John L. Allen - A People of Hope: Archbishop Timothy Dolan in Conversation with John L. Allen Jr.

Conclave

All the Popes Men

The Rise of Benedict XVI

Opus Dei

The Future Church

Copyright 2012 by John L. Allen Jr.

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Image Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
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eISBN: 978-0-307-71851-8

Cover photography by Getty Images

v3.1

For Shannon and Ellis, as always

Historic runs of success always become the stuff of legend. In baseball, Joe DiMaggios fifty-six-game hitting streak in 1941 still sets the standard for consistent excellence. Basketball fans will always celebrate the eighty-eight-game winning streak the UCLA Bruins put together from 1971 to 1974, as well as the companion ninety-game unblemished mark posted by the Lady Huskies of the University of Connecticut from 2008 to 2010. In the world of entertainment, people still marvel at the thirty-seven-week run of Michael Jacksons Thriller album atop the Billboard charts in 1983 to 1984, or the fifteen consecutive weeks as box office champ logged by the blockbuster movie Titanic in 1997.

While theres no exact parallel in the Catholic Church to a winning streak or a long run at the box office, perhaps the closest anyones come in recent memory was the eye-popping run of promotions, honors, papal votes of confidence, and signs of growing celebrity racked up by Archbishop Timothy Michael Dolan of New York from February 2009 to June 2011. Consider the record put together over that span by Dolan, sixty-one years old as of this writing, which, by ecclesiastical standards, is still quite young:

On February 23, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI named Dolan the tenth archbishop of New York, after serving just under seven years as the archbishop of Milwaukee. In Catholic terms, New York is on a short list of pace-setting dioceses around the world, such as Milan in Italy, Paris in France, and Westminster in the United Kingdom, whose incumbent is seen as a global point of reference. New York is traditionally considered the most important bully pulpit in the American Catholic Church, and since New York is also the media capital of the world, its archbishop is inevitably a premier front man for Catholicism.

On May 31, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI tapped Dolan as an Apostolic Visitor to Ireland, helping lead the Vaticans response to that countrys massive sexual-abuse crisis. Benedict is deeply worried about Ireland, once a cornerstone of Catholic culture in Europe, and his concern was reflected in his choice of visitors. They included Cardinal Cormac Murphy-OConnor, the former archbishop of Westminster, England; Cardinal Sean OMalley of Boston; Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto, Canada; and Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa, Canada. All are considered among the most influential prelates in the English-speaking world, and Dolan is now on that list.

On November 16, 2010, Dolan was elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, making him the de facto leader and spokesperson for more than 250 Catholic bishops who run dioceses and other jurisdictions across the country. (Hell hold the position until November 2013.) Dolan prevailed in the balloting despite a strong custom in the conference that the sitting vice president, at the time Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, Arizona, automatically ascends to the top job. In effect, the upset result means Dolans fellow bishops werent just following a scriptthey wanted him, specifically, to be their voice.

On January 5, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI named Dolan a member of a new Vatican council designed to promote New Evangelization, which is the apple of the popes eye. (To be honest, no one yet has a clear idea of what this office might do; whats relevant is that Benedict XVI takes it seriously.) Dolan joined heavy-hitters such as Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan; Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi of the Pontifical Council for Culture; Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Australia; Cardinal Christoph Schnborn of Vienna, Austria; Cardinal Marc Ouellet of the Congregation for Bishops; and Cardinal William Levada of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Thats a Vatican A Team if ever there was one, and the fact that Dolan is part of it, even in advance of getting a cardinals red hat, speaks volumes about where he stands. (Dolan himself says his first reaction upon scanning the list of names was My Lord, how did I make this cut?)

On March 20, 2011, the famed CBS News program 60 Minutes devoted an entire segment to Dolan, proclaiming him the Catholic Churchs answer to its woes of the past decade, including the sexual-abuse crisis and a steady attrition of the faithful. The introductory voice-over for the segment dubbed Dolan the American pope. In comments after the piece aired, host Morley Safer, who clearly did not share Dolans views on a range of controversial questions such as abortion and gay marriage, nonetheless said of the archbishop: He is a genuinely jovial, life-embracing, people-loving man. Theres no question of that.

Two months later, on June 2, 2011, Dolan traveled to Rome for the first meeting of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization. He was accompanied by Matt Lauer, Al Roker, and the crew of NBCs Today show, the highest-rated morning news program in America, with an average daily audience in excess of six million people. Dolan arranged an on-camera introduction to Pope Benedict XVI as well as behind-the-scenes Vatican access for the Today crew, and then effectively cohosted a live broadcast from Rome. During the segment, Lauer described Dolan as the highest-profile person now of the Catholic Church in the United States, someone with enormous charisma, a great personality.

Collectively, this was a remarkable rise to prominence in a short arc of time, especially in an institution typically inclined to think in centuries. By the time the dust had settled, there could be no doubt about Dolans status. Prior to February 2009, one could have made a compelling argument that Timothy Dolan was a key to the American Catholic future. By the spring of 2011, it had become crystal clear that Dolan is very much the Churchs presentRomes go-to guy in America, the prelate other American bishops look to for leadership, and the new media darling of the Church in the United States. Nor is Dolan quite finished yet. Sometime in 2012 or 2013, right around the time his term as president of the U.S. bishops conference is ending, Dolan will likely be inducted into the College of Cardinals, making him Cardinal Dolan and thus eligible to vote for the next pope.

One can celebrate Dolans ascent or lament itand, to be sure, there are examples of both views, inside and outside the Catholic Churchbut at a purely descriptive level, the bottom line seems clear. Anyone who wants a sense of where the Catholic Church in the United States is headed, at least over the next couple of decades or so, must get to know the man who is now its preeminent face and voice. Further, Dolans extroverted personality and media savvy suggest that he wont just be a behind-the-scenes power broker, but also an important voice of conscience in public debates for some time to come. A bit like Pat Robertson on the right or Jim Wallis on the left, Dolan is fast becoming one of those religious leaders in American life with impact well beyond the boundaries of his own confessional group.