Doblin: Archbishop Hebda may be as tone deaf as Archbishop Myers

By Alfred P. Doblin
Record
March 24, 2014

http://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-guest-writers/hebda-may-be-as-tone-deaf-as-archbishop-myers-1.750160

Bishop Bernard A. Hebda, left speaking at the press conference, next to Archbishop John J. Myers in September, 2013.

NEWARK Coadjutor Archbishop Bernard Hebda is loyal. Unfortunately, his loyalty is misplaced.

In an opinion piece published in The Record last Tuesday, Hebda takes Record Staff Writer Jeff Green to task for reporting on the different lifestyle choices made by Hebda and Newark Archbishop John Myers. Hebda is living in three rooms at Seton Hall University, while Myers is adding 3,000 square feet to a 4,500-square-foot home he intends to use as his residence in retirement.

Hebda wrote that Myers has saved the archdiocese much money by choosing to live for 13 years in the cathedral rectory with other priests. According to Hebda, Myers has only two rooms he can call his own and, he said, "they are in a ZIP code that few would consider enviable."

There was great hope that Hebda, who has been mainly silent during his first six months in the Newark archdiocese, would be a breath of spring after more than a decade of winters of discontent under Myers. The frosty chill induced by Hebda's opinion piece is palpable.

Myers is the archbishop of Newark. If living within Newark's city limits is such a sacrifice to either Myers or Hebda, they should leave for more desirable locales. Bishops should be men of God, not men of gold.

Ministry, despite what is seen on reality television, is not about fancy cars, big houses or enviable ZIP codes. And while Myers may be living simply in the cathedral rectory — and that is a subject of debate — he also has had regular weekend use of his 4,500-square-foot country estate. Hebda ignores that and does nothing to explain why a single, celibate man in his mid-70s would need to retire to a 7,500-square-foot mansion, replete with hot tub.

This is a shameful expense and a sad defense of it. There is no justification for Myers to be spending this kind of money, even if the funds are not coming from weekly collections or annual financial appeals. Of course, the timing of Hebda's article could not have been worse. The same week Hebda defended Myers' ministry, the Vatican announced it had defrocked Michael Fugee, the former archdiocesan priest who had confessed to sexually abusing a teenager and then violated a court-ordered ban on ministering to minors.

Myers has been tone deaf to the people of the archdiocese. Hebda may not be any more musically gifted.

The Newark archdiocese includes pockets of poverty and wealth. Like most large archdioceses, it is a diverse place. I agree with Hebda that "there is far too much work that remains to be done." But I could not disagree more with his choice of words for Myers' palace: Hebda called the news accounts about the 7,500-square-foot home "distractions."

A mansion is not a distraction; it is a symbol of wealth. In the decade I spent as an editor in the Catholic press, I saw bishop residences great and small. In Detroit, when Edmund Szoka became archbishop, retired Cardinal Archbishop John Dearden was still living in a massive Tudor Rival mansion, the official archbishop's residence. Rather than displace Dearden, Szoka moved into a smaller mansion near the cathedral that had been donated to the church years earlier. It was high end, but small compared with Dearden's home. After Dearden's death, his mansion was sold to John Salley, the basketball player.

In Los Angeles, Cardinal Timothy Manning sold the official bishop's residence — another gifted mansion to the church – and moved into the cathedral rectory on skid row. Many years later, Cardinal Roger Mahony decamped from the cathedral and built an extravagant cathedral compound, including residence, in a new downtown location.

Some archbishops live better than others. And some cathedrals are in better neighborhoods than others. New York's archbishop lives off Madison Avenue behind St. Patrick's. But no one should become a priest because he wants a big house in a good ZIP code. The lifestyle a bishop embraces sets a tone; that is what Pope Francis has been saying for a year.

The Newark archdiocese should complete the construction of Myers' palace, sell it and purchase something more appropriate for a single septuagenarian living out his retirement.

Hebda has to support Myers to a point; Hebda is not running the diocese yet. But the coadjutor bishop does not have to make excuses for Myers' poor judgment. And the final resolution of the Fugee case is proof that that judgment has been far from good. Maybe Hebda sees a warm pastoral side to Myers, but many Catholics do not.

"My experience tells me that the lifestyle of a bishop has little to do with square footage," Hebda wrote. Perhaps in his former rural diocese in Michigan, a big house was no big deal. In New Jersey, expanding a 4,500-square-foot house by 3,000 square feet is a very big deal. Myers does not have to live like Mother Teresa of Calcutta, but he should not retire as Leona Helmsley.

There was an ad campaign for the then-Helmsley Palace Hotel that said: "The only palace in the world where the queen stands guard." If the archdiocese wants to celebrate Myers' mansion, perhaps it should consider this: The only palace in the world where the king is a bishop.

Of course, that might cause more distractions.

Alfred P. Doblin is the editorial page editor of The Record. Contact him at doblin@northjersey.com. Follow AlfredPDoblin on Twitter.