Priests' Rise Is Called Sign of Change, Hope, by Michael Paulson, Boston Globe, October 13, 2006

Priests' Rise Is Called Sign of Change, Hope

By Michael Paulson
Boston Globe
October 13, 2006

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/10/13/priests_rise_is_called_sign_of_change_hope/

Rev. Daniel Hennessey (left) and Rev. Michael Harrington carried the heart of St. John Vianney during a procession at St. John's Seminary in Brighton. Also in the procession was Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley (left).
Photo by The Globe Staff / David L. Ryan

Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, declaring yesterday that "the priestly vocation is in jeopardy," hailed as hopeful signs the decision by Pope Benedict XVI to elevate two local pastors to bishop and the arrival in Boston of the preserved heart of a sainted French priest.

O'Malley said he hopes the examples of the two priests being promoted, the Rev. John A. Dooher and the Rev. Robert F. Hennessey, and of the one who died 137 years ago, St. John Vianney, will inspire others to consider the priesthood.

O'Malley gave Dooher and Hennessey each a purple skullcap , called a zucchetto, and a pectoral cross that are signs of the office of bishop.

Then he prayed before the saint's heart, which was encased in glass inside a shiny brass reliquary and carried on red velvet at the head of a procession of white-robed seminarians and a cloud of incense on a sunny Brighton hillside.

"One of the challenges that we have in trying to reach out to inactive Catholics and getting them more involved in the church is to communicate, as these two pastors have successfully done, a sense of personal vocation to our people and, at the same time, a sense of communal mission, because it's not only the priestly vocation that is in jeopardy in today's world, but all Christian vocations," O'Malley said.

He will ask the new auxiliary bishops to help him administer the sprawling archdiocese, which reports a population of 2 million Catholics, the vast majority of whom do not regularly attend worship services.

Hennessey, a 54-year-old South Boston native, was once a missionary in Bolivia who for the last 12 years has headed one of the largest and most successful parishes in the archdiocese, Most Holy Redeemer Church in East Boston, attended largely by immigrants from Central and South America. At times the parish is so crowded that Masses have to be broadcast to the streets around the church, and it has played a major role in helping to resettle immigrants, often announcing job and housing openings from the pulpit.

Dooher, a 63-year-old Dorchester native, has been pastor for 10 years of St. Mary Church in Dedham, which the archdiocese said is home to a particularly successful program for Catholic youth . Dooher spoke yesterday of the importance of youth ministry.

But it was Dooher's history assisting at the chancery that drew criticism from leaders of Bishopaccountability.org, an organization that is compiling an Internet-based archive of the clergy sexual abuse scandal. Dooher is mentioned in a 2003 report by Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly as one of two priests who in the mid-1990s met with pastors in parishes affected by abuse cases. Dooher was named in a deposition by Bishop John B. McCormack as having participated in conversations in the Boston archdiocese in 1994 about where to house abusive priests.

"John Dooher abetted a harmful and immoral coverup for the Boston archdiocese," said Anne Barrett Doyle, codirector of BishopAccountability.org. "Now he should lead it into an era of unprecedented honesty."

Archdiocesan spokesman Terrence C. Donilon said that from 1993 to 2000, Dooher had assisted the archdiocese in counseling and supporting accused priests and "some survivors," but that "at no time was Father Dooher in a position of decision-making authority with regard to accused priests."

Donilon said Dooher "has come to understand the pain experienced by survivors of sexual abuse by clergy and the need to work at all levels of the church to bring about the healing and unity necessary for us to live out our call to be one family in Christ."

Hennessey will replace Bishop John P. Boles, who is retiring, as administrator of the central region of the archdiocese, while Dooher will replace Bishop Richard J. Malone, who since 2004 has overseen the Diocese of Portland, Maine, as administrator of the archdiocese's south region. There are currently three other active auxiliary bishops in the archdiocese.

Public veneration of the heart of St. John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests, will be today from 4 to 10 p.m. in St. Mary Church in Waltham and tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston.

Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.