By Susan Bence
WUWM
February 25, 2009
http://www.wuwm.com/programs/news/view_news.php?articleid=4261
[with audio]
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Monday the Vatican in Rome sent out word that Timothy M. Dolan will be leaving his post as Archbishop of Milwaukee. After Dolan paid a whirlwind visit to New York City, he made his first public appearance in Milwaukee yesterday to talk about his move.
WUWM’s Susan Bence was among the reporters invited to sit down briefly with Dolan at St. Francis Seminary.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan breezes into the classroom at St. Francis Seminary, with a firm handshake and a booming laugh. His schedule is full, with piles of media showing up at the seminary door, so I’m sharing my few minutes with another reporter.
Dolan says when he came to Milwaukee in 2002 he planned to spend the rest of his career here.
“The first thing I did when I visited the cathedral to say a prayer, I said show me where my predecessors are buried and we went to the crypt of St. John the Evangelist and I said, where will I be buried. I wanted to do that because I wanted to keep my eyes on the eternal. But that’s how much I thought, this is it Dolan, this is your home and you be happy here and I have been,” Dolan says.
But, Dolan says, Pope Benedict the XVI had different a different idea, to send Dolan to head the Archdiocese of New York.
“There wasn’t a question mark at the end of the statement, there was a period,” Dolan says.
When the Archbishop turns his attention to me, I ask how he would rate his effectiveness in dealing with the child sexual abuse scandals involving clergy he inherited when he came to Milwaukee.
“I mean it when I say there probably has not been a challenge that has engaged me more and taken more of my worry, time and sweat than that one. So as I look back I see tremendous progress and I’m grateful that that progress has been verified. That’s not just some internal suspicion, that’s been verified by outside sources. But I’d be less than honest with your, if I still didn’t say are there still people out there hurting, that I need to reach out to? Are there still a lot of people that are angry at the church? You bet they are and what could I do to help them. So does that still kind of weigh on me? Does that still haunt me? Yes it does and I’m not afraid to admit that. This is the kind of thing that is necessitating vigilance of decades, if if eternity. Vigilance, purification, commitment to see that it never happens again,” Dolan says.
Now Dolan says, the church has to keep doing, what he calls the very effective things that have already been done to address the problem.
“Periodically, you know, when I’m tempted to get a little down, why is this still haunting us? What more can I do? You just sit down and write out what has been done: First of all a scrupulous obedience to the promises that we’ve made. Never again will there be another priest about whom we know, that with a substantiated allegation that is ever serving publicly as a priest. Outreach in a compassionate and pastorally effective way to victims. Training for our people, so that the church is not only reactive but proactive in dealing with what is a societal problem. So now you have the catholic church in the United States poised to be one of the more effective agents of the protection of children. The community boards that we have to kind of guide us on this. The whole mediation system, where we’ve had close to 170 victims survivors who have been terribly hurt, who report a sense of resolution from a pastoral, spiritual, emotional and yes financial way, through the outreach of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee through independent mediation. Those are signs of progress so I think we’re kind of at that allyminal part now where there’s been great progress but we never, ever want to get sluggish or complacent again,” Dolan says.
“What’s your greatest concern about the archdiocese you leave behind and what gives you the greatest hope,” I ask.
“The greatest hope would be the resilience of the faith of the Catholic people of southeastern Wisconsin. They’re phenomenal. They’re as shrewd and as faithful and as generous as they come. You bet it touches my heart when they say, we’re going to miss you and what are we going to do without you. But they know deep down it’s not about Dolan. And they know that bishops come and go. They know priests come and go. The know parents come and go, but they know what endures. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. And so they get through this stronger than ever. And pretty soon they’re going to break in a new guy and I hope they’re as good to him as they have been to me,” Dolan says.
Dolan doesn’t share his greatest concern for the Catholic flock he’ll be leaving behind.
He stands, takes a minute for handshakes and photographs, then whisks out the door, on to his next interview.
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