New Bishop Anticipates a 'Fresh Start' in Norwich
Unfamiliar Diocese Will Be a Challenge for Cote

By Kate Moran
The Day [New London CT]
May 13, 2003

Portland, Maine - On Thursday afternoon, the Most Rev. Michael Cote tucked the last of his Maine remembrances – a picture of Pemaquid Point Lighthouse – into his car and made the solitary passage from this diocese to the new home he calls "Nohwich."

The trip was a reflective interval for Cote before the rush leading up to the ceremony Wednesday in the Cathedral of St. Patrick, when he will be installed as the fifth bishop of Norwich.

Bishop Michael R. Cote, auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Portland, Maine, and bishop designate for the Norwich Diocese, will be installed as the diocese's fifth bishop on May 14 at the Cathedral of St. Patrick. Photo by Sean D. Elliot.

"Everything is new, and there's the challenge," Cote said Thursday at the chancery in Portland, where he has served as auxiliary bishop for the last eight years. "Nobody in Norwich knows me, and I don't know them, so it's a fresh start in a way."

Cote inherits the diocese from Bishop Daniel A. Hart at a critical moment, when it is still feeling the aftershocks of the sex abuse scandals that prostrated the Catholic Church. The diocese has already reached a $350,000 settlement with one victim matched by funds from the accused priest but three cases are still pending.

With the tast of his things in his arms, the Most Reverend Michael R. Cote, Auxiliary Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Portland, ME, and Bishop Designate of the Diocese of Norwich, walks to his car as he leaves the chancery Thurs. to attend a farewell lunch. Cote will be installed as Norwich's fifth bishop on Wed. May 14th at the Cathedral of St. Patrick. Photo by Sean D. Elliot.

In the wake of the scandals across the country, contributions to last year's local Annual Bishop's Appeal dwindled $220,000 short of the $3 million goal.

In Cote, the diocese's 227,500 Catholics are getting a bishop who has passed through the same crucible. As auxiliary bishop of Portland, he personally had to strip three priests of their ministries.

Cote is a moderate man who called the experience "extremely painful" "the most painful thing I've ever done as a bishop."

"These people, when they heard this news, had a very difficult time believing it was even possible," Cote recalled. "I let them be angry at me – they had to be angry at me. They had to be angry at somebody. I had to serve that role for a while."

But the task became especially trying for Cote when he took a stand of sympathy for the dishonored priests.

"I was criticized when I removed two in northern Maine, because I referred to them publicly as my brothers that somehow I should not even consider them my brothers," he said. "If my flesh-and-blood brothers had done something as heinous, I would feel horrible, but they'd still be my brothers. I look at my brother priests the same way. I don't love what they do, but I can still love them as human beings, as priests."

Cote's sympathy for the accused bespeaks his deep faith in the integrity of the Catholic Church. He was ordained by the pope, holds a degree in canon law and has spent the bulk of his 28-year career in administrative positions, the crossbeams that uphold the Vatican as an institution.

In additon to its spiritual tradition, Cote believes in the structure of the church, and he Is convinced this structure remains sound despite the recent barrage of accusations.

"As painful as this has been, this ultimately will be a purification of the church," he said. "The church will be much, much stronger and in a better position to protect its children than it has ever been in its history."

In conversation, each of Cote's words carries the weight of his conviction. He speaks deliberately and never becomes overwrought, even when the subject is painful. He rations his emotion, letting it slip out subtly in his speech patterns. The adverbs "much, much" or "very, very" appended to many of his descriptions signify double-decker feeling.

Cote, 53, is short in height and wears an F. Scott Fitzgerald center part that makes him faintly debonair. A New Englander by birth, he has the polished mien of someone who has seen the world.

He was born in Sanford, Maine, in 1949, the second of six children of Paul and Alma Cote. He speaks French and also Italian, which he learned first at the seminary in Rome and later at the Vatican's embassy in Washington, where it was the official language of the house.

His former secretary, Mildred Noddin, called him "quite European."

