Dolan Does Gotham
by
Steven M. Avella
It took Timothy Dolan
two separate sets of taps from what appeared to be a carpet tacking hammer
for the massive bronze doors of St. Patrick’s to open. The small tinny
sound, barely amplified inside by a microphone, evoked mirth and
good-natured applause and did not provide the desired sound-effects for the
new archbishop’s maiden sermon (“Open the Door”).
But no matter. The
smiling, sweating Dolan was given entrance and was presented with a
crucifix, which he kissed and embraced. He stood by restlessly as his
predecessor, Cardinal Edward Egan, spoke words of welcome followed by a
similar message delivered in the lovely Italo-English of Apostolic Nuncio
Pietro Sambi.
As the choir intoned
Ecce Sacerdos Magnus (“Behold the Great Priest”), Dolan moved like a
battleship up the aisle of St. Patrick’s, sprinkling holy water, bestowing
smiles and waves, and gesturing with his hands in a manner reminiscent of
popes Paul VI and John Paul II. The cathedral erupted in applause for the
first of several times as he made his way to the sanctuary and eventually
was escorted to the imposing cathedra, still positioned on the “gospel side”
of the altar.
Many may look back on
this evening event as a microcosm of Dolan’s tenure. The atmosphere was
“formal informality”: mitered heads, cardinaltial scarlet, hovering
monsignori, priests in Roman cassocks—all excessively serious and solemn but
lightened by the irrepressible archbishop’s colloquial comments, wise-guy
asides, toothy grins, and blown kisses.
Watching him take possession of his cathedral church, it was apparent that
St. Patrick’s neo-gothic grandeur more befits the tastes and theology of
Timothy Dolan than the modernistically decorated cathedral of Milwaukee ever
did. Vaulted arches, elegant bronze reliefs, devotional statuary, and the
hanging galeros (broad-brimmed cardinal hats) of his predecessors all seemed
to complement rather than shrink this very large man who now calls the
Archdiocese of New York his new family.
Dolan is tall and
heavy—the latter a matter of concern to him when he first came to Milwaukee
in 2002 and for a time remedied by an Atkins-type diet. Self-deprecating
jokes about weight are now part of his standard repertoire. (“Thanks for
opening the door wide enough even for me to get in,” he quipped at Vespers.)
As has been pointed out over and over again by various commentators (myself
included), his high-voltage gregariousness will be a refreshing contrast to
his predecessor’s reserve and formality.
To say that New York
welcomed him with open arms is an understatement. For a couple of days, the
Daily News functioned as archdiocesan newspaper, featuring stories
and columns with headlines that read: “WITH A SIMPLE KNOCK, HE’S JOINED
FAMILY”; “AT ST. PAT’S, IT WAS ONE BIG EMBRACE”; “THE ‘HAPPY BISHOP’
Dolan vows to bring joy and laughter as he takes over New York
Archdiocese”; and “PROUD MOM SAYS SPARK ‘IS IN HIM.’”
“The conviction grows
that Archbishop Timothy Dolan will be a blessing for the soul of New York,”
the long-time paper of the city’s Catholic working class opined April 15.
“This is a priest who conveys that belief is a matter of inspiration rather
than prescription, a thing of joy rather than dour obligation. May the
feeling be infectious to all, Catholic and not.”
Not to be outdone,
Dolan’s own Daily News op-ed the same day proclaimed, “It’s a
blessing to be here: Why I’m proud to lead the wonderful Archdiocese of New
York.”
Egan is not a tough act to follow, although Dolan is no doubt extremely
grateful for some of the heavy lifting the cardinal did with archdiocesan
finances and personnel issues. He will nonetheless enjoy being the “Un-Egan”
and New York will love him for it. David Letterman will see a spike in his
ratings when he schedules the new prelate for a few minutes of banter and
fun.
The new archbishop is
the product of a typical middle class Catholic family in Missouri, trained
by Catholic schools and part of a generation of baby boomers who identified
their priestly vocations very early in life. (He is what they call a
“lifer.”) Like Egan, he is a Roman through and through, and his ascent to
New York really began when he was selected to go to Rome for studies as a
seminarian in the 1970s.
From 1983 to 1987 he
worked as an auditor (staffer) at the Apostolic Delegation—raised to the
status of a Nunciature (an ambassadorial post) in January 1984 under
Archbishop (later Cardinal) Pio Laghi. A faithful foot-solder of Pope John
Paul II’s restorationist agenda, Laghi sought to rein in the “disobedient”
American church by systematically appointing more “orthodox” and
administrative-type bishops to American dioceses—canonists, chancery
staffers, even the occasional church historian.
By contrast with the
“pastoral” bishops appointed by his predecessor, Belgian Archbishop Jean
Jadot, Laghi’s appointees brought reputations for running tight ships,
bolstering priestly vocations, and adhering tightly to Roman lines on birth
control, abortion, homosexuality, and women’s ordination—all flash points of
controversy.
