Daily Archives: December 31, 2014

2014 was quite a year for those of us who write about the Catholic Church. Looking back at the most important stories of the year, many of them are tied in with Pope Francis but in this column, I will confine my retrospective to events in the United States. So, here are the top stories of the year, ranked in no particular order.

1) Reactions to Pope Francis continued to fascinate. The pope continued to demonstrate wide appeal to almost all Catholics in the U.S. Whatever their ideological and political particularities, people respond to this man in large part because he is so recognizably human, and not afraid to be seen as such.

What I termed last year Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome largely abated. Yes, John Zmirak denied there is any such thing as a papal magisterium, and some well-heeled Catholics tried to reduce the popes clarion calls for social justice to an appeal for personal charity. A few continued to question the legitimacy of his election. But, by and large, the derangement stopped. Sadly, some commentators and some clerics continue to try and parse the popes words, emptying them of their obvious meaning and replacing them with their own perspectives. Indeed, I think one of the things that will warrant further attention in the year ahead is the plain spoken way this pope communicates. In an age riddled with jargon and faux-expertise, when elites in politics and the academy are so far removed from the daily concerns of most people they talk like aliens or with a politically correct vacuity, the popes ability to speak from his heart in language all can understand may be one of the most counter-cultural things about him.

Which leads to another aspect of the reaction to him: The divide within the left between those most concerned about sexual issues and those most concerned about social justice issues continued to grow. Many in the first camp object to the way the pope speaks about women. I prefer his homey metaphors, even when they sound like clunkers, to any PC-approved speech. He speaks like a 78-year old Argentine because he is a 78-year old Argentine. And, the focus on his metaphors involving gender roles can too easily keep us from listening to what he is trying to say. This is related to a consistent criticism I have of the Catholic Left: They approach the teachings of the Church they dislike only with a desire to change them, rarely with the disposition to discover what God, through the Church, may be trying to tell us. All of us have experienced difficult moments or tasks from which we grew in ways we never would have otherwise, yet this knowledge is quickly forgotten by ideologues of all stripes who approach Church teachings the way a child approaches play-do. I think the left, not just the right, has to do a better job listening to what t he Holy Father has to say about humility.

2) The appointment of +Blase Cupich as the ninth Archbishop of Chicago is an enormous event in the life of the Church in this country. Here is a born leader, unafraid to be bold or to swim against the current, a brilliant mind and a thoroughly competent administrator, elevated to one of the most important dioceses in the country. Ad extra, +Cupich was one of the few bishops to have diocesan and Catholic Charities staff trained as navigators for the Affordable Care Act. Ad intra, he had one of the most robust consultations on family issues in advance of the synod. He is a dynamo. As well, if in New York, the rise of financial titans and media stars has taken some, actually a lot, of the Churchs cultural juice once embodied in the person of the Cardinal-Archbishop of that city, in Chicago, it is still the mayor and the archbishop who dominate the socio-cultural landscape. And, if the local Chicago media is any guide, +Cupich has taken the city by storm.

The appointment is significant in its own right. If the pope had called me and asked who should go to Chicago, I would have put +Cupichs name at the top of my terna. Of course, the pope did not call me, but he did consult widely and whomever he consulted came up with +Cupichs name. The pope surely knew this would probably be the most important appointment he makes in the U.S. Church and he found the right guy. I suspect it also shows the influence of Washingtons Cardinal Donald Wuerl and Bostons Cardinal Sean OMalley, both of whom have been out front of the rest of the brethren in their enthusiasm for Pope Francis and whose advice to the pope was likely taken. The fact that the pope got this right bodes well for other matters, for example, the planning of his trip to the U.S. next September. He will not let his appearances be turned into an opportunity to blast the Obama administration, which is certainly what some would have liked.

+Cupich has extensive experience in the USCCB, holding a variety of positions on different committees over the years. At times in its history, the leadership of the USCCB came almost entirely from the great Midwestern dioceses: Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis and St. Paul. They were often a bulwark of collegiality against the more authoritarian cardinalatial sees in the Northeast. Look for +Cupich to reinvigorate the USCCB and help pull it back from the culture war limb it has climbed out on.

