PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
DAVID O’REILLY, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Next year’s World Meeting of Families here, capped by Pope Francis’ visit to the city, could mean “a rebirth of the archdiocese,” Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said Monday.
Chaput told a news conference that he could not shake off the gloom even when Pope Benedict XVI informed him last year that his battered archdiocese would host the 2015 World Meeting.
Dogged by clergy sex abuse scandals for more than a decade, the 1.4 million-member archdiocese has also been obliged to close dozens of parishes and schools in recent years because of financial stresses.
“We were in difficult situations in terms of morale and finances,” he recalled, and as archbishop here for less than two years, the news from Benedict had made him “nervous” and “not very enthusiastic.”
But his fears that the archdiocese could not muster the resources to host the World Meeting are gone, Chaput said. In fact, he is “really enthusiastic” about hosting the crowds and the pope himself.
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