| The Most Reverend Timothy Michael Dolan |
|
|---|---|
| Archbishop of New York | |
Archbishop Dolan in 2009 |
|
| Province | New York |
| Diocese | New York |
| See | New York |
| Enthroned | April 15, 2009 (2 years, 315 days) |
| Predecessor | Edward Egan |
| Successor | incumbent |
| Other posts | Archbishop of Milwaukee (2002-2009) Auxiliary Bishop of St. Louis (2001-2002) |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | June 19, 1976 |
| Consecration | August 15, 2001 |
| Personal details | |
| Born | February 6, 1950 St. Louis, Missouri |
Timothy Michael Dolan (born February 6, 1950) is an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He is the tenth and current Archbishop of New York, having previously served as Archbishop of Milwaukee (2002–2009) and Auxiliary Bishop of St. Louis (2001–2002).
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The eldest of five children, Timothy Dolan was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Robert (d. 1977) and Shirley (née Radcliffe) Dolan.[1] His father was an aircraft engineer, working as a floor supervisor at McDonnell Douglas.[2][3] He has two brothers, one of whom is a former radio talk-show host,[4] and two sisters. The family later moved to Ballwin, where they attended Holy Infant Roman Catholic Church.[5] He exhibited a strong interest in the Roman Catholic priesthood from an early age, once saying, "I can never remember a time I didn’t want to be a priest."[6] He would also pretend to celebrate Mass as a child.[7]
Dolan entered St. Louis Preparatory Seminary South in Shrewsbury in 1964, and later obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from Cardinal Glennon College. He was sent by Cardinal John Carberry to further his studies in Rome, where he attended the Pontifical North American College and the Angelicum, earning a Licentiate of Sacred Theology.
Dolan was ordained a priest by Edward O'Meara (Archbishop of Indianapolis, then Auxiliary Bishop of St. Louis) on June 19, 1976. He then served as an associate pastor at Immacolata Roman Catholic Parish in Richmond Heights until 1979. From there he began his doctoral studies at the Catholic University of America under John Tracy Ellis with a concentration on the history of the Church in America; his thesis centered on Edwin Vincent O'Hara (Archbishop).[1] Dolan performed pastoral work upon his return to Missouri from 1983 to 1987. During this time he collaborated with Archbishop John May in reforming the archdiocesan seminary.
He was then named secretary of the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, D.C., serving as a liaison between American dioceses and the nunciature.[6] In 1992, Dolan was appointed Vice-Rector of his alma mater Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, where he also served as spiritual director and taught Church history. He was also an adjunct professor of theology at St. Louis University.
From 1994 until June 2001, Dolan held the office of Rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome.[8] During his tenure he published, Priests for the Third Millennium, and taught at the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Angelicum.[6] He was also raised to the rank of Monsignor in 1994.[9]
| Styles of Timothy Michael Dolan |
|
|---|---|
| Reference style | The Most Reverend |
| Spoken style | Your Excellency |
| Religious style | Archbishop |
On June 19, 2001, Dolan was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of St. Louis and Titular Bishop of Natchesium by Pope John Paul II. He received his episcopal consecration on the following August 15 from Archbishop Justin Rigali, with Bishops Joseph Naumann and Michael Sheridan serving as co-consecrators. He chose as his episcopal motto: Ad Quem Ibimus, meaning, "Lord, To Whom Shall We Go?" (John 6:68)[1]
On June 25, 2002, Dolan was named the tenth Archbishop of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was formally installed at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist on August 28, 2002. Dolan cited coping with the Sexual abuse scandal in Catholic archdiocese of Milwaukee and the resultant near bankruptcy as being the most challenging issue.[10]
He took a special interest in priests and vocations,[11][12] and the number of seminary enrollments also rose during his tenure. In an outdoor Mass in September 2002, Dolan wore a "cheesehead" hat in tribute to the Green Bay Packers during his homily.[13] He also wrote Called to Be Holy (2005) and To Whom Shall We Go? Lessons from the Apostle Peter (2008), and co-hosted a television program with his brother called Living Our Faith.[7]
On February 23, 2009, Dolan was appointed the tenth Archbishop of New York by Pope Benedict XVI .[14] The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, the nation’s second-largest after the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, serves over 2.5 million Roman Catholics.[14] He succeeded Cardinal Edward Egan, who reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 in 2007. According to Dolan, he was informed of his appointment "nine, ten days" prior to the official announcement.[3] Recalling the phone call he received from Apostolic Nuncio Pietro Sambi, as opposed to his appointments as Auxiliary Roman Catholic Bishop of St. Louis and Archbishop of Milwaukee when Dolan was told that the Pope "would like [him] to" take the posts, he said that Sambi "was quite factual" in that he told him that "the Pope had appointed [him]" to New York, giving Dolan little choice other than to accept.[3]
The last time an Archbishop of New York was named without previously holding an office in the archdiocese's ranks came in 1939, when Pope Pius XII tapped close friend and then-Auxiliary Bishop Francis Spellman of the Archdiocese of Boston; before his own appointment, Cardinal John Joseph O'Connor had served as an auxiliary to Cardinal Terence Cooke in the latter's capacity as head of the military ordinariate, not as Archbishop of New York. Dolan's six immediate predecessors became cardinals, so his eventual appointment to the College of Cardinals is thought to be likely.[6]
