c. 1998 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ He is respected as a homilist who can shake his peers with his reflections on mortality, a friend who will share a colleague’s favorite meal of meatloaf in the middle of a life-threatening heart illness, a leader who listens and respects other’s opinions.

As Cleveland Bishop Anthony M. Pilla prepares for the close next week of his three-year term as president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, it is his personal qualities _ a view of leadership as service, of seeking to transcend church politics by building consensus _ that spiritual leaders of the nation’s 60 million Roman Catholics remember most fondly.”I know of no one who has been more effective in his service to the conference and at the same time has been an extraordinary and beloved brother to us all,”said Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of New Jersey.”I’m a real fan, absolutely.” Pilla presided over the bishops’ conference at a time when America’s emergence as the world’s sole superpower brought increasing attention from Rome and a new generation of bishops appointed by Pope John Paul II sought to deflect U.S.-Vatican tensions.

Gone were the days in the mid-1980s, when leading U.S. bishops would publicly challenge the Vatican and John Paul _ both in Rome and during the 1987 papal tour of the United States _ to be more sensitive to an American culture that favored more open discussion of church issues.

That was a time when the bishops’ conference would hold churchwide hearings to allow local Catholics opportunities to express their opinions on issues such as the role of women in the church.

The bishops’ conference Pilla inherited as president in 1995 was wrestling with how to redo translations of liturgical texts that had been turned down by Rome as going too far in cutting masculine images of God.

This summer, the pope brought national conferences of bishops further under Vatican control. He issued an apostolic letter requiring major statements of faith and practice from the national bodies to be either unanimous or submitted to Rome for approval.

The evolution toward closer ties with Rome has heartened Catholics who felt the church here had grown too independent of the Vatican and disheartened others who see a growing gap between the hierarchy and the laity.

Given the tension that often flares up between the two groups, what is remarkable is that the moderate Pilla, one of only two prelates below the rank of archbishop to head the conference, is looked upon favorably by both sides.

The Rev. Richard Neuhaus, director of the Institute on Religion and Public Life in New York, said the bishops have greater dignity and greater ability to do their work now that they are more closely aligned with the Vatican.”During his (Pilla’s) term, he has been very responsive and alert to these changing ways of understanding bishops’ conferences,”Neuhaus said.

Other observers, however, see Pilla as having done the best he can to represent the church here at a time when Vatican actions are eroding the dignity and authority of U.S. bishops.”He has dealt with them with dignity and grace, given the hand that he has been dealt,”said Sister Christine Schenk, director of the Cleveland-based FutureChurch. “The climate is as bad as I’ve ever seen it in my life. … What I know about Bishop Pilla is he has tried to negotiate these things as best he could.” Margaret O’Brien Steinfels, editor of the independent Catholic magazine Commonweal, said Pilla can be compared with the late Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in that both were conciliatory leaders who tried to build a consensus among the bishops.

Bernardin worked with a majority concerned with the issues faced by American Catholics. Pilla, though, is working with a group of prelates _ many of whom were appointed by John Paul _ who are more keyed into what the Vatican wants and more cautious about developing groundbreaking public policy statements, Steinfels said.

In an interview at his residence, Pilla smiles at the idea people would be surprised that the church here falls under such close scrutiny by the Vatican.”The issue is clear in their minds and now it’s clear in my mind that there is no way the United States is not going to get special attention because of our circumstances,”he said.

He said the pope has told him more than once that the church in the United States is one of the strongest and the most influential in the world.”Obviously, you’re going to get attention,”he said.”We’re not the rebels. We just happen to be in a position of influence for good or evil …. It is not so much a tension between people who are in an adversarial relationship. Really, it is a lot of respect.” And communication between church leaders here and in Rome is improving, Pilla said, as the two sides have more opportunities to talk with each other. Leaders of the bishops’ conference now visit Rome three or four times a year.

While relations with Rome sometimes overshadow other work of the U.S. conference, the bishops have remained involved in national moral debates, said Pilla, who strived to be a voice of the poor since his election three years ago.

Among those actions, the bishops’ conference has held up the spiritual and civil rights of people with disabilities, called for a social agenda that puts children first, lobbied on behalf of migrant workers and refugees and for lifting economic sanctions on humanitarian aid to Cuba.

When they gather on Monday (Nov. 16), they will consider a statement calling on Catholics to make”defending life”_ and opposing abortion and physician-assisted suicide _ their No. 1 concern at the ballot box, and warning Catholic politicians who favor legal abortion that they endanger their eternal salvation.”Everyone sees us as just another special interest group in the political arena, and we’re not,”Pilla said.”We’re moral leaders, teaching the Catholic tradition. We must say things people don’t like.” In a sometimes contentious bishops’ conference, Pilla said he has not tried to push his agenda, but rather tried to follow a nonpartisan model of bringing people together to reach a consensus.”My role is not to attain victories, but to come to the truth. There’s a difference,”he said.

It is a difference his colleagues appreciate.”In a very real sense, the president is the servant of the conference,” said Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, conference president from 1989 to 1992. “He (Pilla) is very concerned about hearing, about listening.” Pilla has been a witness himself when he faced a brush with the hereafter.

Less than a week after the last bishops’ conference, he checked into the hospital for a quadruple bypass operation. The next month, he would learn of a life-threatening staph infection that would put him out of commission for three months.

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At the bishops’ meeting in Pittsburgh in the spring, Bishop Donald Pelotte of New Mexico said you could hear a pin drop as Pilla told in a sermon about his encounters with mortality, and how liturgical translations and other church business all of a sudden did not seem as important.”When it’s all said and done, what’s important is the integrity of your life and the values that you live for,”Pelotte remembers Pilla telling church leaders.” On a personal level, Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg, Fla., remembers a guy who a month after undergoing a serious heart operation would serve meatloaf at lunch because that was Lynch’s favorite.”I admire him because I consider him to be a consummate pastor,”Lynch said.

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In a recent interview, Pilla looked strong in body and spirit, and said he was “90 percent” back to health.

While he called the presidency “a wonderful experience” that enlarged his vision of the church in the world, Pilla, 66, said he is looking forward to devoting more time to the Cleveland diocese.”I think it’s time for me to devote myself entirely here,”Pilla said.”I’ve done my duty.” DEA END RNS