Iowans Say Dinardo 'So Holy and So Fun' He Swiftly, Directly Confronted Abuse, by Erin Jordan, Des Moines Register, October 18, 2007

Iowans Say Dinardo 'So Holy and So Fun'
He Swiftly, Directly Confronted Abuse

By Erin Jordan
Des Moines Register
October 18, 2007

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071018/NEWS/710180419/-1/BUSINESS04

Catholics in the Sioux City diocese knew Daniel DiNardo -- bishop there from 1998 to 2004 -- was destined for higher leadership roles in the world's largest church.

DiNardo, now archbishop of the Diocese of Galveston-Houston in Texas, was named a cardinal Wednesday.

Pope Benedict XVI named 23 new cardinals, tapping two Americans to join the elite ranks of the "princes" of the Roman Catholic Church.

Daniel N. DiNardo, front, is greeted by Father Joseph Gietl before a news conference about DiNardo's appointment to cardinal Wednesday in Houston.
Photo by Nick De La Torre

DiNardo was praised in Sioux City partly because he took a direct approach to the issue of child sex abuse by clergy. He worked with priests and instituted programs to protect children in the future and recommended that one Sioux City diocesan priest with repeated allegations of abuse be removed from the priesthood.

DiNardo replaced retiring Sioux City Bishop Lawrence Soens, arriving about a year before Soens actually retired.

Soens later was accused of inappropriate contact with students -- from when he was principal of an Iowa City Catholic high school.

Catholics in Sioux City said DiNardo's appointment bears out their confidence in him.

"I am very excited about it," said Louis Meiners, 64, a deacon of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Dedham and Annunciation Catholic Church in Coon Rapids. "Meeting him and knowing how he was, I knew he would be more than the bishop of Sioux City."

DiNardo's nomination was something of a surprise internationally and appeared to be an indication of Benedict's desire to reach out to the large Latino community in Texas. He was named archbishop there last year.

Also in his career, he worked for six years at the Vatican in the Congregation of Bishops.

DiNardo, ordained in 1977, was bishop in Sioux City from November 1998 to January 2004.

DiNardo, a native of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, seemed to embrace the Midwest mentality when he arrived in Iowa, said Jerry Eaton, director of Catholic Charities for the diocese.

"He took a very strong interest in the rural economy, caring for the land and all sorts of issues that are important to Iowans," said Eaton, 62, of Sioux City. "He saw Iowans as independent people, not easily swayed or led astray."

Marilyn Christiansen, 72, of Dakota Dunes, S.D., was honored when DiNardo officiated the 2000 funeral mass for her husband, Russell, who was retired chief executive officer of MidAmerican Energy.

"He was so holy and so fun," Christiansen said of DiNardo. "Probably one of the best homilists I ever heard. He also had a very good sense of humor."

DiNardo told Christiansen a story about a phone conversation he had with his ailing mother before Easter one year. She asked him if he could come home for the holiday, but DiNardo reminded her he would be very busy during the week leading up to the holiday.

"She said, 'Why don't you talk to your bishop?' He said, 'Mother, I am the bishop,' " Christiansen said.

Dick Billings, 48, a deacon at Blessed Sacrament in Sioux City, said DiNardo is a good administrator and a good spiritual guide. "He could speak about the saints or the issues of the day, but in a way that the average Catholic could understand," Billings said.

DiNardo was praised for the stance he took on victims of clergy abuse. "The bishop was very specific here in focusing on the victims and the accountability of the church to them," Eaton said.

DiNardo recommended the Vatican defrock George McFadden, a retired Sioux City priest accused by at least 25 people of sexually abusing them when they were children. The church, however, handed down a lesser sentence last year, forbidding McFadden to have public ministry or contact with children and ordering him to live a life of prayer and penance.

When DiNardo left Iowa in 2004, at age 54, he went to assist Bishop Joseph Fiorenza until his retirement. He then succeeded Fiorenza as Galveston-Houston bishop.

Eighteen of the 23 new cardinals are under age 80 and thus eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pontiff. Benedict said he would elevate the prelates at a Vatican ceremony Nov. 24.

The two Americans are DiNardo and Archbishop John Foley, a longtime Vatican official who was recently named grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem, a lay religious community that aims to protect the rights of the Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land.