By Robert King
Indianapolis Star
March 2, 2011
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011103020330
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| The Rev. Christopher Coyne, auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, was appointed to assist Archbishop Daniel Buechlein, 72. The archbishop has had health problems that prevent him from performing some tasks. |
With unpacked boxes piled high in his own office, Bishop-elect Christopher Coyne received a pair of visitors last week in the office across the hall -- the one that belongs to Archbishop Daniel Buechlein.
Because of an assortment of health problems, the 72-year-old Buechlein has been increasingly absent from here the past couple of years. And in some ways, Coyne's use of the bishop's cozy office is fitting. He was appointed by the pope to be Buechlein's helper and to go places where the archbishop can no longer go.
Coyne, 52, seems uncomfortable in the environs -- or at least less comfortable than when he was introduced at a news conference last month as the new auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. In front of the media and a group of priests that day, he was loose and jovial, quick with a joke -- freely discussing his days as a bartender, among other things.
Here, alone in the bishop's office, he is more sedate. Offered the chance to talk about being kicked out of the Boy Scouts as a boy, his lack of ambition as a teenage student or his cooking skills -- all covered in a 28-page special section in the archdiocesan newspaper -- he is unenthusiastic.
Coyne, who will be ordained as a bishop today in ceremonies at St. John the Evangelist Church, is more animated when talking about the need to improve preaching in the Catholic Church. He is chatty about using the Internet to reach people who are isolated from human contact. And he speaks admiringly of what Rick Warren, a Protestant megachurch pastor and best-selling author, has to say about making the church a people-magnet in order to reach them with the message of faith.
Preaching, never a hallmark of Catholic worship, has for too long been an afterthought for pastors, Coyne said. For decades, priests were given no training on the art. But, he says, bad preaching and bad music are big reasons people don't want to come to church. And it's an area where he might try to help archdiocesan pastors. "I think we could all improve," he says.
As for Warren, Coyne likes what the purpose-driven pastor has to say about reaching those who have gotten away from church -- that activities at a church can give people an easy door to reconnect.
"Once you get them in the door," he says, "you can evangelize."
"We are a very complacent church," Coyne says. "We have believed that Catholics would be born and raised and would die Catholic and continue to come through the doors. And people don't anymore."
Coyne also likes what a Catholic priest in Chicago, the Rev. Robert Barron, is doing on the multimedia front -- taking Catholicism to the Internet masses with podcasts, YouTube commentaries and a website, www.wordonfire.org, that draws a million visitors a year.
Coyne already has a blog of his own, has hosted shows on the CatholicTV network and expects soon to start sending audio podcasts out into the digital ether to reach people.
"People believe in God," he says. "But what you find with the younger generation is that they say they believe in God and are spiritual but they don't feel the need to be involved on a community level with a particular religion."
For Coyne, the middle of seven children in a devout Catholic family in the Boston archdiocese, feeling connected to the church was never a problem.
Which is not to say he was always an angel.
Coyne confesses to being kicked out of the Boy Scouts "at least three times." "I think it was mainly just not listening when I was told not to do something," he says. That includes a time he started a flying disc game in a rainstorm after the Scout leader told his troops to stay in their tents.
As a teen, he worked afternoons as a dishwasher for a sandwich company. But he didn't overly exert himself in school. Good grades came easily. The spark for pushing himself academically -- and becoming a voracious reader -- wasn't lit until he became a seminarian and professors urged him not to waste his abilities. He obliged, taking French church history (in French) and biblical Greek.
"It forced me into the library," he says. "And once you are in the library, you are surrounded by all these books and magazines, and the next thing you know you are picking up a theological journal."
As a priest, he has been a professor and a parish pastor. But his previous claim to fame was his work as spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston during the height of the priest sexual abuse scandal. He was never accused of abuse himself. But victim's groups have been critical of his mouthpiece role.
At times, victims and victim advocates shouted their protests at Coyne as he held news conferences on church steps. He knew the source of their anger, and he didn't take things personally. "I tried to just make the best of a bad situation and, as much as I could, not make it worse," he says.
As he moves to Indiana, Coyne is taking care of the usual things -- closing out bank accounts, gathering his medical records, changing the name of his blog (now called "Let Us Walk Together: Thoughts of a Catholic Bishop"). But he also had to part with his allotment of Boston Celtics season tickets, which he shared with a nephew.
One thing from home he plans to keep is summers on the coast of Maine. His family owns a pair of seaside cottages on Saco Bay.
But he says he is excited about moving to Indianapolis and the job ahead of him. He will become only the third auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese's 177-year history and the first since 1933. But Coyne sees his ordination today as a bishop in even larger historical terms -- its connection to the original apostles of Christ through the ritual laying-on of hands that will be performed by other bishops during the service.
"That's part of who I am now," he said. "I am a successor to the apostles."
Call Star reporter Robert King at (317) 444-6089.
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