3) At the end of last year, Pope Francis removed Cardinals Raymond Burke and Justin Rigali from the Congregation of Bishops, and replaced them with Cardinal Wuerl. For a variety of reasons, most of the attention focused on the removal of Cardinal Burke, but the end of the +Rigali-era may be the most important development in the U.S. Church.

The two cardinals, especially +Rigali, embody the clerical mindset that has crippled the Church, turned it into what Pope Francis calls a self-referential Church, tone deaf at times, unwelcoming, joyless. And, together, these former archbishops of St. Louis have spread their influence far and wide throughout the U.S. Church. Bishop Robert Finn, who should have resigned long ago, is a creation of the two. Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone was a student of +Burkes and a close friend. +Rigali promoted both +Fabian Bruskewitz, who thumbed his nose at the Dallas Charter for a decade, and Bishop Thomas Olmsted, who announced the removal of the designation Catholic from a local hospital in a statement that did not once mention the Lord Jesus nor quote from the Scriptures, although the references to canon law and the USCCB ethical directives were aplenty. Bishop David Malloy was ushered into the Vatican diplomatic corps by +Rigali, as was Cardinal James Harvey. Archbishop John Nienstedt worked with +Rigali in Rome, and Bishop Robert Vasa, who also refused to comply with the Dallas Charter, and Archbishop Leonard Blair, who led the initial investigation of the LCWR, both have Cardinal Burke as their patrons. Some of the men on this list are talented. All, I am sure, are prayerful. But, all of them, along with others, have been complicit in the marginalization of the Church in our culture by adopting a defensive posture and a culture warrior approach that is the antithesis of Pope Francis approach.

4) The rise of immigration as an issue that unites the Church was the most obvious policy-oriented development in 2014. Following the example of Pope Francis visit to Lampedusa, the USCCB Committee on Migration held their spring meeting not in Washington, D.C. but in Tucson, Arizona and they started with a Mass at the border led by Cardinal Sean OMalley. The event garnered extensive and positive media coverage of the kind U.S. bishops have not gotten since before the clergy sex abuse crisis. The searing images of Cardinal Sean and Bishop Gerald Kicanas serving Holy Communion through the slats in the border fence went viral. Then, this summer, when there was a significant uptick in the number of unaccompanied minors coming across the border, the bishops responded with compassion and effectiveness. The compassion contrasted decisively with the angry protesters urging deportation. The effectiveness the Church was able to help re-locate thousands of children away from detention centers and into homes made the point yet again that the opposite of the much-derided organized religion is disorganized religion.

Link:
MSW's Top 7 Stories of 2014

Yesterday, I looked at what I thought were the top seven stories about the Catholic Church in the United States during 2014. Today, lets look ahead to 2015 and the stories I anticipate will be generating a lot of buzz and getting a lot of attention here at Distinctly Catholic.

1) In September, Pope Francis will be making his first ever trip to the U.S. The itinerary is still not decided, although we know he will be stopping in Philadelphia for the World Family Day celebrations. I have previously noted that the line-up of speakers for the Philly event, which spans several days, is not exactly the list I would have devised. And, the event will occur just a few weeks before the second synod on the family in Rome, so he will be speaking to the whole Church, not just the Church in the U.S. Still, in terms of emphasis, I am hopeful he will keep to his strong suit, the themes of accompaniment and reaching out to those at the margins, the Church as field hospital, and stay away from the kind of moralistic nastiness that will be on display from some of the other speakers.

It is anticipated that he will also make a visit to New York to address the United Nations: the General Assembly meets in September and given the Holy Sees long-standing support for the UN, you can bank on him making that stop. It is also likely he will come to Washington, D.C. Congress has extended him an invitation to address a Joint Session. I am still trying to decide if I think that is a good idea or a bad one: The setting is so obviously political, it might be jarring but, on the other hand, it would be great if he read them the riot act. His predecessors also came to Catholic University when they visited Washington to address Catholic educators and that would certainly, for me, be the highlight of the entire trip as it was for Benedicts trip. The then-President of the university, then-Father, now-Bishop David OConnell, got me a seat on the aisle and directed the pope to my side of that aisle as he left the room. I was able to kiss his ring and thank him for his ministry. It was nice.

