POPE BENEDICT XVI has chosen Timothy Dolan, the popular conservative archbishop of Milwaukee, to succeed Cardinal Edward Egan in the American Catholic Church’s most prominent position as Archbishop of New York.
The appointment of Dr Dolan (59) continues a tradition of Irish-American archbishops of New York, which has been interrupted only once in the archdiocese’s 200-year history. A gregarious figure with an avowed fondness for Jameson whiskey, Miller beer and cigars, the archbishop is, however, an effective enforcer of theological orthodoxy.
“I pledge to you my love, my life, my heart, and I can tell you already that I love you,” the archbishop said yesterday in a message to New York’s Catholics.
A native of St Louis, Dr Dolan became archbishop of Milwaukee in 2002 after his predecessor, Rembert Weakland, admitted paying a $450,000 (€353,000) settlement to a man with whom he had had a sexual relationship.
An outspoken opponent of abortion who has compared the moral urgency of the issue to the abolition of slavery, Dr Dolan has stopped short of refusing to give Communion to Catholic politicians who favour abortion rights.
Before last November’s election, however, he publicly rebuked Barack Obama’s running mate Joe Biden and House speaker Nancy Pelosi, both Catholics, for allegedly misrepresenting church teaching on abortion.
“When all is said and done, abortion is hardly a religious issue at all,” he said. “Women and men of every religion, or none at all, express grave reservations about our abortion-on-demand culture, insisting that it is not a theological matter but a civil rights one.”
Dr Dolan’s convivial style is in marked contrast to the more austere approach of Dr Egan, who gained a reputation among New York priests for aloofness and high-handedness. The cardinal, who inherited a multimillion dollar budget deficit when he came to New York nine years ago, made savings by closing schools, merging parishes and transferring priests.
Dr Egan’s unpopularity among some clergy owed as much to the way he implemented changes as to the decisions themselves.
In one notorious incident two years ago, the cardinal summoned the pastor of a Lithuanian parish in lower Manhattan to an impromptu meeting. While the priest was away, a team of security guards sent by Dr Egan changed the locks on his church, prompting the New York Post headline Cardinal Sin.
Dr Dolan will be installed as archbishop on April 15th in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Manhattan.