This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Nov. 17, 2010 - St. Louis native Archbishop Timothy Dolan was elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in a surprise upset Tuesday morning.
For the first time in its half-century history, voting bishops passed over their current vice president.
Dolan, a former St. Louis priest and auxiliary bishop here, is New York's archbishop. Thursday he will succeed Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago, as conference president and will take up its gavel for a three-year term. About 230 U.S. Catholic bishops will conclude their four-day fall meeting in Baltimore that day.
On the third ballot, Dolan topped Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas by a 128-111 vote.
Kicanas is a popular man within his diocese and with other bishops, but his election hit a wall because of the sex-abuse scandal that seems to have changed so much in the church.
When he was a seminary rector, Kicanas recommended a gay seminarian for priestly ordination, and that man became a criminal pedophile. The rejection of Kicanas is another signal just how seriously bishops are taking the sex abuse scandal even though there is no proof that Kicanas had an inkling that the seminarian might be or become abusive to minors or adults.
The election is more than an upset. It's simply revolutionary for the tradition-bound members of the bishops' conference not to elect their sitting vice president as president. Usually the election session at the long meeting is snooze time, with the vice president being elected on the first ballot. When current president Cardinal Francis George moved up from his vice president post three years ago, he won on the first ballot with 85 percent of the votes. During a vice president's three-year term, he shadows the sitting conference president and accompanies him twice a year to Rome for face-to-face meetings with the pope and the heads of Vatican departments.
Liberal Moderate Vs. Conservative Moderate
After Dolan's election there was a jubilant mood on the conference floor "like New Year's Eve" especially among the more recently appointed bishops, one observer told the Beacon. However, bishops who had been in office for many years seemed less pleased, he said.
At the press conference after his election Dolan said that the late Cardinal John O'Connor, a New York archbishop, was his model on how to be a bishop. Dolan has been wearing the late O'Connor's episcopal cross at the meeting.
If Kicanas had been asked about his role model, he "would undoubtedly point to his mentor Cardinal Joseph Bernardin (the late Chicago archbishop)" said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit, author of two books on U.S. bishops, and a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological at Georgetown University. "That says it all."
"On paper, there is little difference between (Dolan and Kicanas)," Reese said. "Both would claim to support orthodox doctrine and the full range of Catholic social teaching."
One bishop explained the difference between the two for Reese as: "Kicanas is a liberal moderate, and Dolan is a conservative moderate."
"The substantive differences are not that great," Reese said. "The difference is in style and emphasis."
"Kicanas is a quiet conciliator who prefers to resolve conflict through dialogue and conversation," Reese said. "He once taught a course in conflict resolution."
"Dolan is more extroverted and willing to be aggressive and confrontational when he thinks it is necessary," said Reese. "He has an ongoing fight with the New York Times. The bishops obviously want a strong, vigorous voice in the public square."
Names of the two late cardinal mentors, Bernardin and O'Connor, are often tossed around by admiring Catholic clergy today. The two cardinals "were frequently at odds while they were alive, with Bernardin wanting to emphasize the whole range of Catholic social teaching and O'Connor wanting to stress abortion as the pre-eminent issue," Reese said.
Dolan likely will follow in the steps of his conference president predecessor. At the press conference after the election, Dolan praised the current president George's very public objection to the Obama health-care bill on grounds that it would fund abortions. Early this year, when George spoke out against the bill, the Catholic Health Association, based in St. Louis, disagreed saying the bill would not fund abortions.
"Moderates were fooled into thinking that the bishops had returned to the center three years ago when they elected Kicanas as vice president," Reese said.
Some may have short memories. At that election, Kicanas beat Dolan for the vice presidency by just one vote.
History and Duties
Until today only twice has a conference vice president not become president. One involved a St. Louis archbishop. The late Cardinal John Carberry, then St. Louis' archbishop, was vice president with president Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago. Carberry declined to be a candidate for president since, in the third year of the looming presidential term, Carberry would have turned 75. Under church law each bishop must submit his resignation to the pope by his 75th birthday.
Three years before that, conference vice president Minneapolis bishop Leo Bryne was a shoo-in for election but died suddenly weeks before the fall meeting and Bernardin was elected.
The conference helps the bishops work collaboratively on shared concerns and provides research, administrative and pastoral help. A conference vote, however, cannot force a single bishop to take particular action. Worldwide, each bishop reports directly to the pope.
