William E. Lori
William E. Lori (born May 6, 1951) is the fourth Bishop of Bridgeport, Connecticut. [1] Before succeeding Edward Egan in 2001 he was an Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Washington. [2]
He attended the Seminary of Saint Pius X in Erlanger, Kentucky where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1973. [3] He holds a M.A. from Mount Saint Mary's Seminary and a S.T.D. from The Catholic University of America, where he is now chairman of the Board of Trustees. [3] He also serves as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT and is also the Supreme Chaplain of the Knights of Columbus. [4][5]
Bishop Lori was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Washington by Cardinal William Baum on May 14, 1977. His first assignment was as associate pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Landover, MD. Bishop Lori then held a number of positions in the archdiocese's chancery including vicar general, moderator of the Curia, and secretary to Cardinal James Hickey. [1]
Lori is member of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities and the Committee on Doctrine of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. [6] In 2001 he invited Sister Mary Nirmala Joshi, M.C., superior general of the Missionaries of Charity, to Bridgeport for the opening of the Sisters' first convent in Connecticut.
Views
- Lori is seen as a conservative cleric who has carried out controversial church mandates in the past. Some critics, however, say he does not question the church hierarchy and, at times, has acted harshly in order to please his superiors. While an auxiliary bishop in Washington D.C., he led an investigation at the behest of Cardinal James Aloysius Hickey into a liberal parish in Georgetown. Investigators taped their questioning of priests, staff and volunteers and asked them all to pledge their honesty. Critics said the tactics were a heavy-handed attempt to bully the parish away from its liberal ways. One called it "an inquisition." The investigation revealed that two Protestant ministers had been allowed to deliver and receive communion. Two of the parish priests had to apologize publicly. "He was an arch-conservative," said Bill Wellington, a member of another parish in Washington. "He cracked down on liberal parishes when Hickey wanted him to."[7]
- Lori has been credited with establishing a new attitude and local policy toward sex abuse after being appointed Bishop of Bridgeport which had been reeling from abuse cases under then Bishop Edward Egan.[8] In 2002, Lori was one of seven members of the ad hoc, bishops' committee tasked with writing a new policy (known as the Dallas Policy) on how to deal with abusive priests.[9] Once approved by the USCCB, Lori was one of four bishops picked to travel to the Vatican and work out compromises that would make the proposed Dallas policy (now known as the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People), which established a "zero tolerance" policy for sexual abuse, more palatable to the Pope. Lori emerged as the de facto spokesman. The group also included Bishop Thomas Doran of Rockford, Ill., Cardinal Francis George of Chicago and Archbishop William Levada of San Francisco. Lori also enacted many of the provisions in the charter before all the bishops accepted them as a whole: he was one of the first bishops to establish a local review board and acted swiftly against priests who have been accused of abuse under his watch.[7][10] One of the priests, the Rev. Alfred J. Bietighofer, committed suicide soon after he was suspended.[11]
- In 2004 Bishop Lori blessed and dedicated "Villa Maria Guadalupe" on the grounds of the former Villa Maria Retreat Center in Stamford, CT.[12] The property was purchased by the Knights of Columbus, who invited the Sisters of Life, a religious community dedicated to protecting and advancing a sense of the sacredness of all human life, to offer retreats for families and married couples, for women facing problem pregnancies, for pro-life leaders, and for Knights and their families.
- In 2007, he announced a doctrinal investigation on American theologian Peter C. Phan, who has written about Asian perspectives on interreligious dialogue.[13]
- A Catholic News Service online news story article by Nancy Frazier O'Brien, posted on Wednesday, October 26, 2011, stated that: "Recent "grave threats to religious liberty" serve as "grim validations" of the U.S. bishops' decision last June to create a special committee to address those issues, Bishop William C. Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., told a House subcommittee Oct. 26. Bishop Lori, appointed in late September to chair the bishops' new Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, said the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence require government to acknowledge and protect religious liberty as fundamental, no matter the moral and political trends of the moment." But in recent days, he said, "the bishops of the United States have watched with increasing alarm as this great national legacy of religious liberty, so profoundly in harmony with our own teachings, has been subject to ever more frequent assault and ever more rapid erosion." In written testimony before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Bishop Lori called for "corrective action by Congress" to address six areas of particular concern: 1.) Regulations issued by the Department of Health and Human Services in August that would mandate coverage of contraception and sterilization in most private health insurance plans; 2.) A new requirement by HHS that would require the bishops' Migration and Refugee Services to agree to provide the "full range" of reproductive services, including abortion and contraception, to human trafficking victims and unaccompanied refugee minors; 3.) The U.S. Agency for International Development's requirement that Catholic Relief Services and other contractors include condom distribution in their HIV prevention activities and provide contraception in a range of international relief and development programs; 4.) The Department of Justice's actions to mischaracterize the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which states that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, as an act of bigotry and to actively attack its constitutionality; 5.) The Justice Department's efforts to undermine the "ministerial exception" that exempts religious institutions from some civil laws when it comes to hiring and firing; 6.) State actions on same-sex marriage that have resulted in Catholic Charities agencies in Illinois being "driven out of the adoption and foster care business" and some county clerks in New York state facing legal action for refusing to participate in same-sex unions.
The bishop called those concerns "only the most recent instances in a broader trend of erosion of religious liberty in the United States." "The ultimate root causes of these threats are profound, and lie beyond the scope of this hearing or even this august body to fix," he said. "But we can -- and must -- also treat the symptoms immediately, lest the disease spread so quickly that the patient is overcome before the ultimate cure can be formulated and delivered." Bishop Lori urged members of the House of Representatives to pass three bills that would "go a long way toward guaranteeing religious liberty and freedom of conscience for religious employers, health insurers and health care providers." They are the Protect Life Act (H.R. 358), the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (H.R. 361) and the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (H.R. 1179). He also called for a congressional hearing or other investigation into "the illegal conditions that HHS and USAID are placing on religious providers of human services." He said new statutes might be necessary "to create new conscience protections, but more likely to create private rights of action for those whose rights under the existing protections have been violated." "Unfortunately, the authority to enforce the applicable conscience protections now lies principally with the federal agencies that may be violating the protections," Bishop Lori said. He urged House members to "resist legislative efforts to repeal" the Defense of Marriage Act, including the Respect for Marriage Act (H.R. 1116). "The religious freedom threats to marriage at the state level may fall beyond the scope of authority of Congress to control -- except to the extent that state adoption and foster care services are federally funded," he said. Other witnesses at the hearing on "The State of Religious Liberty in the United States" were the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and Colby M. May, director and senior counsel of the Washington office of the American Center for Law and Justice.[15]
References
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Lori, William E. |
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1951-05-06 |
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