BishopAccountability.org
	Pope Names Milwaukee’s Dolan As New York Archbishop By Peter S. Green Bloomberg February 23, 2009 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aBNIVQpCwK7I&refer=us Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Pope Benedict XVI named Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan to replace Cardinal Edward Egan as archbishop of New York, a post the late Pope John Paul II once called “the archbishop of the capital of the world.” Dolan, who will be installed in a ceremony at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan on April 15, will become the city’s 13th bishop and its 10th archbishop, a post held throughout history almost entirely by Irish-Americans. He celebrated Mass this morning at the cathedral and will visit a seminary north of the city later today. Dolan, 59, will lead the Archdiocese of New York, which has 388 parishes and more than 650 priests. It serves some 2.5 million Catholics in a community where Catholicism has to compete with evangelical Protestant and Pentecostal churches for the attention of new immigrants, many from traditionally Catholic Spanish-speaking countries. Roughly one-third of American adults who were raised Catholic have left the church, according to a survey last year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a non-denominational research group. “We bishops need to own up to that and say our people are talking, we’ve got people leaving,” Dolan said at a press conference today. “We’re less than honest if we don’t say we’ve got problems.” New Yankees Fan Dolan also announced that he would convert to being a fan of the New York Yankees. Egan, 76, who had been archbishop since 2000, and announced last year that he would retire, urged Dolan at the press conference also to become a fan of the National Football League’s Giants. The new archbishop will take over an archdiocese that spans about 180 miles (290 kilometers), from the southern end of New York City’s borough of Staten Island north to rural Ulster County. Like many other diocese in the U.S., New York faces problems including a loss of parishioners’ trust following the clergy sexual abuse crisis, pressure to close parish churches and schools as money and attendance dip, a drop in the numbers of priests and an increasingly secularized culture, said Father Jim Martin, an associate editor of the Catholic magazine America. “The Archdiocese of New York, given its prominence, always needs a strong public advocate for the Catholic Church, a strong preacher and teacher and pastor,” Martin said in an interview. “He has the bully pulpit and people look to him naturally to pronounce on the issues of the day and also pastorally to preach the gospel.” Budget Record Dolan spent much of his tenure in Milwaukee raising money and cutting expenses. “He’s not afraid to get good people around him,” Ed Zore, the president of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance in Milwaukee, who worked with Dolan to raise money for the diocese there, said in an interview before Dolan’s appointment was announced. “We have a shrinking number of parishes, a shrinking number of priests and the whole financial problem, and what he has been able to do is get good people to come and help him figure this stuff out,” said Zore. The appointment comes as high-ranking Catholic officials seek to distance themselves from allegations that they turned a blind eye to priests who abused children. A Tough Issue Dolan won praise for tackling the issue openly and early on while Egan, who suspended six priests in 2002, drew criticism for not acting fast enough to address sex-abuse cases in his parishes, according to BishopAccountability.org, a Web site set up by victims in 2003 that includes court files. Benedict met with a small group of victims of clergy sexual abuse in Washington last April, and called for a “time of healing” in his Mass at St. Patrick’s on April 19. Relations with the 69 million American Catholics have suffered over what some called the Vatican’s reluctance to deal with the child-abuse scandal, in which more than 5,000 clergymen have been accused of molesting about 12,000 victims. Dolan said today he would need to learn more about New York’s history with the sexual abuse scandal before he could comment on it. Father Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at Woodstock Theological Center of Georgetown University in Washington, said Dolan is known to be loyal to the conservative teachings of Pope Benedict. “He doesn’t want to play policeman and chase down heretics and burn them at the stake,” Reese said in an interview before the announcement. Irish Heritage Dolan was born in St. Louis of Irish heritage. He studied theology at the Pontifical North American College in Rome and was ordained in 1976. He returned to his alma mater as rector in 1994. He was named auxiliary bishop to St. Louis in 2001 and became archbishop of Milwaukee in 2002, according to the statement issued by the New York Archdiocese. In the history of the archdiocese, only John Dubois, a Frenchman appointed in 1826, wasn’t Irish, the Associated Press reported. Zore said Dolan’s outgoing nature would help him deal with the many different religions and denominations that share New York’s public life. “This is a guy who could walk into a synagogue and feel right at home and make everyone else feel at ease,” he said. To contact the reporter on this story: Peter S. Green at psgreen@bloomberg.net.
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