The church was a natural calling for Cote, raised in a family dotted with priestly cameos. His mother's cousin, the Most Rev. Amedee Proulx, preceded him as auxiliary bishop of Portland.

At Assumption College in Worcester, Mass., he considered a major in foreign languages but felt the tug of the priesthood during his sophomore year. He transferred to St. Mary's Seminary College in Baltimore, where he earned a degree in philosophy.

"I went to college with the view of being a teacher," Cote said, referring to his time at Assumption. "What began to make sense to me was, yes, I do have a calling to be a teacher, but the subject matter is different it's not going to be languages, but maybe it's going to be faith and religion."

As a young priest, Cote said, he did not envision a future in the church hierarchy. He looked forward to being a pastor. His academic grooming, however, is that of a bishop.

In 1975 he received a master's degree in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, at which time Pope Paul VI ordained him a priest. After spending three years as assistant to the pastors at two Maine parishes, he went to Catholic University in Washington, D.C., to pursue a degree in canon law.

He took this degree back to Portland's diocesan tribunal the department that, among other things, negotiates marriage annulments and served there for eight years. In 1989, he departed again for the capital and joined what he called the "oldest diplomatic corps in the world" the Apostolic Nunciature, the Vatican embassy. He worked for the nuncio, or ambassador, making his travel arrangements and supervising personnel.

Cote left Washington in 1994 to become pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Auburn, Maine. He stayed for only nine months before he was named auxiliary bishop of Portland in 1995.

As auxiliary, he was the diplomatic face that managed the assignment of clergy, a task he said could become "touchy" when priests were uprooted from parishes to which they were devoted. He also coordinated the refurbishment of a Catholic high school, a $13 million project.

Cote has named no specific goals for his first weeks in Norwich. His first move will be to canvass the diocese and sow relationships with priests and the laity.

"I could walk in there and say, let's do A-B-C, and those might be good things, but they may not be addressing the true needs of the church of Norwich," he said. "My first responsibility is to listen."

His initial audience will be priests. "I intend to go to their parishes," Cote continued. "I want to see where they live, where they pray, where they work. I want to sit with them so they can tell me what's on their minds what's positive, what's negative."

In Portland, Cote traveled widely in a diocese many miles broader than Norwich.

"I don't know how many thousands of miles he put on his car every year," said Deacon Denis Mailhot, who first met Cote while he was pastor in Auburn. "He made a point to visit priests and didn't wait for an invitation. He isn't somebody who is stuck behind a desk."

Cote also elected to reside in Old Town, about a two-hour drive from the diocesan headquarters in Portland. The Bangor Daily News called that decision a "victory for the 'Other Maine,'" where the influence of the distant church leadership was felt, like radio waves, at a lower frequency.

In his travels, Cote impressed colleagues as being a solicitous priest who took a sincere interest in them.

The Rev. Romeo St. Pierre, an elderly, disabled priest in the Holy Rosary Parish in Caribou, said Cote was a faithful visitor – a "true gentleman of a priest."

"A number of times, he would say we should stop and see Father So-and-So who is sick or in the hospital. He was very thoughtful that way," said Monsignor Marc Caron, a chancellor of the Portland diocese who traveled frequently with Cote.

The main ingredient of his warmth, colleagues said, is his understated sense of humor.

"You can take to him very readily," said Najlia Kerrigan, an administrative assistant in Portland's diocesan tribunal. "He has a great sense of wit, too. I don't mean he's one of these funny-funnies that's always joking around, but he has a great sense of humor."

In Norwich, one of the first challenges for this bishop who has developed a reputation as a listener may be taking a stance on the Voice of the Faithful, a group of lay reformers that remains marginalized from church leadership.

"Until I get to know who they are, my gut is that it's not clear enough what the purpose is," Cote said. "There are many lay groups that advise a bishop for example, in this diocese there is a pastoral council, people from all over the state. A bishop brings issues to such groups on a regular basis. I don't know that we need to set up a parallel structure."