Dolan’s next task for
Rome came in 1994, when he was asked to serve as rector of the North
American College in Rome (NAC). He increased the college’s enrollment by
assuring nervous and sometimes disgruntled bishops (many of whom were
graduates) that a steady, orthodox hand was at the tiller. Visiting bishops
often spent time with the gregarious rector, who was then as he is now,
unfailingly hospitable and kind. He strengthened his Roman connections and
sharpened his understanding of the politics and requirements of church
administration.
Dolan loved Italy
(especially Italian food) and his understanding of Roman ways meshed well
with his personal skills and political savvy. He is a Midwesterner with a
keen sense of the idioms of his own country and an innate grasp of what
appeals to many American Catholics: informality of style, self-deprecating
humor, and a common touch.
Interspersed with his
Roman years were returns to his native St. Louis. Ordained to the priesthood
in 1976, he worked first as a parish priest until he was selected for
seminary work. In 1979, he was sent to The Catholic University of America,
where he studied for a degree in church history.
The field of American
Catholic history was already undergoing a great deal of change as social and
cultural historians pushed for more history “from the bottom up” and
pioneered studies in a host of new areas. But Dolan—who had come under the
influence of the dean of American Catholic history, Msgr. John Tracy
Ellis—chose to work from the top down.
He wrote his doctoral
dissertation on the life of Archbishop Edwin Vincent O’Hara, who—every bit
as energetic as his biographer—created the Catholic Rural Life Movement,
promoted the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD), encouraged American
devotion to Pope Pius X, and played a role in the formation of the Catholic
Biblical Association. Dolan’s revised doctoral dissertation, Some Seed
Fell on Good Ground (1992), was published by the Catholic University of
America Press and is his only scholarly publication.
Church history,
however, was only a way station on a relatively traditional apprenticeship
in church administration that marked him for higher office. In this, Dolan
was well served by his Roman education and his work as a go-to man for
various St. Louis hierarchs, including the now-powerful Archbishop (later
Cardinal) Justin Rigali.
He steered clear of
current theological controversies, never letting himself be drawn into
questioning the Roman line on anything that mattered. He knew the importance
of bella figura—the good image. And he took pains to never appear
openly ambitious, always declaring that his current assignment was the best
and that he intended to stay forever. Yet even as he met the demands of the
moment with gusto and sincerity, it was clear that he had his cap set for
greener pastures than Milwaukee.
He traveled around the
United States and overseas, giving retreats and talks as an episcopal
representative of the Catholic Relief Services. His service in the
Nunciature, Rome, Catholic University, and Milwaukee made him lots of
friends around the country. Even before New York catapulted him onto an
international stage, he was one of the best known clerics in America.
In June 2002, after
serving less than one year as an auxiliary bishop of St. Louis under Rigali,
he was tapped to succeed Rembert G. Weakland as Milwaukee’s tenth
archbishop. This was an emergency appointment that came a month after
Weakland (who had already tendered his resignation upon turning 75) had been
outed in a case of “inappropriate conduct” with a young man. The ensuing
press frenzy and the collapse of confidence among clergy and staff in
Milwaukee meant a successor had to be chosen quickly—and Dolan was the man.
Even before Dolan
formally took over, he made a spectacular appearance at a Mass celebrated at
Irish Fest—one of Milwaukee’s summer-long lakefront ethnic festivals. After
his August 28 installation, he settled comfortably into his house on the
seminary grounds and began to make the rounds of parishes, high schools,
religious houses, and other public venues, throwing out quips and pledging
his allegiance to Milwaukee’s local culture of brats, beer, and the Brewers.
Of his tenure in Milwaukee, several things can be observed.
Despite the frame put
on the archdiocese as a hotbed of clerical dissent and unorthodoxy (fanned
in part by the conservative Catholic press and some disgruntled local clergy
and laity), Dolan discovered that his new home was heavily invested in the
reforms of Vatican II. It had an influential local seminary and several
Catholic institutions of higher learning that anchored its theological and
liturgical traditions.
But the tenor and
direction of the city’s ecclesial life was virtually indistinguishable from
other Midwestern dioceses: large parishes, a strong network of Catholic
institutions (schools, hospitals, etc.), and a fairly active and generous
laity. Milwaukee’s priests are even today a coherent and hard-working group
of men—most of them hailing from the neighborhoods and parishes of the
ten-county archdiocese. Few are the dissidents portrayed by outsiders—in
fact extremism of the left or the right really doesn’t fly in the Milwaukee
presbyterate.
Weakland, though
demonized as an out-of-control liberal, was himself a hard-working and
intellectually gifted man who, like Dolan, once had the promise of
ecclesiastical advance as long as the patronage of Paul VI and Jadot held.