Before Dolan's appointment, his name had been repeatedly mentioned as a possible successor to Cardinal Egan.,[15][16][17] but he downplayed such speculation, saying, "Anytime there's kind of a major see that opens, what have we seen with Washington, Baltimore, Detroit, now New York, my name for some reason comes up. I'm flattered."[18] John Allen, Jr., Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, has noted that Pope Benedict's appointment of Dolan, like those of Donald Wuerl, Edwin O'Brien, and Dennis Schnurr, follows a pattern of choosing prelates "who are basically conservative in both their politics and their theology, but also upbeat, pastoral figures given to dialogue."[19]
Dolan was formally installed as Archbishop of New York at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Easter Wednesday, April 15, 2009. He wore the pectoral cross used by his earlier predecessor John Hughes.[20] In attendance were: Cardinals Egan, William Baum, Daniel DiNardo, Francis George, William Keeler, William Levada, Theodore McCarrick, Roger Mahony, Seán O'Malley, Marc Ouellet, and Justin Rigali; as well as New York State Governor David Paterson, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.[21]
Dolan received the pallium, a vestment worn by metropolitan bishops, from Pope Benedict XVI on June 29, 2009, in a ceremony at St. Peter's Basilica.[22]
He served as chairman of the board of directors of Catholic Relief Services (in which capacity he visited Ethiopia and India[23]) until his election as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and he remains a member of the Board of Trustees of The Catholic University of America. Within the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, he chairs the Priestly Life and Ministry Committee and sits on the Subcommittee on the Church in Africa. In November 2007, he lost the election for Vice President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, being defeated by Bishop Gerald Kicanas by a margin of twenty-two votes.
Archbishop Dolan is also the apostolic visitor to Irish seminaries as part of the Apostolic visitation to Ireland following the publication of the Ryan and Murphy Reports in 2009. Archbishop Dolan will form part of a team that will include Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the cardinal-archbishop emeritus of Westminster, who will inspect Cardinal Brady's archdiocese of Armagh, and Cardinal O'Malley of Boston who is to inspect Dublin. Toronto's Archbishop Thomas Christopher Collins will investigate Cashel, while Ottawa's Archbishop Terrence Prendergast will look at the west of Ireland archdiocese of Tuam. Following the conclusion, he will report their findings directly to Pope Benedict XVI.[24]
On 5 January 2011 he was appointed among the first members of the newly created Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation.[25] On 29 December 2011 he was appointed a member of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications for a five year renewable term.[26]
Archbishop Dolan was elected on November 16, 2010, to the presidency of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, becoming the first New York bishop to attain the post. Dolan replaced Cardinal Francis George, who did not run for re-election. In a vote of 128-111, Dolan beat out nine others, including Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson, Arizona, to win the three-year term.[27] Archbishop Dolan took office two days later.
As an auxiliary Roman Catholic bishop, Dolan was criticized for his handling of Roman Catholic priests accused of sexual misconduct, accused of being on a "witch hunt" to dismiss abusive priests.[6] He spoke with parishes, victims, and the media about the scandals, and invited victims of clerical abuse to come forward.[6] Commenting on his meetings with them, Dolan said, "...[i]t is impossible to exaggerate the gravity of the situation, and the suffering that victims feel, because I've spent the last four months being with them, crying with them, having them express their anger to me."[28]
He has expressed his full intentions of using his prominent new post as a pulpit to advocate doctrinal views on such national social issues as abortion.[29] During his installation homily, he received a standing ovation after speaking of the Church's mission "to embrace and protect the dignity of every human person, the sanctity of human life, from the tiny baby in the womb to the last moment of natural passing into eternal life."[20][21]
During the 2008 presidential election, Dolan rebuked Democratic vice-presidential candidate then-U.S. Senator Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for "misrepresenting timeless Church doctrine" on abortion, which Dolan called the "premier civil rights issue of our day."[15] However, he opposes denying Communion to pro-choice elected officials.[6]
In March 2009, Dolan noted that U.S. President Barack Obama has "taken a position very much at odds with the Church" regarding abortion, said the University of Notre Dame made a "big mistake" in selecting Obama to deliver its graduation ceremony's commencement speech.[30]
In November 2009, Dolan signed an ecumenical statement known as the Manhattan Declaration calling on evangelicals, Roman Catholics and Orthodox not to comply with rules and laws permitting abortion, same-sex marriage and other matters that go against their religious consciences.[31]
In an interview with the New York Post on April 22, 2009, Dolan reasserted the Catholic Church's opposition to gay marriage, saying, "There is an in-built code of right and wrong that is imbedded in the human DNA...Hard-wired into us is a dictionary, and the dictionary defines marriage as between one man, one woman for life, please God, leading to the procreation of human life. And if we begin to tamper with the very definition of marriage, then we're going to be in big trouble."[32][33] Describing the Church's position as not "anti-gay," he said, "We're pro-the most basic definition of marriage."
