Brooklyn Bishop to Have Heart Bypass, by Paul Vitello, New York Times, June 11, 2009

Brooklyn Bishop to Have Heart Bypass

By Paul Vitello
New York Times
June 11, 2009

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/brooklyn-bishop-to-get-heart-bypass-surgery/

Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio, 64, the leader of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, is scheduled to undergo heart bypass surgery next week.

In a brief statement issued late Wednesday, the diocese's communications office said the surgery would be performed on June 16 at "a local Catholic hospital." The diocese declined through a spokesman to be more specific.

Nicholas A. DiMarzio, the Roman Catholic bishop of Brooklyn.
Photo by Angel Franco

"Three weeks ago, following a routine medical exam, blockages were discovered," the statement said. "Initially, his physician prescribed an outpatient procedure. Upon closer examination, it was determined that bypass surgery was necessary to correct the blockages."

Doctors told the bishop to expect a full recovery to take six to 10 weeks, the statement said.

Bishop DiMarzio has been head of the diocese, which includes more than a million Catholics in Brooklyn and Queens, since 2003.

In recent months, he has been involved in the wrenching decision-making behind a wide-scale downsizing of the parochial school system in the two boroughs. Fourteen elementary schools were scheduled for closing at the end of the school year.

Also, he has been actively — and sometimes contentiously — lobbying to block a bill in Albany that would make it easier for those claiming they were victims of sex abuse as children to file lawsuits.

Such a law would drive the diocese to bankruptcy, he claims. And when churches and schools are shuttered as a result, angry Catholics will punish the lawmakers responsible, he has said.

In recent days, his lobbying led Assemblywoman Margaret M. Markey of Queens, sponsor of the child sex abuse legislation, to accuse him of stepping close to the line of church-state separation protections.