AmericanPapist Comments
I think he'd do well although I'd personally love to see Chaput get it. It would give him tremendous national and world wide visibility. An orthodox Bishop! How would Americans react?
This is just hearsay, but I've been told he's not permitted Franciscan U to do a Eucharistic procession outside an abortion clinic.
Spirit Daily has an interesting article posted on its website about Parishes in the Pitsburgh diocese being run by laity.
I personally prefer to wait until mainstream sources that aren't influenced by hometown pride are reporting on this before I give it too much credence.
Bishop Wuerl confirmed me and gave me my first Communion just this past Easter, and he was a guest lecturer for one of my college courses, and I just LOVE LOVE LOVE him. He's awesome. He's so orthodox and articulate! He's just fantastic. He did his Easter Vigil homily on the Real Presense and it was just so simple yet so right that I wanted to cry or applaud or both.
Yeah I'm a big fangirl of his. LOL. He's wonderful! I don't want him to leave Pittsburgh but I want him to be in a place where he can do more good for the Church. Pittsburgh is a pretty orthodox diocese so we'll survive.
I divide the GOOD bishops in my own mind into:
1. Hardline tough (Bruskewitz)
2. Softline tough (Chaput, Olmsted, etc.)
3. Diplomatic Consensus Builders (Dolan, O'Malley, possibly Wojtyla)
I think that Wuerl fits in category 3, but tends just a bit toward category 2. He's not a disciplinarian, but he's a good, solid Catholic who concentrates on TEACHING and FORMING, though he tries to avoid the head-on collisions which could end in destruction.
Washington, where I go to church, has some problems, but is not in terrible shape. I would expect that he would be a fine shepherd here, though people who want fireworks will be disappointed. I'd be very happy with O'Malley, too, who has also been suggested, though it seems VERY unlikely he will be the one. Myers of Newark is great, too. The only one I don't particularly cotton to is Gregory of Atlanta, though I could live with him.
Bruskewitz has always seemed too good to be true for Washington or Detroit, though his name has been mentioned in connection with both. It would be an interesting test case, though, to see how a hardliner would run a big diocese and if he could manage to "straighten things up" without provoking a disaster a la Haas in Switzerland, who had to be moved and a new, tiny diocese created for him to prevent a formal schism.
It's fascinating to see the "softline tough" bishops, like Olmsted in Phoenix and--even more exciting--Carlson in Saginaw, trying to clean up disasters without either smashing up the infected institution or just settling for continued atrophy.
The key is: getting control of seminary formation. Carlson's first major act as bishop in Saginaw was to say, "I'm going to be my own vocations director." Then he got rid of the old seminarians and has a new crop of four times as many in just one year. If you get control of the new guys coming in, then at worst, you can just wait til the old guys die off. That'll work in the end, even if you can't get control of your own bureaucracy--the first stumbling block for many new bishops.
Fortunately, most of the new seminarians in Washington are pretty good. One of them taught my ten-year-old son religion in school and he's loyal to the Magisterium and even likes the old Mass. As long as we don't get someone who is going to work in a BAD direction, like (forgive my impertinence) Todd Brown in Orange, California, we should be okay in Washington if we just maintain course. I think Wuerl will do better than that.
My biggest problem with Wuerl is his view that a bishop should consult (receive permission from?) his brother bishops at the USCCB before speaking out on "controversial" issues like witholding communion from pro-abortion politicians ( http://proecclesia.blogspot.com/...ld-
consult.html ).
Wuerl's proposal was described as "an attempt to muffle loose cannons in the hierarchy". I think we know that this was aimed at Jeff's "category 1", and possibly some "category 2", bishops.
I don't like it either, Jay, but I didn't read it as an "attempt to muffle." I think Wuerl was simply giving ADVICE. Some perfectly good bishops think that persuasion and consensus work better in the long run than the hammer.
That bugs impatient people like me. But I think it was John Paul's approach and in a large measure Benedict's approach too. Should it apply in the this abortion/politics debate? I don't think so. But the approach in general seems actually to have changed the face of the Church a great deal under JPII. So, I respect it and acknowledge that JP may have been wiser than Jeff after all! (Now that would be AMAZING, wouldn't it? ;-) )
Bishop Wuerl as secretary to the late Cardinal Wright was a bulwark of orthodoxy.He once addressed the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy and told them it would take 40 or 50 years to undo the mess in the church.He co-wrote a great catechism.He suffered as the auxiliary of Hunthausen in Seattle.But something changed when he went to Pittsburg. He used to be on EWTN giving talks while dressed in his cassock.Then he disappeared from EWTN and appeared on the liberalFaith and Values network minus cassock.I believe he was chastized by JPII after he sent greetings to a meeting of CORPUS,the asociation of dissident married priests. Coruptio optimi pessima est.
While Chaput might be great for Washington, with the attacks on the Church that are now occurring in Colorado it might be more important that he stays put to continue the fight.
Sorry, Thomas--"lack of one" referring to sex-abuse scandals, or something else? Did I miss a post on your take on this? If so, point me to it! I'd love to read your opinion / gathering of articles, etc.
Beliefnet has the article, Madame:
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/
1...ry_10841_1.html
Rev Mcafee - I've heard similar stories about his "change" post-appointment to Pittsburgh. How sad...
All I ask is that whoever replaces McCarrick actually cares about the DC diocese for a change. We need a man who loves the people more than the cameras. I want to see the replacement visiting more at St. Benedict the Moor or St. Augustine some Sunday and spending less time hanging out with government officials.
I want somebody who is willing to tell the politicians that no-- coming up to communion in a state of mortal sin is not cool. And if he talks about immigration I want somebody who is honest enough to realize that not everone sitting in the pews has an underpaid Latino servant at home. Cardinal McCarrick frequently forgot that little point.
In other words I can't wait for McCarrick to leave but so far I'm not impressed by Wuerl either.
Bishop Weurl did the diaconate ordination for the American seminary in Rome last fall. I was there. His homily was on obedience. I couldn't understand why he then proceeded to change the words of the mass all over the place. If you plan to disobey the Church by making the mass your own possession to be manipulated, why would you preach on obedience?
Washington is my home diocese and the diocese of my alma mater. The good stuff we have up there is REALLY good, and the bad stuff is REALLY bad, I would say. But, most of the good stuff came about with our late archbishop, James, Cardinal Hicky. As soon as Cardinal McCarrick took over, there were changes. Subtle ones, but they were there. The National Shrine lost the novus ordo Latin mass, and is now the only basilica that does not have the mass said in Latin. Certain terrific seminarians have been run out on a rail becaus of clashes with the archbishop, and even a wonderful priest was basically given the heave-ho. He later ended up joining a religious order because he couldn't take the pressure to cow-tow, etc., anymore. On the surface, D.C. looks okay. When you dig a little deeper, though, you find some real nastiness.
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