It is unclear if the popes visit to the U.S. will be preceded by a visit to Mexico. If so, many of us hope that he will stop at the U.S. border and say a Mass for those who have died trying to cross that border, as he did at Lampedusa in 2013 and as a group of U.S. bishops did at Nogales, Arizona this year. If he were to make the stop, it would undoubtedly yield the emotional highlight of the entire trip and forcefully call attention to one of the most urgent humanitarian problems facing both the U.S. and Latin America. I can also think of no better way to call attention to the economic pressures many families face than to highlight the extreme pressures placed on family life by unjust immigration laws. If he does not go to the border, the bishops should recommend that the Holy Father stop somewhere in the U.S. with a substantial Latino population. That is the future of the Church, indeed, in many dioceses that future is already here. A Mass in Spanish for a largely Latino congregation would be a huge shot in the arm for all those engaged in Hispanic ministry. If the Southwest or Los Angeles is too far, Chicago is now majority-minority too.

When these papal trips are planned, there is a lot of advance consultation. It will be curious to see whom the pope and his advisors in Rome listen to in deciding what he should say and how he should say it. Given everything we know about his generous heart, I doubt he will denounce same-sex marriage as the most pressing threat to marriage today and, as some would have it, to civilization itself. I hope he will confront the spread eagle consumer capitalism of American society in at least one of his speeches, and I suspect he will, and the only question will be how strong his words are. And, if he addresses the U.S. bishops at some point, which is a staple of most such papal trips, it will be interesting to see if he is more encouraging or more censorious: As we saw in his address to the curia, the Holy Father is not shy about calling prelates to account. I would expect a mix of both admonition and encouragement.

2) The preparations for the synod is both a local and an international story. How extensive will individual bishops be in conducting their consultations? We know that Archbishop Cupich in Chicago has already asked his archdiocesan pastoral council, the archdiocesan womens council, and the presbyteral council to work together on a plan for such consultations. Will others follow suit or merely go through the motions? Will the USCCB take a break from issuing its draconian statements against Obama and hire CARA to conduct some serious surveys?

The U.S. bishops are not used to this sort of synod preparation. In Latin America, meetings of CELAM are proceeded by two or three years of consultation with the lay faithful and the clergy. Pope Francis clearly thinks the CELAM approach has worked well and wants to break its methodology to the universal Church. But, some of the brethren are not in the habit of seeking advice outside a small circle of confidants, and most of those confidants already share their opinions. The pope has asked pastors to acquire the smell of the sheep and the preparation for the synod is a specific task that requires them to do it. I hope the nuncio has a riding crop at the ready to prompt the bishops to get with the program.

3) The nomination of new bishops is always newsworthy and, in the coming year, we will find out if the appointment of Archbishop Cupich, in which the pope was personally involved, will become the norm or prove the exception. Archbishop Sheehan in Santa Fe is already past the age of 75. Next year two additional archbishops will turn 75, Archbishop Schwietz of Anchorage and Washingtons Cardinal Donald Wuerl. +Wuerl is in better shape than I am and I suspect he will be asked to stay at his post for a few extra years.

Every diocese is important, but two large dioceses also have ordinaries who will turn 75 in 2015, Rockville Center, New York and Arlington, Virginia. Arlington is a special case because its clergy, dating back to the creation of the diocese in 1974, it has been a hotbed of conservatism. At the time it was broken off from the diocese of Richmond, any priest with more liberal inclinations stuck with Richmond. Bishop Paul Loverde is a lovely man and has, at times, stood up to the more extreme craziness in the diocese. At other times, such as lending his approval to loyalty oaths for Sunday school teachers, he has caved. Given the large number of federal politicians who live in the diocese, it is imperative that +Loverdes replacement not be a bomb thrower.

How will we know if the changes Pope Francis is asking of the higher clergy are being manifested in the selection of new bishops? I would look for two things. First, if there are fewer candidates with time working in Rome on their resume and more time working in parishes, that would indicate things are moving in the right direction. Second, are new bishops being recruited from the ranks of directors of Catholic Charities and other social justice ministries or are miters still going primarily to men who served as secretaries to bishops or as seminary rectors. It is no slur against seminary rectors to point out that they engage the Church at its most self-referential. That goes with the turf. And, let me add, there are some wonderful seminary rectors who would make fine bishops. But, the mold has to be broken.

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2015: Stories To Keep Us Busy!