In a blog post in June 2011 Dolan compared a proposal for gay marriage in the State of New York to life in China or North Korea, where "government presumes daily to 'redefine' rights, relationships, values and natural law." "Please, not here!" Dolan continued. "We cherish true freedom, not as the license to do whatever we want, but the liberty to do what we ought."[34]
In July 2011 the US Department of Justice filed a brief in a case called Golinski v. U.S. Office of Personnel Management. The brief argued that the Defense of Marriage Act "should be struck down as a form of sexual orientation discrimination."
On September 20th, 2011, Dolan cited this brief in a 2-page letter dated September 20th, 2011 along with a 3-page analysis by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as evidence that the Justice Department "has shifted ... to actively attacking DOMA's constitutionality," Dolan predicted current federal actions would "precipitate a national conflict between church and state of enormous proportions and to the detriment of both institutions."[35] The USA Today describes this "appears to signal an escalation in their battle against gay marriage." [36]
While noting that the "Church has weighed in" against the war in Iraq and capital punishment, Dolan defended not publicly opposing President George W. Bush's earlier appearance at Notre Dame by saying, "Where President Bush would have taken positions on those two hot-button issues that I'd be uncomfortable with, namely the war and capital punishment, I would have to give him the benefit of the doubt to say that those two issues are open to some discussion and are not intrinsically evil...In the Catholic mindset, that would not apply to abortion."[32] He later said he will challenge any suggestion that Roman Catholics are unenlightened because they oppose gay marriage and abortion.[37]
In 2003, after a group of Milwaukee priests petitioned to make clerical celibacy optional,[38] Dolan expressed his belief in celibacy "not just because I'm 'supposed to,' or reluctantly 'have to,' but because I want to."[39] He further defended celibacy against its critics, saying, "The recent sad scandal of clerical sexual abuse of minors, as the professionals have documented, has nothing to do with our celibate commitment."[39]
In 2005, the Vatican issued an Instruction that deals with admitting same-sex attracted men to seminaries or Holy Orders. The document uses the phrase "practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture'" to identify men whom the Church cannot admit to the seminary or to Holy Orders.[40] Commenting on that document, Dolan has been quoted as saying that a homosexual who exhibits none of those criteria and feels he may have a vocation “shouldn’t be discouraged” from becoming a seminarian.[41]
In a 2001 interview on the subject, while rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome, he is quoted as saying that Seminary formators owe it to the Church to be vigilant, never allowing a man to be ordained who gives any evidence of tendencies to sexual immorality and being very blunt in holding up to their men the clear expectations of Jesus and his Church.[42] He said formators must present the beauty of celibacy but at the same time be candid about the dangers to celibate commitment, including a homosexual inclination.[42] He further said that formators must be sure that candidates accept that they are both embracing a life of generous love in selfless service to the Church and that they are leaving behind all genital expression, alone or with others, male or female, in thought, word and deed.[42]
Dolan visited Ground Zero, the site of the September 11 attacks, on the following April 24.[43] After reciting the same prayer used by Benedict XVI during his visit to the United States, Dolan remarked, "We will never stop crying. But it's also about September 12 and all the renewal, the rebuilding, hope, solidarity and compassion that symbolized this great community and still does."[43] Archbishop Dolan condemned as a miscarriage of proper justice the release of the convicted Lockerbie bomber al-Megrahi and his reception in Libya.
Dolan is considered to be theologically conservative,[2][19][28][44] but once stated, "Titles of liberal and conservative don't cut much mustard with me."[28] He is also seen as energetic and media-savvy,[45] with a "gregarious pastoral style."[46] As one Marquette University professor said, he "is with Rome on the big issues and on the little ones, but he does not do it in a dictatorial fashion."[2]
| Episcopal lineage | |
| Consecrated by: | Justin Francis Rigali |
| Consecrator of | |
|---|---|
| Bishop | Date of consecration |
| William Patrick Callahan | December 21, 2007 |
| Catholic Church titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Edwin Frederick O'Brien |
Rector of the Pontifical North American College 1994—2001 |
Succeeded by Kevin P. McCoy |
| Preceded by Joseph Fred Naumann |
Auxiliary Bishop of Saint Louis June 19, 2001 – June 25, 2002 |
Succeeded by Robert Joseph Hermann |
| Preceded by Rembert Weakland |
Archbishop of Milwaukee 2002—2009 |
Succeeded by Jerome Edward Listecki |
| Preceded by Edward Cardinal Egan |
Archbishop of New York 2009 — present |
Succeeded by incumbent |
| Preceded by Francis Cardinal George |
President of the USCCB 18 November 2010 — present |
Succeeded by incumbent |
|
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