Cardinal Sean O'Malley, Former Fall River Bishop, Speculated to Be Potential Candidate for Pope
By Brian Fraga
The speculation in Rome this week has Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the current archbishop of Boston and former bishop of the Diocese of Fall River, as a possible leading candidate to be the next pope. O’Malley’s profile as a reformer on clergy sex abuse and his reputation as a humble Franciscan Friar uninterested in the Vatican’s political intrigues appear to be generating conversations that he could be an ideal replacement for Pope Benedict XVI, who will retire Feb. 28, veteran Vatican journalist John L. Allen Jr. wrote Tuesday in the National Catholic Reporter. At least six Italian newspapers have recently mentioned O’Malley’s name in handicapping the field of potential new popes. The Italian Journalistic Agency credited O’Malley with “restoring credibility to the church” after the “escape” to Rome by his disgraced predecessor in Boston, Cardinal Bernard Law. O’Malley, 68, who headed the Fall River Diocese from 1992 to 2002, has brushed off speculation that he could be a “papabile” — Italian for men who could be pope — and added that he was not interested in the papacy during a press conference last week in Boston. However, O’Malley’s background, temperament, intelligence and linguistic skills — O’Malley is fluent in six languages and speaks various Creole dialects — make it possible that the College of Cardinals could look to him as the next bishop of Rome, though that possibility remains a longshot, said the Rev. Roger Landry, pastor of St. Bernadette Church in Fall River. “I’m not surprised that the cardinals throughout the Catholic world would see in Cardinal Sean the type of holiness that we were able to observe up close here in the Diocese of Fall River during his decade of service here, and in his last decade of service in Boston,” said Landry, who will be offering televised color commentary for EWTN, the Catholic cable channel, during the papal conclave in Vatican City State. Landry said O’Malley has “always impressed people as a holy disciple and apostle of Jesus,” and that his reputation for being a polyglot is a plus. “He’s a unique American able to speak foreign languages better than most European cardinals,” Landry said. O’Malley’s resume shows how his profile has risen in the Catholic Church. With a Ph.D. in Spanish and Portuguese literature, in the early 1970s, O’Malley founded Centro Catolico Hispano in Washington D.C., an organization that provided educational, medical and legal aid to Hispanic immigrants. He also worked in Chile as a priest, and served as a bishop in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands from 1984 to 1992. However, it is O’Malley’s reputation for sensitively handling the clergy sex abuse crisis that could be a deciding factor. O’Malley became the bishop of Fall River just before the late Rev. James Porter, a local priest who molested more than 100 children over 30 years, was convicted in 1993 of molesting 28 children and sentenced to serve 18 to 20 years in prison. O’Malley helped establish a system of reporting sex abuse allegations where an independent review board examined the allegations. It also required any person in the diocese with access to children to undergo background criminal checks and attend abuse prevention workshops. In Boston, the epicenter of the 2002 American sex abuse crisis, O’Malley took steps to reach out to sex abuse victims, including selling off diocesan property to pay for settlements. Pope Benedict XVI later assigned O’Malley to oversee an apostolic visitation of certain dioceses and seminaries in Ireland after that country’s clergy sex abuse scandals broke in 2010. However, victims groups have criticized O’Malley on various points, including for belatedly releasing a list of accused predator-priests that they said was incomplete. O’Malley has also come under fire from Boston-area Catholics for closing what they said were still-vibrant parishes, and many have staged vigils inside those churches to keep them open. It is also unclear as to whether O’Malley’s relative lack of experience with the Vatican bureaucracy would be counted as a negative because of the call for reform from many quarters in the Catholic world. Another hurdle is the perception that the cardinals would be hesitant to elect an American pope, and that they instead would be looking for a candidate from the developing world, where Catholicism is growing. Landry noted that several popes — including the popular John Paul II and Pope St. Pius X — did not have prior careers in the Vatican, and added that the cardinals themselves never talk about an American having a natural obstacle to the papacy. Unlike in 2005, when then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was seen as the clear-cut favorite to succeed John Paul II, there is no obvious frontrunner this time around. Given the many personalities involved and issues in play, Landry said it would take “an act of the Holy Spirit” for O’Malley to be elected. “I wouldn’t say it’s unlikely, but it is a longshot,” Landry said. “But I’m not surprised in the least that he would be considered because he has the entire package that someone would be looking for as a successor of St. Peter. He would be one more pope in a long line of very talented holy evangelizers.” Contact: bfraga@heraldnews.com
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