c. 1998 National Catholic Reporter

PHILADELPHIA _ City Councilman James Kenney, an Irish-Catholic politician who marches every year with Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, describes the spiritual leader of the archdiocese’s 1.4 million Catholics as”one of the best politicians I’ve ever seen.””I’ve never seen a person work a crowd like that,”said Kenney, who appreciates the charismatic presence of the Italian-American archbishop.”He’s out there with the people. He presses the flesh. He gets his picture taken. He goes from curb to curb. He’s the star of the show.” But it can be a different story for people who deal with Bevilacqua out of the public eye or for people who want to press an agenda with him.

A former veteran household employee of the archdiocese, who first worked for Bevilacqua’s predecessor, Cardinal John Krol, received an $87,500 settlement from the archdiocese after filing a claim in 1995 with the state Bureau of Workers’ Compensation alleging he had been subjected to Bevilacqua’s”rude and abusive treatment.” Bevilacqua’s public face and private manner contrast so sharply that even after a decade in Philadelphia many say they still can’t figure him out.”He really is an enigma,”said Rita Schwartz, president of the local Association of Catholic Teachers, which called an eight-day teachers’ strike last September _ the first walkout in 21 years _ after negotiations with Bevilacqua broke down over such issues as a”Catholic identity”clause requiring 1,000 teachers to attend Mass and other religious events during in-service days.”He has a public persona and a private persona, and they are so completely different,”she said.”Outwardly, he’s very congenial, a very warm individual,”said Schwartz, who is also president of the National Association of Catholic School Teachers.”In dealing with him on a business basis, he’s anything but.” To many who have seen Bevilacqua in action here, he is a charismatic extrovert, a people person who holds court for hours in the parishes, lowering himself on one knee to speak to children, warmly greeting those who shake his hand or bow to kiss his ring.

Many Philadelphians find such public warmth a refreshing contrast to Krol, a no-nonsense autocrat who ruled the archdiocese for 27 years and was noted for his Vatican fund raising and close ties to the pope. Krol died in 1996.

Fans and critics agree Bevilacqua has uncommon vitality for a man who hit the mandatory retirement age of 75 on June 17. The cardinal rises at 5 a.m. most days to jog or work out on his NordicTrack.

Though not as stern in manner as Krol, Bevilacqua shares his reputation as a staunch enforcer of church law. Krol purged seminaries of dissidents during his tenure and would quickly discipline priests who introduced unauthorized variations in liturgy.

Bevilacqua served as auxiliary bishop in his hometown of Brooklyn, N.Y., from 1980 to 1983, and then as bishop of Pittsburgh from 1983 to 1988.

In Pittsburgh, Bevilacqua angered women when he ruled in 1986 they could not be included in the Holy Thursday foot-washing ceremonies. After bishops on the liturgy committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops disagreed, Bevilacqua rescinded the ruling, leaving the decision up to individual pastors.

Bevilacqua holds degrees in both civil and canon law. He chose for his coat of arms the motto,”Finis legis Christus”_ Christ is the culmination of the law.

But critics say Bevilacqua’s love for the law represents a side of him they dislike. Some archdiocesan priests find him aloof, legalistic and bureaucratic, and say morale, particularly among inner-city priests, is at an all-time low.

In Philadelphia, priests say privately that Bevilacqua is far less approachable than Krol. And he has appointed six regional vicars to serve as intermediaries between himself and the 287 parishes.

Bevilacqua has defended his administrative style, saying he has obeyed the pope’s orders to delegate administrative responsibilities so he could”go out among the people and teach.” Contrasts with Krol don’t end with accessibility.

Krol’s spokesman in Philadelphia was a single priest. Bevilacqua retains The Tierney Group, a high-powered Philadelphia-based public relations firm with $6 million in annual billings from such clients as IBM and Bell Atlantic. Bevilacqua also has his own four-member public relations staff, headed by Cathy Rossi, a former Fox TV reporter.

Much of the criticism that has become public has stemmed from Bevilacqua’s refusal to deal with groups who publicly disagree with him or with the church. As a result, he has been the target of a number of bitter demonstrations.

In Philadelphia, the cardinal rejected requests for meetings with predominantly minority parishioners who wanted his ear after he closed 13 inner-city parishes and seven inner-city schools in 1993.

But when it comes to the church’s money, however, Bevilacqua’s critics say he is given less to legalism than to secrecy.

Among those critics is the Rev. Donald W. McIlvane, a retired Pittsburgh priest who describes Bevilacqua as”a big spender and a secret spender”_ a prelate whose”fiscal management was out of touch with reality.” McIlvane was appointed by Bevilacqua’s successor in Pittsburgh, Bishop Donald W. Wuerl, to help deal with deficits Bevilacqua left behind. In Philadelphia, Bevilacqua has been harshly criticized for extravagant spending while churches in the inner city were being closed.

