CHICAGO (IL)
San Francisco Chronicle
Don Lattin, Chronicle Religion Writer
Friday, June 17, 2005
Chicago -- Archbishop William Levada walked into the summer meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Thursday in a strange state of ecclesiastical limbo.
He is a man with three titles -- the Archbishop Emeritus of San Francisco, the Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Levada, tapped in May by Pope Benedict XVI to take that third job, one of the most powerful posts at the Vatican, is trying to keep a low profile in any debates on the floor of the bishops' three-day meeting.
"It seems inappropriate for me in my new role to enter into work from my old role,'' said Levada, speaking a small group of reporters at the end of Thursday's business.
One of Levada's new responsibilities as chief doctrinal watchdog of the 1. 1-billion-member church is overseeing church trials in Rome for accused pedophile priests. On Thursday, the U.S. bishops were presented with a revision of policies on how individual bishops should work with the Vatican when disciplining clerics accused of child molestation.
Levada, who assumed the Vatican post as soon as he was appointed May 13, plans to resign as administrator of San Francisco's archdiocese Aug. 17. He declined to comment on a petition by a Catholic lay group, the Voice of the Faithful, that the Vatican move forward with a sexual abuse trial of the Rev. Maciel Degollado, the leader of the conservative Legionnaires of Christ, a Catholic religious order.