By Bob Keeler
Editorial, Newsday
September 16, 2002

At a recent Irish Tenors concert, I scanned the mostly Catholic audience and wondered what would happen if Bishop William F. Murphy showed up, wearing a jaunty green cap and an Irish knit sweater instead of his clerical uniform. In my imagination, people recognized his round Irish face and stepped up to greet him, delighted to see their bishop dressed like a layman and enjoying a night of song.

It didn't happen, of course. Murphy is a brilliant, impeccably educated man, and he has the Boston Irish aptitude for schmoozing and oozing charm. But in his first year as bishop of Rockville Centre - a rough year that included Sept. 11, the sexual abuse scandal and the murder of one of his priests - he has shown a mystifying inability to make the right symbolic gesture.

In person, he can be warm and pastoral. Early in his year, he showed real kindness toward two priest friends of mine. But his public image is less appealing than his private compassion.

Take his decision to reject the two residential options that his predecessors had deemed adequate: the rectory at St. Agnes Cathedral in Rockville Centre or a house formerly owned by the family of the diocese's first bishop, Walter P. Kellenberg. Instead, he opted for the third floor of the convent, where a group of nuns had planned to return after renovations to the lower floors for offices and the third floor for their residence.

Despite his explanation that he needs more room to meet with priests, that decision looked too much like a princely prerogative. And it doesn't compare well, for example, with the practice of Bishop Kenneth Untener of Saginaw, Mich. He does not even have a fixed bishop's residence. Rather, he lives in rectories with his priests, periodically packing up his car and moving on to the next rectory. That's a powerful reminder of an itinerant Galilean rabbi who slept wherever his preaching led.

Anyway, the question isn't so much where Murphy meets his priests as how well he listens. The word from some priests is that his management style is not collegial, but top-down and autocratic. That may be another trait he learned in Boston, under the aptly named Cardinal Bernard Law, a law-unto-himself autocrat.

As to the national firestorm of news about the sexual-abuse scandal, largely ignited by Law's disastrous mishandling of abusers, Murphy has too often blamed the media. Perhaps he should think of journalists in light of a basic tenet of Catholic sacramental theology, ex opere operato, "from the work performed," meaning the grace of a sacrament flows from the sacrament itself, no matter how sinful the priest. In this case, journalism is a metaphorical sacrament, conferring on the church the grace of facing the truth. It doesn't matter if some journalists administering it are cynical or anti-Catholic. Our church needs this reforming grace, and Murphy should welcome it - without griping about its ministers.

Even in a June speech for the annual meeting of the Long Island Housing Partnership, he hinted darkly that Catholic-bashing by "certain sectors" (presumably including journalists) is hurting the church's ability to do good. That notion, in contrast to the great work the church has already done in housing, struck many as odd. Nor did it help that an aide had to read the speech, because Murphy couldn't make it. A symbolic opportunity muffed.

Finally, he missed a big chance with Voice of the Faithful, the lay group that began in Boston, to nudge the church to deal better with the scandal. When the group scheduled a meeting at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Wyandanch, imagine the impression he could have made simply by showing up and listening. Instead, he banned a meeting on church property.

So on Thursday night I attended the group's meeting, about 600 people packed into a Wyandanch community center. They were not crazies, revolutionaries or heretics. Rather, it was like a homecoming of all the people I've met as a Catholic and as a religion writer for eight years: laywomen and nuns who live the Gospel courageously; the parents of my daughter's college classmate, both heavily involved in parish; a conservative Republican politician and some former Democratic officials; deacons, and a few priests, who drew a warm ovation from a group that wants to help innocent priests as well as victims of abuse.

No one spoke harshly about Murphy, but his absence was as clear as the presence of the crowd that his edict helped build. As I had at the Irish Tenors concert, I wished my bishop were there.

[Bob Keeler is a member of Newsday's editorial board.]