The Next Good Bishop

Who was the last good bishop appointed in the United States? And some people are asking, more importantly, who will be the next good bishop?

Frequent commenter and friend Jimmy Mac has been peppering me with emails and links the past several weeks. And he’s not the only one. I’ve also been reading more progressive and liberal Catholics lately. A lot of enthusiasm for symbolic moves: washing the feet of women and Muslims, the Gang-of-Eight serving as his “cabinet” for reform. The seeming sidelining of Dolan for O’Malley, that Braz de Aziz seems to be a bit lighter in his steps, the crackdown in Scotland–all this points to a change in the game plan. And to be honest, when the train collision is in the air, even running off the rails in a semi-upright position seems an improvement.

So we’ve gotten a few new bishops lately, and some Catholics are vexed about it. Aren’t these guys all conservatives? What about that breath of fresh Third World air? What about housecleaning? Why business-as-usual?

I don’t think it’s time to get alarmed or annoyed. Seriously. New appointments were all in the pipeline long before sede vacante, and no pope is going to track dozens of dioceses and maybe three times as many candidates when he has bigger fish to fry in the curia, and at least a dozen other countries in bigger Catholic crisis than the States. I’d actually be worried about Pope Francis if he were bypassing his Congregation of Bishops and micromanaging the selection process. I also don’t think the good health of the Church requires us to have this particular handful of bishops as a counterweight to the careerist, vapid majority.

And some of my friends might be alarmed at this thought coming from me: I don’t think having all liberal bishops would be a good idea for Roman Catholicism. I think the number of canon lawyers is a huge concern. In the secular world, careers in law seem aimed, for some, at government. And as a 10-15% minority of the bishops, that makes some sense to me. But we also need bishops who, by and large, have served as pastors for most of their lives. The new El Paso bishop has, in my view, a well-rounded pedigree since his 1980 ordination:

• 1980-85, associate pastor while earning two Master’s Degrees, one in liturgy.
• 1985-94: professor, spiritual director, seminary vice-rector
• 1993-date: three successive assignments as pastor of parishes in the Diocese of Dallas.

If this guy can lead and inspire, I wouldn’t care if he were a card-carrying sixth-generation Republican. This is the kind of resume that gives a guy the tools to become a good bishop. Editing a diocesan newspaper: that not so much.

So Michael Barber chaplained Legatus. Not a big deal in my mind. Not at all. Can the man be a pastor? That’s what I want to know.

In my parish experience, I’ve had a wide spread of ideologies in the priests I’ve worked for. There have been eleven in 25 years. Three liberals, four conservatives, and four too close to tell. Some were good liturgy guys, and these are the hardest for me to work for. My liberal priorities don’t often align with the priorities of liberal priests. A few conservative guys and I have gotten along great. And there have been guys who were less concerned about liturgy–they wanted to manage finances or preach the social gospel. Honestly: I don’t care about ideology in my boss. I like having a leader. I like a guy who will listen. And I prefer a pastor who can set a direction and let me contribute to it.

I wrote to Jim earlier today and noted that in the first year of JP2′s papacy, he appointed Ken Untener and Matthew Clark. Our first bad JP2 bishop  might have been Roger Mahony in 1980. So I’m giving Pope Francis until Christmas 2014 to right the ship on bishops. But any way it goes, I’m probably not going to get overheated about it. And I don’t think any concerned readers should be concerned yet either.

Bottom line: we’re talking about bishops. A bishop should be a large-part conservative by definition.

 

Where Is Virtue?

I have high hopes for this month’s conclave. I really do. March 11th, I see. Enough time for a few days of voting, then get the new pope fitted for Holy Week vestments.

Against a baseline of the life of faith of the ordinary laity (among whom I count myself as an unorthodox and orthopractic member) there’s not a whole lot any pope can do that can’t be freed up by a concerned and active laity. And alas, the converse is true, that we could get a really good pope doing really good things–but without an active laity, the cause is sunk for another generation or two. So what’s the point? I’d like to think we’re entering into a millennium of the laity. Fresh out of a millennium of monarchy. And good riddance to those aspects that chain human beings to waiting on what their leaders do before stepping out. So I have high but cautious hopes on that count, too.

Over at PrayTell, Bill deHaas assessed Cardinal George’s 1998 commentary on the “exhausted project” of “Catholic liberalism.”

Where to start with sad Cdl George and his conclusion – we have a crisis of truth:
- *exhausted* or *truth* – would suggest that since 1998 exhausted/lack of truth is what we have been living through from unresolved sexual abuse denials; ROTR imagined movements; finanical shenanigans; VatiLeaks; appointment of litmus tested bishops; campaign against theologians we don’t agree with; failed accommodations from SSPX to Anglican Ordinariate; plunging catholic participation in the West; sad efforts called New Evangelism; promoting papal prelatures at the expense of the whole church, in the US church the FOF efforts, anti-HHS mandate, anti-PPACA efforts; Republican catholic bishops; his quote that the next cardinal of Chicago will die in prison, etc.  His conclusion is a lack of truth in the liberal and visible church authority. We haven’t had a liberal church authority for 25 years – his approach has led to where we are today; an exhausted and failed conservative movement that cries out for resolution.

Bill is right. We can pretty much lay the craziness of the last third-of-a-century at the feet of the neo-orthodox who, in an attempt to swing the pendulum back into their court, have mostly knocked themselves in the face. They have missed the lessons of the Theology of the Body–the Pauline theology described here, in which the apostle gives the smackdown to the negativism of the suggestion that a smaller, purer Body is somehow superior.

Cardinal George and others more extreme miss the simple point: Jesus decides who is in, who is out. And all of us sin and fall short of the glory of God. Even the self-styled orthodox.

Although the balance of cardinals would probably be counted “in” these days, the project of Catholic retrenchment has undeniable problems: credibility and immorality among them. As Jesus said, there’s nothing wrong with being blind. The problem is when the blind say, “We see,” and the blindness remains.

I have hope that even if the conservatives sweep the day this month, we will still have their witness–the negative witness of their bishops: Finn, George, Rigali, and others who have fallen far short in the virtue more important than orthodoxy. And that is virtue.