Lori Named Baltimore Archbishop

CT Post
March 20, 2012

http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Lori-named-Baltimore-archbishop-3420439.php

Archbishop William E. Lori addresses those in attendance during an official announcement at the Baltimore Basilica, naming Bishop Lori of the Diocese of Bridgeport, as the 16th Archbishop of Baltimore Tuesday, March 20, 2012. Photo: Karl Merton Ferron, Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun / Connecticut Post Contributed The Baltimore Sun

Bishop William E. Lori, who led the Bridgeport Roman Catholic Diocese through a burgeoning sexual-abuse scandal left behind by his predecessor while emerging as a forceful national voice for religious liberty, has been named the 16th Archbishop of Baltimore.

Pope Benedict XVI made the announcement Tuesday, which Lori said he was informed of a week ago. "I want to express my gratitude to Pope Benedict for entrusting me with this great and historic diocese," he said during a morning news conference at the Baltimore Basilica, also known as the National Shrine of the Assumption.

Lori will succeed Cardinal Edwin O'Brien, who served as Baltimore's 15th archbishop from October 2007 to August 2011, when he was named grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

Lori, the 60-year-old leader of the Bridgeport diocese since March 2001, had been reported as the favorite for the job after taking an increasingly prominent role among U.S. bishops in recent years.

He helped write the Dallas Policy, also known as the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which set a zero-tolerance policy in 2002 for abusive priests; fought off a proposed state law to place control of parishes in the hands of laymen; and testified before Congress on the need for religious liberty.

At Tuesday morning's news conference, he told the gathered press, clergy and nuns that the issue of religious freedom is a priority of the U.S. Conference of Bishops, "and I will carry this issue forward. It's been hard to miss that there has been an erosion of religious liberty in this country, along with the secularization of society."

He said he will also stress evangelization and how to draw more people into the Roman Catholic Church. The Metropolitan Archdiocese of Baltimore is the nation's oldest, serving nearly 550,000 Catholics attending approximately 100 churches. About 45 percent of people residing in the archdiocese are Catholic, making Baltimore the 39th largest diocese. Bridgeport is the nation's 45th largest diocese.

"The new evangelization is proclaiming the gospel afresh,'' said Lori, who appeared bare-headed, without the traditional red skull cap. "It's a matter of listening. People sometimes have a caricature of what the Church teaches, rather than what it does teach. Sometimes people have been hurt.''

Lori fielded questions on Maryland's pending referendum on gay marriage and on church closures and new vocations. "Marriage is one man and one woman; it's an institution that predates governments,'' he said. "I'll be teaching as a bishop and working with other bishops and leaders in Maryland as the referendum unfolds.''

Having moved to close several Bridgeport-area churches, citing declining parish enrollments, Lori faces the same issue in his new post. "That is not uncommon in a large diocese as this one is,'' the new bishop said. Pray for new vocations, he said. "Vocations are born in families that keep the faith.''

Lori will be even busier in his new post, where he'll also head up the Maryland Catholic Conference.

The bishop also serves as the national chaplain of the Knights of Columbus and writes a monthly column for the fraternal order's monthly magazine, Columbias. He said he will write a column for the archdiocese's bi-weekly newspaper; Lori wrote a column for the monthly Fairfield Catholic.

"I am like a kid in college,'' the bishop said. "I do well under pressure. The looming deadlines focus me.''

For Lori, viewed as a conservative cleric and respected for carrying out church mandates in controversial instances, a Baltimore appointment is somewhat of a homecoming.

On May 14, 1977, Lori, a native of Kentucky, was ordained a priest in Washington, D.C. His first assignment was as an associate pastor at St. Joseph Parish in Landover, Md.

Additionally, he served as an auxiliary bishop in Washington, D.C., received his master's degree from Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md., in 1977 and his doctorate in sacred theology from the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., in 1982.

During his tenure in Bridgeport Lori settled dozens of sex-abuse lawsuits brought against the diocese for allegations made in previous decades. The diocese paid out about $40 million to end the cases.

He then helped create a model program used by the Roman Catholic Church nationally to ensure a safe environment and to root out priests who had abused children.

But Lori drew angry condemnations from victims-rights advocates for his nearly eight-year legal battle -- which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court -- to keep sealed thousands of pre-trial documents from the sex-abuse cases. In 2009, Lori lost that fight, and the records, some of which had been disclosed during trial, gave additional details on how the diocese had reassigned priests accused of sexual conduct to other parishes.

Weeks before Tuesday's Vatican announcement, knowledgeable observers were predicting Lori would be a likely appointment to the Baltimore post.

"I've heard his name floated around when there were vacancies in Philadelphia and New York," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, S.J., coordinator of the religion and public policy program at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center. "It seems whenever any major archdiocese becomes vacant his name pops up."

Reese said Lori's youth, conservative attitudes and respect within the Catholic Church's hierarchy made him a perennial candidate.

"They wouldn't send just anyone to address Congress," Reese pointed. "They wouldn't want someone stumbling and bumbling around."

On Oct. 26, just a month after Lori was appointed to chair the Bishop's Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Freedom, he found himself sitting before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution. There, Lori strongly advocated correcting action on several federal regulations involving same sex marriages, distribution of anti-pregnancy devices and reducing the ministerial exception exempting religious institutions from civil law involving hiring and firing.

Earlier this year, Lori joined other religious leaders in warning a congressional panel that the Obama administration is violating basic rights to religious freedom by mandating employees of religion-affiliated institutions have access to birth control coverage.

The issue has sparked a political firestorm for the administration, with Catholics and other religious groups strongly protesting an original Health and Human Services ruling that religion-affiliated institutions such as hospitals and universities must include free birth control coverage in their employee health plans. The churches themselves were exempted from the requirement.

Obama modified that policy so that insurance companies, and not the organization affiliated with a church, pay for birth control costs, but that hasn't satisfied Lori and other bishops.

Lori also was not shy about taking on the Connecticut General Assembly. When a proposed bill to allow more parishioner participation on the governance boards of individual churches was circulating in Hartford, Lori accused lawmakers of attempting to meddle in its operations, saying such a move would violate the Constitution.

With the bishop leading the charge of opponents, the measure was quickly beaten down.

Terry McKiernan, director of BishopAccountability.org, which maintains a library of the Catholic priest sexual abuse scandal, said late last year that Lori had earned a promotion. "He took the hot potato left behind by Bishop Edward Egan and put as good a face as the Catholic Church could want on it. Lori did what the Catholic Church needed to do," which he said included delaying the public release of court documents.

"He's young, reasonably smart, and he's handled some difficult assignments," McKiernan said. "He's performed well from the church's point of view."

The Bridgeport diocese, which spans Fairfield County, includes about 410,000 Roman Catholics. In the city of Bridgeport, the church has witnessed seismic demographic changes in recent years, as bedrock European communities that formed parishes for generations were replaced by immigrant communities from Haiti and Latin America.

One move that has put Lori on the hot seat in Bridgeport recently was the announced closing of four parishes, including Holy Rosary on East Washington Avenue.

The announcement was a bitter pill to swallow for those who have gone to the three churches for decades.

"I think we're getting a raw deal," said Mike Rodriguez, outside of Mass one Sunday at St. Ambrose. He has been attending Mass there for nearly 20 years. "They could have given us more time. We can make it work. The people here are devastated."

Irate parishioners are exploring options to keep their churches open.

Lori was a familiar figure at charity events across the diocese, often appearing at fundraisers and luncheons. His fondness for his Golden Retrievers was well-known, and well-wishers often inquired about his pets or remarked about photos of the bishop with his beloved dogs.