Like many of his contemporaries, he expanded the circles of archdiocesan
consultation to include women and minorities. He put a lot of emphasis on
process—meetings, goal setting, mission statements—and he held a synod.
By contrast, Dolan was
never big on “process,” nor was administration his strong suit. But he later
admitted that he failed to find the archdiocese in the kind of disarray that
some had reported. To the consternation of some, Dolan did not clear out the
Weakland holdovers, but instead allowed natural attrition as well as needed
budget cuts to do the work of changing the existing bureaucracy.
He did, however,
change substantially the program of priestly formation at St. Francis
Seminary. Using the high costs of the 150-year old seminary as his pretext,
he shut down the seminary’s academic program, transferred most of the
clerical students to nearby Sacred Heart School of Theology (a national
seminary for second-career vocations run by the Sacred Heart priests), and
retained the venerable St. Francis building as a center for priestly
formation.
Pressing hard for new
vocations, Dolan sent college seminarians to Chicago’s seminary program, and
dispatched a number of Milwaukee students to Rome, Louvain, and Theological
College in D.C. And he appointed a bright young rector who restored a sense
of clerical decorum to St. Francis. Milwaukee will ordain six men this
year—one of the largest classes in a long time. But even these numbers will
not be enough to meet the steady decline of active priests for Milwaukee
parishes.
Dolan also spent time
trying to know the clergy and religious of the archdiocese. His appearances
at confirmations, blessings, and dedications became more and more popular.
He cultivated the local media, perhaps with some coaching from his brother
Bob, who was a radio personality in Milwaukee.
He showed himself
adept at handling questions—often parrying thrusts with humor followed by a
fairly serious statement. He made a strong point of transparency in areas
where the church was weakest, such as its handling of the sex abuse crisis.
He publicized the names of proven offenders—something not all dioceses have
done.
His
conservative ideological preferences were reflected in his choice of
speakers for a lecture series he created to celebrate his reception of the
pallium (the white lamb’s wool band worn around the collar of a metropolitan
archbishop) in 2003. The Pallium Lecture series, which became dependent on a
grant from the right-wing Bradley Foundation, featured prominent “theocon”
speakers such as authors Michael Novak, his old friend George Weigel, and
the late Lutheran pastor-turned-Catholic priest Richard John Neuhaus. It
also brought to Milwaukee the press’s favorite Vaticanologist John Allen
(one of those who predicted as early as 2006 that Dolan would go to New
York) and Cardinal Francis George of Chicago.
On the question of
giving communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians, Dolan kept a
respectable silence and preferred the less confrontational approach. There
were no warnings delivered to pro-choice Catholics in high places, including
Wisconsin governor James Doyle and Milwaukee mayor Thomas Barrett.
Judging from the warm
City Hall sendoff he got before he left, Dolan apparently made many friends
in local government. Still, the impact of the Catholic church on Milwaukee’s
public life seems fairly minimal. Gang violence, racial tensions, and one of
the highest infant mortality rates in the world are to be found in Milwaukee
today.
Within the church,
Dolan’s closest associates appeared to be fairly conservative young priests
who shared his politics, loyalty to Rome, and affable style. He relished the
occasional clerical confab—sitting around with the “guys,” smoking cigars,
and holding forth on matters great and small.
Dolan’s concern for
priests extended not only to the seminarians whom he took under his wing
(and to Rome), but also to the rank-and-file clergy whom he invited to his
home for lunch and conversation and even the sharing of holidays. Priests
occasionally picked up their phones on their birthdays or anniversaries of
ordination to hear, “Timothy Dolan here...” The conversations, usually brief
and pleasant, created a lot of good will and even cracked some of
Milwaukee’s toughest clerical nuts.
Dolan
handled potentially dissident clergy by not over-reacting to apparent
challenges to his authority. When 165 priests signed a petition asking for a
discussion of mandatory celibacy, he merely restated the official discipline
of the church and let it go at that. The petition, submitted to Catholic
Bishops Council president Wilton Gregory, was ceremoniously ignored and went
nowhere. A local Priest Alliance, derisively termed a “Priest’s Union” (as
though that was some sort of insult), flourished for a time, but rarely
merited Dolan’s attention or much press coverage.
In all, the priests of
Milwaukee had little to complain about under Dolan. He let them alone,
valued their service, and went out of his way to be friendly and helpful.
Even when he had to administer bad news or mild discipline, it was always in
a “C’mon fellas...” tone that offended no one and avoided needless
confrontations.
Although it was
apparent, especially at the end of his term in Milwaukee, who his favorites
were, being in or out in “Dolan world” did not mean unequal treatment. He
was kind and complimentary to everyone and tremendously compassionate toward
priests who had lost their way. No one feared him.
