By Annysa Johnson
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
November 17, 2010
http://www.jsonline.com/features/religion/108584714.html
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| Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York laughs during a news conference after being elected to lead the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. |
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| Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York smiles Tuesday after being elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops during the conference’s annual fall meeting in Baltimore. |
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| Bishop Gerald Kicanas (left) had been in line to lead the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops before Tuesday’s vote. |
New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan was elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Tuesday in an unprecedented decision not to elevate the sitting vice president.
Dolan, who served previously in Milwaukee, received 54% of the vote on the third round of balloting at the conference's annual meeting in Baltimore. Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson received 46%.
The election elevates Dolan to the top leadership position in the American Catholic Church. And it illustrates the church leadership's continued shift to the right on issues of orthodoxy and social policy, observers said.
The vote also was seen as reflecting a sensitivity to the impact of the clergy sex abuse scandal, which continues to rock the church.
Kicanas had come under fire recently by victims of clergy sex abuse and by conservative Catholic bloggers who mounted a phone and fax campaign urging their bishops not to rubber stamp his nomination.
They accused Kicanas of ordaining a seminarian with a known history of inappropriate sexual behavior while serving as rector at Mundelein Seminary - a suburban Chicago institution that educated many Wisconsin seminarians through the years - in the 1990s. The priest, Daniel McCormack, now in jail, went on to molest more than 20 boys.
Kicanas denied knowledge of any sex abuse complaints about the man at the time. But critics said that electing him president of the U.S. Conference would reinforce the impression of bishops protecting each other.
Both Dolan and Kicanas promote church teachings against abortion and gay marriage. Neither has denied communion to abortion-rights politicians, and both - in keeping with Catholic social teaching - have spoken about the need for comprehensive immigration reform and health care reform.
But when many bishops - including Dolan - scolded Notre Dame University last year for honoring President Barack Obama, an advocate of abortion rights, Kicanas called for dialogue and understanding.
"The conservatives opposed Kicanas because he's not conservative enough on public policy issues. He pushed for the total range of Catholic social teaching, and they want to focus just on abortion and gay marriage," said Father Thomas Reese, a liberal observer and senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. "It indicates that the bishops are going to continue to be leaders in the culture wars."
Dolan is seen as a staunch defender of Catholic Church orthodoxy and a strong personality who is not afraid to be confrontational if necessary.
He embodies the current direction of the church as laid down by Pope Benedict XVI and the late Pope John Paul II, with a "dynamic orthodoxy" that stresses evangelization and "teaches the fullness of the Catholic faith vigorously and unapologetically," said conservative Catholic writer George Weigel. "It means that a critical mass of the bishops of the United States are now firmly lined up behind . . . John Paul II and Benedict XVI."
Kicanas gracious
Dolan, 60, succeeds Cardinal Francis George of Chicago as president. Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, chairman of the conference's Committee for the Defense of Marriage, was elected vice president.
A Wisconsin prelate also landed a key post Tuesday; Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay was elected chairman of the Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis.
Kicanas issued a statement after the vote saying he respects the wisdom of his brother bishops and praising Dolan for his "exceptional leadership qualities."
Dolan, speaking at a news conference, downplayed his selection as "hardly a landslide" and rejected the suggestion that it reflects a shift in direction for the conference.
"The bishops of the United States are not partisans, they're pastors," he said.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, based in Washington, D.C., is the assembly of the Catholic Church hierarchy in the United States and U.S. Virgin Islands. The organization promotes Catholic teaching and issues statements on key moral issues and public policy.
Dolan was installed in New York last year after serving seven years as the archbishop of Milwaukee. A St. Louis native, he served as rector of the North American College in Rome and secretary to the Apostolic Nunciature, the Vatican embassy in the United States and briefly as an auxiliary bishop in St. Louis.
Dolan was popular in Milwaukee among priests and the faithful for his attentive and gregarious pastoral style.
He was credited with working to heal and reinvigorate the local church, which had been mired in the sexual abuse crisis, though critics say he did not do enough on that front. He advocated for Catholic schools and religious vocations and launched a $105 million capital campaign, the archdiocese's largest ever.
"We in Milwaukee have firsthand experience of Archbishop Dolan's love, devotion and dedication to the Church," Dolan's successor, Archbishop Jerome Listecki, said in a statement from the conference.
"We look forward to his leadership as the new USCCB president."
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