Although the Philadelphia archdiocese does not publish complete audits or comprehensive financial reports, confidential archdiocesan records obtained by the National Catholic Reporter show that during the late 1980s and early ’90s, Bevilacqua spent approximately $5 million renovating a Main Line mansion that serves as his residence, three office buildings, a parking lot, the cathedral and a seaside villa in New Jersey that serves as a vacation home for the cardinal and retired priests.

At about the same time, the archdiocese closed or merged inner-city parishes and schools, including 15 parishes in North Philadelphia that were running a combined deficit of $1.2 million a year.

Bevilacqua spent the approximately $5 million without making the expenditures public, bypassing his own advisers on some projects. In one instance, archdiocesan officials failed to notify city officials about renovations at archdiocesan headquarters, in violation of city law.

Former employees are among those who have complained about Bevilacqua’s spending at his residence where, they say, he often entertains relatives and wealthy friends. Under Krol the archbishop’s residence was crowded with antiques and was in a”museum-quality state,”according to the former household employee, who asked to remain anonymous. But the new archbishop had different tastes.

Photos and videotapes made after Bevilacqua redecorated showed new furnishings including, Queen Anne chairs, gilt-edged mirrors, floral and pink draperies, pink brocade couches, poster beds with matching drapes and valances, and polished stone statues of Italian greyhounds.

The former employee estimated that hundreds of thousands of dollars had been spent on redecorating the mansion and landscaping its nine-acre grounds. The changes have never been made public, and archdiocesan officials have declined to discuss the costs.

Also still unreported in Philadelphia is the $500,200 price tag for renovation of the cardinal’s summer vacation home, Villa St. Joseph-by-the-Sea, a three story brick and stucco mansion on the Atlantic Ocean in Ventnor, N.J. Archdiocesan advisers were also bypassed on that project.

McIlvane was upset to hear that Bevilacqua continued to spend secretly in Philadelphia.”It makes me very sorry that an archbishop of the church is really not following the gospel,”McIlvane said.”He ought to be open. He ought to be honest. And he ought to show some decency in view of the necessity of closing parishes and schools.” Robert E. Irr, who was Bevilacqua’s director of finance and administration in Pittsburgh, considers negative assessments of the prelate’s financial leadership unfair. Irr described Bevilacqua as a”forward-thinking man who bought the first computer mainframe for the diocese.” Bevilacqua declined, through communications director Rossi, to be interviewed for this story. Archdiocesan public relations officials also refused to answer a list of questions about specific points in the story.

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Some cardinals, like John O’Connor in New York and Krol, Bevilacqua’s predecessor in Philadelphia, wanted no part in church closings. Such moves are never easy and often generate bitter controversy. Philadelphia was no exception.

Three committees of priests and lay people met in September 1991 to study 15 parishes in North Philadelphia, the poorest section of the city. The predominantly Latino and African-American churches attracted 5,725 weekly parishioners. Archdiocesan officials said the registered Catholic population in the North Philadelphia planning area, however, had declined 54 percent from 1970 to 1990. In addition, the combined annual deficit of the 15 parishes was running about $1.2 million.

Eventually, the cardinal left four of the 15 parishes untouched, closed eight and established three new merged parishes. He also closed five parish elementary schools.

Bevilacqua’s decisions were especially hard for some Catholics to stomach, given that Krol, during the years of white flight to the suburbs, had adopted a policy of keeping as many inner-city churches and schools open as possible. He opened the schools to students of other faiths and taxed wealthier parishes to keep the parishes and schools afloat.

People on the planning committees felt manipulated. Elsa Maria Padilla, a member of St. Henry’s Church in North Philadelphia for 22 years, wrote a bitter account circulated among parishioners. She said in her letter she felt”used and abused because in hindsight the outcome was obviously predetermined.” Bevilacqua refused to meet with parishioners before or after he closed St. Henry’s, despite numerous requests.

In the five years since the archdiocese downsized, the number of Protestant churches in North Philadelphia increased from 60 to 80. Many are storefront churches filling up with former Catholics.”Some of the largest churches are in areas where the Roman Catholic Church closed down. This was their territory,”said the Rev. Luis Cortes, a former Catholic who is executive director of the Protestant Hispanic Clergy of Philadelphia.

One of those Protestant churches is Iglesia Sion, where membership has doubled since the Catholic Church downsized in North Philadelphia in 1993.

Hoping to stem the flow of converts to other churches, Bevilacqua opened the Catholic Institute For Evangelization in 1994 in the renovated rectory of the closed St. Henry’s Church. The archdiocese also opened the St. Peter Claver Center in 1995 to serve as an evangelization center for approximately 35,000 African-American Catholics.

Reorganization in Philadelphia is not over. A racially mixed inner-city parish, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was closed in 1995. Membership had declined to only 50 registered parishioners. Another Philadelphia parish school, St. Barbara’s, with 123 black students, is scheduled to close this month. At least 10 studies are currently underway throughout the archdiocese, which may result in further changes.

MJP END CIPRIANO