By Rosa Salter Rodriguez
Journal Gazette
November 15, 2009
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091115/FEAT04/311159868
He's been called "a voice crying in the wilderness" for early alerts on sexual abuse of minors by priests. He became a lightning rod for critics from the left and the right for opposing the University of Notre Dame's honoring of President Obama at its May commencement.
But Bishop John Michael D'Arcy also has been called a sincerely spiritual man – and an even-handed faith leader whose outspokenness has been only to uphold traditional Catholicism in communion with his papal superiors and church colleagues.
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| Rhoades thanks D’Arcy for his introduction at the Archbishop Noll Catholic Center in Fort Wayne.
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In his 24 years as head of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese, D'Arcy, who grew up in Boston, the son of Irish immigrants, also has overseen what diocesan historian Joseph White calls a "remarkable" volume of activity and "an extraordinary range of new initiatives" for a midsized, Midwestern diocese.
D'Arcy served as an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Boston before being installed as bishop for the local diocese May 1, 1985, at age 52, succeeding Bishop Wiliam E. McManus.
Less than two weeks into his tenure, he announced the closing of Huntington Catholic High School, a beloved institution with an enrollment that had dwindled to 55 students. D'Arcy's decision was seen by some as getting off on the wrong foot.
But the new bishop soon started winning over skeptics as he visited and met with people in every parish in the diocese. Later decisions, even potentially unpopular ones, struck stronger chords as the bishop strove to balance interests and make choices based on personal knowledge of people and parishes.
St. Mary's rebuilt
When St. Mary's Catholic Church in Fort Wayne, a Gothic architecture landmark, was struck by lightning in 1993 and burned to the ground, D'Arcy realized he could not duplicate the 19th-century architecture. He instead vowed to rebuild it with a small chapel and a state-of-the-art soup kitchen so its mission to the poor could continue.
In parish realignments this year, the small parish was merged with the nearby Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, ensuring that Masses and the soup kitchen would go on.
In 2003, the bishop decided to tear down the aging St. Paul Catholic Church, upsetting some Hispanics who had made the downtown Fort Wayne parish their home. But he also made provisions for Spanish Masses at nearby St. Patrick Catholic Church.
He also supported raising money to build Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church and shrine in Warsaw to serve the growing numbers of Spanish-speaking parishioners. Last month, he ordained the diocese's first Mexican-born priest.
The bishop encouraged many new initiatives: the 2005 founding of Redeemer Radio, a Fort Wayne Catholic AM radio station; the expansion of the Women's Care Centers for women facing crisis pregnancies: the Matthew 25 health clinic for the poor in Fort Wayne; and the founding of the Ave Maria House day center for the homeless.
He was a supporter of Catholic Charities' continuing efforts to resettle refugees from Southeast Asia, especially Myanmar, formerly Burma, and Africa.
He oversaw construction of eight new churches and more than 50 building renovations or additions.
Service to youth
He also encouraged young Catholics through trips to national and international gatherings at which the late Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI were present. D'Arcy also frequently met with high school students.
As the sexual abuse scandal snowballed into international headlines, his unheeded warnings to superiors in Boston about the untoward activities came to light. D'Arcy's letters to higher-ups surfaced from as early as 1978, with some concerning John Geoghan, a priest who was defrocked, convicted of sexual crimes against a young man and later killed in prison.
D'Arcy has maintained public silence about his move from the jurisdiction of Boston Archbishop Bernard Law, who resigned from that post in late 2002 amid the scandal. Law is now a cardinal.
Dealing with abuse
Instead, in D'Arcy's early years in the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese, he worked to have those credibly accused of misconduct removed from the priesthood and put controls and training in place for priests, teachers and lay leaders.
In late 2005, in making public a diocesan audit, the bishop placed the number of such priests in the diocese at 16 and said the last incident had happened 20 years earlier.
Early in his tenure, the bishop also strove to head off a pending shortage of priests, calling the diocese "a missionary diocese" because it needed priests from beyond its borders, White's history said.
Using contacts he made while studying for a doctorate in theology in Rome, D'Arcy was able to secure a series of priests from Sri Lanka. After a devastating tsunami struck that country in 2005, a special appeal for survivors of the tsunami and U.S. disasters brought in more than $1.4 million.
D'Arcy has lamented that the looming priest shortage led to shortcuts in earlier decades.
"The way out of what some call the vocation crisis – the serious shortage of priests – lies in improving discernment during the application process and in the seminary years. If we draw into the seminary men of good quality who also would make good fathers and good husbands, men who are able and willing to embrace this beautiful life and the sacrifice it involves, they, in turn, will draw similar candidates," he wrote in an afterword to White's history.
Obama's visit
When the bishop spoke out in the spring against President Obama's Notre Dame invitation, some accused him of stifling speech and academic freedom, while others urged him to remove the Rev. John Jenkins as university president or Notre Dame from the Catholic directory.
D'Arcy said he was adhering to a U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' stance against honoring those who act against the church's fundamental moral principles, citing the president's stance favoring abortion rights and embryotic stem-cell research as disqualifying him.
D'Arcy, who urged Catholics not to engage in "unseemly" protests on campus, made good on his pledge to stay away from the graduation, while deciding at the last minute to attend what he called a "prayerful" graduation alternative organized by ND Response, a student-led group.
This summer in San Antonio, the bishops' conference released the following statement:
"The bishops of the United States express our appreciation and support for our brother bishop, the Most Reverend John D'Arcy. We affirm his pastoral concern for Notre Dame University, his solicitude for its Catholic identity – and his loving care for all those the Lord has given him to sanctify, to teach and to shepherd."
Contact: rsalter@jg.net
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