“In many ways,” wrote
former Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel religion editor Ernst-Ulrich
Franzen February 24, “he was a perfect match for Milwaukee: self-effacing,
friendly, funny—a guy you wouldn’t mind sharing a beer with, yet sympathetic
and caring as a parish priest should be and still a man with clear
intellectual depth.”
Dolan the church
historian maintains a love for American Catholic history, has a well-stocked
library, and apparently kept up a regimen of reading (one of his favorite
periodicals is Neuhaus’ First Things)–even joining a fairly active
book club of local Milwaukee clergy. His installation day address included
reference to a litany of famous Catholic New Yorkers and he occasionally
draws historical analogies between vigorous Catholic opposition to abortion
and to the actions of Archbishop Joseph Rummel of New Orleans, who in 1962
publicly excommunicated recalcitrant segregationists in his archdiocese.
But his career
trajectory has left him little time to study and teach this field (he did so
in St. Louis and in Rome), and no time to research and write. He instead has
used the subject matter of U.S. Catholic history as the basis for retreats
that he gave around the country—especially for priests and even for major
addresses, such as the rededication of the historic Baltimore Cathedral in
2006.
In New York, there are
historians aplenty for him to turn to—including his former Catholic
University classmate (and Msgr. Ellis’s last student), Msgr. Thomas Shelley.
An important bellwether of his interest in history will be his policies of
access to the New York Archdiocesan Archives, which have been unevenly
opened to scholars for years. A willingness to share the riches of the
papers of that important See—particularly those of his predecessor Cardinal
Francis Spellman—would be an important boon to historians.But Dolan himself
will make history, not record or interpret it.
What will Dolan’s
lively brio of good humor and theological and (probably) political
conservatism mean for New York? He will likely have a protracted honeymoon,
but if he remains there until the age of 75 it will be his longest single
stint in one place. Perhaps after a while the quips and jokes will lose
their charm, particularly with his priests and other co-workers.
Repeating Roman lines
on abortion, homosexuality, bioethics, and the like will refresh his
retainer in Rome, just as his invocation of pro-life issues won him a
standing ovation at his installation. However, many thoughtful Catholics
wonder if simply turning up the volume on standard church teachings on a
variety of subjects will make much headway with his own flock. The applause
inside the cathedral does not necessarily translate into support for his
positions on the sidewalks of New York.
On his way out of
Milwaukee, Dolan mildly rebuked the University of Notre Dame for giving
President Obama a platform and an honorary degree—and did so on the radio
show of one of Milwaukee’s more strident talk-show jocks, Charles Sykes. But
his own constituents in Milwaukee (and now New York) voted in large numbers
for Obama.
Even though bishops
like to dismiss such inconvenient truths with an airy, “We don’t make
doctrine by polls,” the support Obama currently enjoys among American
Catholics cannot be quite so easily set aside. In a democracy, votes mean
something. Like Supreme Court justices, even religious leaders follow the
election returns.
Like others in the
American hierarchy, Dolan may simply persist in condemning abortion as an
intrinsic evil that can never be tolerated, and continue to invoke his
Rummel analogy. But he may also re-read his mentor John Tracy Ellis’
two-volume biography of Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore. Gibbons, the
most respected Catholic churchman in America in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, sought ways to harmonize Catholic ideals with the realities of
American political culture.
Although one wouldn’t
bet the family farm on it, Dolan may be one of the first bishops to accept
the offer of the pro-choice president to work together to bring down the
number of unwanted pregnancies. Perhaps Obama’s gracious call to him on the
day of his appointment will open up a back channel of communication and
dialogue that can advance the pro-life cause in some substantial ways.
Dolan too will have to
face the continued challenge that same-sex marriage poses in his state, as
it has in nearby Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and Maine. One day
after shaking Dolan’s hand at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York governor
David Patterson introduced into the state legislature a same-sex marriage
bill.
Although prospects for
passage were unclear, there is no question that the issue will keep
reasserting itself, with very challenging implications for Catholic leaders
throughout the country. Here too, Dolan is likely to face a divided flock,
and even he hedged a bit when asked if homosexuality was an inherited or a
chosen orientation. He may not be able to respond to that very serious
question in a clear and unambiguous way, but many of his flock do not see
gay marriage as a moral failure nor sense any kind of societal collapse to
come in its wake.
In his installation
sermon, Dolan lamented “our seeming inability to get the gospel message
credibly out there.” His ability to do so will be the truest measure of his
effectiveness as spiritual leader of his very large archdiocese and to many
more who will seek out the words and wisdom of the archbishop of New
York—the American Pope, as he was once called. Timothy Dolan may become the
best loved of all New York’s bishops. But will he be the most effective?
His sincere piety
might respond, “That’s up to the Lord who chose me for this place.” But
Dolan the historian knows that the Lord relies on the intellect, will, and
courage of his human instruments. As Ellis liked to say about developments
yet to unfold, “Videbimus.” We shall see.
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