The conference president, with the help of the conference's full time secretary-general, oversees a staff of about 350 lay people, priests, deacons and religious who work for bishops at the conference headquarters in Washington, D.C. The president also oversees the conferences' film and broadcasting office in New York City and a branch office of Migration and Refugee Services in Miami as well as North American College, the bishops seminary in Rome.
Dolan will step down as head of the Catholic Relief, the bishops' international support fund agency based in Baltimore.
St. Louis Praise
St. Louis Catholics who have worked with Dolan have no fear that he'll met the challenge of catching up on what most conference vice presidents learn. He speaks Italian and not just its words fluently but also its hand language. He has known several Vatican department heads for years; and he knows and is at ease with Pope Benedict XVI who has already named him to Vatican duties. While still of priest of the St. Louis Archdiocese, Dolan lived in Rome and served as rector of the North American College, a seminary, in Rome for several years before 2001 when he became a St. Louis auxiliary bishop and the next year the archbishop of Milwaukee.
Monsignor Walter Whited, pastor of Immaculata Parish in Richmond Heights where Dolan had served as a young priest, said St. Louis Catholics well beyond his parish boundaries will be excited to see Dolan at the helm of the conference and representing the church in national forums.
"The Holy Spirit is at work within the church," the pastor said about the election. "A lot of St. Louisans think quite a lot of him, are quite pleased, very proud of what he has done in St. Louis, in Milwaukee and New York. Quite a lot of them have followed him to attend his installations (as archbishop) in Milwaukee and New York."
Like several St. Louisans, Whited said that Dolan not only was a well-grounded priest, a serious church historian and a gifted leader but "he has the personality to win people over."
Dolan, like another USCCB chairman, the late St. Louis Archbishop John L. May, is a good churchman and good diplomat who knows the church and its U.S. bishops well enough to "know who is on the left and who is on the right and won't come down too hard on them, won't scold but will help them work together," said Monsignor James T. Telthorst, pastor of Mary, Mother of the Church in the Mattese neighborhood of south county. In 2002, Telthorst was pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows parish when Dolan lived there in his final year based in St. Louis before going to Milwaukee.
"He is good about apologizing when he has made a mistake," Telthorst said. "I have seen him do that. He does not take himself too seriously and tells jokes on himself. "
When someone praised Dolan as being like a fine Irish bishop, Dolan was quick to retort with laughter that Irish bishops are not quite in fashion any more, Telthorst recalled.
The bishops are fortunate to have a choice between "two good men" Telthorst said adding that Dolan would be a "fine face for the church" in the U.S. "I'm pleased for him."
Dolan's high school seminary classmate and locker mate Monsignor Dennis Delaney said, "He will do as president of the bishops conference as he always does. He will 'speak the truth with love.' Whatever the venue, all that he says and does in this new role will be informed by his dynamic faith, keen intellect, ready humor and heartfelt compassion. That is the 'appeal,' which has engaged those who have recognized him as a leader since he was elected president of the student council in college seminary days."
Delaney has no fear that Dolan will find energy for the added responsibility: "As long as no one tries to take away from the archbishop the hour of prayer that begins his every day at 5 a.m. nothing will be impossible for him"
Dolan's the first St. Louis native to lead the conference. Archbishop May is remembered as a pastoral and effective president who brilliantly presented the American Catholics and American bishops' needs and opinions to the Vatican. Belleville Bishop Wilton Gregory, now Atlanta's archbishop, was conference president 2001-04 during the height of the sex abuse scandal. In the election for vice president three years before, Gregory had defeated Cardinal Justin F. Rigali, who then was St. Louis archbishop, in what was called a "Mississippi riverboat race."
While praise for Dolan comes from many quarters here, it also came from the defeated Tucson bishop who wrote in his online column: "Archbishop Timothy Dolan has been a long time friend since our seminary work together. I know of his great wit, jovial spirit, keen ability to relate to people in a deeply personal way and his exceptional leadership qualities. These will certainly serve the conference well as he begins his term as president."
The bishops also elected a new vice president. Dolan will be assisted by a Middle South vice president, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville. He got the nod over Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput, 147-91 on the third ballot.
In his farewell address to the conference, George said, "The renewal of the episcopal office in the Church and our greater unity of purpose and effectiveness in teaching and governing have not gone unchallenged by some who would either want to remake the Church according to their own designs or discredit her as a voice in the public."
That is just one of many challenges before Dolan as he balances the presidency with his duties as New York archbishop.
Patricia Rice is a freelance writer who has covered religion for many years.