c. 2000 Religion News Service
(Eugene Kennedy, a longtime observer of the Roman Catholic Church, is professor emeritus of psychology at Loyola University in Chicago and author most recently of”My Brother Joseph,”published by St. Martin’s Press.)
(UNDATED) Almost on the first day of summer, Edward Egan will be installed in St. Patrick’s Cathedral as the new archbishop of New York. Everyone prays the season that then begins will blaze with fine days and lead to harvests that buckle the carts that carry them away. Who could pray for less for a man becoming the pastor of a parish that is national as well as local in importance and influence?
Still, one may yet ask a few questions of Archbishop-designate Egan who, in his first news conference, expressed his “eternal gratitude” to the pope and pledged that he will be “loyal” to him. How exactly will he express these earnest sentiments?
Egan, like most other recent appointees of Pope John Paul II, has viewed the people of God from behind a desk. However, in Bridgeport, Conn., where he served as bishop, he added Spanish to the languages in which he is already fluent, and he has been praised for his determined efforts to recruit young men into the seminary, passing out cards like a lawyer at an accident scene to invite young men to come, follow him.
He has intelligence, energy and experience in education. It is sad, and perhaps an injustice, that the media have portrayed him as an “interim” figure in New York, a jowly 68-year-old sent in to close schools and parishes that no longer pay their way and to submit his resignation when he turns 75.
Such observers may forget Pope John XXIII, elected at 77 in 1958, was also billed as an “interim” figure before he changed history. The late Cardinal John O’Connor turned in his resignation when he was 75 only to have the pope refuse it. Egan’s motto is surely not “We have here no lasting city.”
More serious are questions about how he will deal with Catholic higher education from his new and enormously influential position. In Bridgeport, he attempted to co-opt Sacred Heart University, an independent institution, and bring it under his control. He was surprised to learn that, although he was the honorary chairman of its board of trustees, he could not sway the other members. He learned _ surely a hard lesson for a bishop _ that his vote was no greater than that of any other board member.
What reading may we make about his understanding of the church from the way he has dealt with priests accused of molesting underage boys? Egan took the position that the priests ordained for his diocese were really “independent contractors” in their life’s work with no essential connection to him or to the local church. They were apparently on their own to defend themselves, serve their time if found guilty of felonies, and be responsible for any financial awards in civil damage suits brought against them.
This is perhaps the first case of “priest abandonment” ever recorded in church history. It has the cool feel of postmodernism, of a world purged of sentiment, tradition and the reflexive obligations of friendship and love. It is not that Egan lacks these human capacities. But this cutting accused priests loose is a measure of what he can and will sacrifice for the sake of the institutional church.
What does any shepherd tell his flock by a readiness to strip away from priests the identity demanded of them in every other waking hour? This is a decision from lifeboat ethics in which the big question is: Who will be thrown into the sea in order to allow the rest to survive?
This future cardinal has also campaigned tirelessly to attract men to the seminary. That zeal for welcoming priests may tell us more about him than his determination to bid others farewell when they get into serious trouble. If Egan has learned how to bring fine men into the seminary, then he deserves great applause and a hope that he may be able to revive vocations on the national scene.
It is also possible, however, that the expediency displayed in reducing priests to the status of “independent contractors” may have operated in the selection of seminarians. What are their qualifications, qualities, backgrounds and problems? It is no secret that many dioceses now accept seminarians whose emotional problems will inevitably manifest themselves. If priests can be numbers at one end of their careers, they may also be numbers at the beginning, numbers that, added one to the other, may only give an illusion of vocational recovery.
Archbishop-designate Egan brings great experience to New York. We will learn a lot more about him from how he deals with priests, their problems and new seminarians.
DEA END KENNEDY
