NEWS ANALYSIS: The Politics of Picking a Prelate

c. 2000 Religion News Service NEWARK, N.J. _ Compared with the messiness of the presidential sweepstakes, the top-down process that will culminate with next week’s (Jan. 3) transfer of Newark Archbishop Theodore McCarrick to Washington, D.C., might appear cut-and-dried, if a bit undemocratic. “I’m not sure who the new president of our United States will […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

NEWARK, N.J. _ Compared with the messiness of the presidential sweepstakes, the top-down process that will culminate with next week’s (Jan. 3) transfer of Newark Archbishop Theodore McCarrick to Washington, D.C., might appear cut-and-dried, if a bit undemocratic.

“I’m not sure who the new president of our United States will be, but I am delighted beyond words to present the new archbishop of Washington,” Cardinal James Hickey, whom McCarrick will replace, commented dryly on Nov. 21, when the announcement was made.


Such efficiency seems inherent to a hierarchy.

Once the pope decided he wanted New Jersey’s ranking Catholic leader in the nation’s capital, he sent word from Rome to McCarrick. That came two weeks before the official announcement and on Nov. 21, it was a done deal.

In reality, however, McCarrick’s surprise transfer _ which will likely lead to his elevation to cardinal _ had enough politicking to rival the Florida recount, and church insiders are examining those machinations to see if there are any clues to McCarrick’s successor in Newark.

Among the candidates, say Rome watchers, are Bishop Henry Mansell of Buffalo, N.Y., and Bishop Sean O’Malley of Fall River, Mass. Another is Bishop William Murphy, an auxiliary to Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston.

One of the most frequently mentioned candidates _ and the most intriguing _ is Bishop Wilton Gregory of Belleville, Ill., an up-and-comer in the U.S. hierarchy and one of about 10 African-American bishops in the church. Gregory had also been mentioned for the Washington post.

The Catholic Church, like any religion, is made up of people with various agendas, a truism amply demonstrated in the backstage jockeying preceding the McCarrick appointment.

In the end, his selection involved many of the elements of any secular political contest: big egos, personal loyalties, policy conflicts and, in this case, an aging pope with an eye on the future.

There was also the desire to get the best man for the job, and while many were surprised at the choice of the 70-year-old McCarrick, who had been passed over for other top posts, there seems no doubt he was the perfect fit for Washington.


A career churchman, McCarrick was pegged for great things even back in his seminary days. “There goes the bishop,” classmates and professors used to say.

And McCarrick followed through on his promise, cultivating personal relationships within the U.S. hierarchy and at the Vatican, to the extent that over the years he became entrusted with sensitive diplomatic missions for Rome and with top policy-making jobs for the American bishops.

He developed a fluency in foreign languages that was matched by his ease with the argot of diplomacy and politics, and he has often been used as the church’s go-between with the White House.

But more than just building a resume abroad, McCarrick developed a reputation as a superb pastor and administrator at home, a prelate who was committed to social justice issues. A self-described people person, McCarrick could charm parishioners, and he encouraged more vocations to the priesthood than any of his colleagues.

Despite all these accomplishments, McCarrick never made the final cut for the move to a more prestigious diocese. Even though the Newark archdiocese is the seventh largest in the country, its leader has never been made a cardinal, and its flock is often overshadowed _ as the state is _ by New York and Philadelphia.

The reasons have to do largely with internal church politics.

For one thing, influential cardinals in Rome have recently begun speaking out against bishops’ “careerism,” expressing disgust with what they see as ambition and suggesting that bishops should retire in the diocese where they are appointed. That attitude did not bode well for McCarrick’s chances.


In addition, the late Cardinal John O’Connor of New York, a favorite of the pope, was always dead set against any advancement for McCarrick.

To powerful, conservative churchmen like O’Connor and Law, McCarrick was too moderate, too diplomatic and political.

When O’Connor died and McCarrick was not chosen for New York, many assumed his career would wind down in Newark. Also, he was 70, which is relatively old for a bishop, who must submit retirement papers to the pope at 75.

But O’Connor’s passing removed an obstacle to McCarrick, leaving Law said to be the only opposition.

And at the end of the day, McCarrick’s fortunes came down to the one man who counts in this process: Pope John Paul II. Over the years the pontiff and McCarrick have developed close ties, and that paid off in the case of the Washington appointment.

“He got this one because of the apartment,” said a senior Vatican official, using Vatican-speak to refer to the Papal Apartments, the private office where John Paul works with a few close aides.


“Some say the pope is rewarding old friends, while others say he is appointing older men so that his successor will have a free hand in appointing their replacements,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit who is a leading political scientist of the church. “Both theories may be true.”

Monsignor Robert Wister, a church historian and Vatican expert at Seton Hall University, said John Paul’s choice of McCarrick may have been intended as a reminder to American prelates that the pope is the one who calls the shots, not them.

And the Washington appointment may have been a kind of compensation for McCarrick’s missing out on other jobs.

DEA END GIBSON

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