz and playing a behind-the-scenes role during moments of crisis in reaching out to Jewish leaders.
In the run-up to his appointment, the major drawback cited in terms of Dolan’s candidacy for New York is that he has no ties to the area. That was true of Egan as well, and perceptions that Egan had been imposed on New York by the late Pope John Paul II – against O’Connor’s wishes – created resentment that proved hard to shake. Moreover, some say that New York is so big and complex that an archbishop who doesn’t already know the score starts with a major handicap.
“He’ll spend his first ten years just trying to figure out who he can trust,” a fellow archbishop said, speaking on background.
On the other hand, some say that being an outsider could actually work in Dolan’s favor, since he won’t bring any baggage to the job as a result of being identified with one party or the other on the local scene. Moreover, Dolan does have one bit of biography that makes him a good fit: Like every previous archbishop of New York save one, he’s of Irish descent.
In any event, most people seem to believe that Dolan’s sunny, outgoing persona will strike New York as a breath of fresh air.
Fr. David O’Connell, president of the Catholic University of America, put it this way: “If the part of archbishop of New York could ever be scripted,” O’Connell said, “Dolan would really be cast in that role.”
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It's great to have apparent unanimity in the media in praise of a high-ranking conservative Catholic prelate for a change!
And I am happy and proud to have someone like Archbishop Dolan as my 'hometown' bishop, even as I am very sorry Cardinal Egan received a very one-sided portrayal in the MSM.
However, what was that about Mons. Dolan defending condoms as part of Catholic relief services????? I hope the full statement he made is available online. As quoted by AlLen, it disturbs me a lot....
TERESA
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/02/2009 02:01]