By Douglas Martin
The New York Times
January 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/world/22jadot.html?_r=2&sq=jadot&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1232650907-rRJFUOM6MFCZXn3Zh/jwtg
 |
| Archbishop Jean Jadot in Washington in 1978. Photo by George Tames |
Archbishop Jean Jadot, the chief papal representative to the United States in the 1970s, who drew fire from conservative clergymen for pushing liberal reforms in the American church, died Wednesday in Brussels. He was 99.
John A. Dick, his friend and biographer, announced the death.
In 1973, Pope Paul VI sent Archbishop Jadot (pronounced zha-DOH) to Washington to serve as the apostolic delegate to the United States. The pope had plucked him from relative obscurity to press the American church to carry out the reforms of Vatican II, over whose final sessions the pope had presided.
Pope Paul asked Archbishop Jadot “not to be the pope’s eyes and ears, but his heart,” Archbishop Jadot said in an interview with The London Tablet in 2002. He said the pope wanted him, as envoy, to show the pope’s concern “for the poor, the forgotten, the ignored.”
Archbishop Jadot turned what had been a largely ceremonial position into a bully pulpit for the seven years ending in 1980.
He helped lead a largely successful effort to push the American church to welcome minorities, widen the role of women, increase participation by the laity and relax some rules, like the penalty of excommunication for divorced Catholics who remarry.
Dr. Dick, a theologian, said Wednesday in an interview that the archbishop’s vision of the church was “a community of faith, not a hierarchical organization.”
Bishops and other church leaders railed at what was seen as rabble-rousing by Archbishop Jadot, and he received a stream of anonymous hate mail. A close friend in Rome told him “they” were “out to get him,” Dr. Dick wrote online on Wednesday in The National Catholic Reporter.
Archbishop Jadot submitted lists of three nominees for each opening as a bishop, as was customary. In almost all instances, Pope Paul VI chose the one nominee whom Archbishop Jadot indicated he preferred, Dr. Dick said.
The result was that he was responsible for the appointments of more than 100 new bishops, Dr. Dick said.
At one time, Dr. Dick said, more than a third of all American bishops were Archbishop Jadot’s choices. They were called “Jadot’s boys.”
As a Washington Post article said in 1983: “Whatever their background, the new breed of bishops was less concerned with the ring-kissing and watered-silk vestments that went with the office, and more with getting to know their people. They moved out of episcopal mansions and into a couple of rooms in a rectory or seminary.”
With time, conservative bishops appointed under the papacy of John Paul II largely replaced “Jadot’s boys.” But some critics still say that the church’s sex scandals are linked to appointments made by Archbishop Jadot, saying they were ill advised.
Dr. Dick, who discussed the subject with Archbishop Jadot, responded in the interview that the scandals surprised and saddened the archbishop but that he accepted no blame for them.
Jean Jadot was born in Brussels on Nov. 23, 1909. His family was wealthy, and his father, Lambert, was a master engineer who built railroads, electrical systems and mines around the world. Jean earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium at age 21.
He rebuffed his father’s pleas to lead a secular life and was ordained a priest in 1934. He became a pastor in a Brussels suburb and elsewhere in Belgium. From 1952 to 1960, he was chaplain to troops in what was then the Belgian Congo. He then worked as an official in the church’s missionary programs.
In May 1968, he was ordained as a bishop. From 1968 to 1971, he was a papal delegate to Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asia. From 1971 to 1973, he filled this role in Cameroon, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.
In the spring of 1973, he accepted Pope Paul VI’s request to be his envoy to the United States. The pope told him he was chosen partly because he was not part of the Vatican bureaucracy, and thus might not be as pliable in the hands of powerful American bishops.
Although Archbishop Jadot strongly adhered to most of the church’s teachings, including its opposition to abortion, his willingness to leave some questions, like artificial contraception, to individual consciences rankled some church leaders. But the pope refused an offer he made to resign, saying he was “doing just what I want you to do,” Dr. Dick wrote.
Archbishop Jadot is survived by two sisters.
In 1980, he was called back to the Vatican to help lead ecumenical initiatives. When he left, Robert L. Robinson, a member of the National Black Lay Catholic Caucus, said in an interview with The Washington Post: “Isn’t that a damn shame? The black people have lost a friend. He let us know that Rome was very much concerned about the black question.”
Despite widespread speculation that he would be named a cardinal, it never happened. Then his successor, Archbishop Pio Laghi, who had appointed conservative bishops, was named a cardinal on May 29, 1991.
That day, after lunch, Archbishop Jadot said to Dr. Dick, “It is a slap in my face.”
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.