Fabian Bruskewitz

The Most Reverend Fabian Bruskewitz
Bishop Emeritus of Lincoln
See	Lincoln
Appointed	March 24, 1992
Installed	May 13, 1992
Term ended	September 14, 2012
Predecessor	Glennon Flavin
Successor	James D. Conley
Orders
Ordination	July 17, 1960
Consecration	May 13, 1992
Personal details
Born	(1935-09-06) September 6, 1935 Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Nationality	American
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Alma mater	Pontifical North American College Pontifical Gregorian University
Motto	Sub tuum praesidium (Under thy protection)
Coat of arms

Styles of Fabian Bruskewitz
Reference style	The Most Reverend
Spoken style	Your Excellency
Religious style	Bishop

Fabian Wendelin Bruskewitz (born September 6, 1935) is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the eighth, now retired, Bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska.

Early life and ministry

Fabian Bruskewitz was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on September 6, 1935.^[1] He is of Polish descent.^[2] He attended a local parochial school before studying at St. Lawrence Seminary High School in Mount Calvary, Wisconsin and at St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee. He then furthered his studies at the Pontifical North American College and the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he was ordained to the priesthood by Luigi Cardinal Traglia on July 17, 1960, at the Basilica dei Santi Apostoli.^[1]

Upon his return to the United States, Bruskewitz served as an assistant pastor in parishes near Milwaukee. He later returned to the Gregorian for graduate study, earning a doctorate in dogmatic theology in 1969.^[1] He briefly taught at St. Francis Seminary before being assigned to the Congregation for Catholic Education in the Roman Curia, where he worked for eleven years. He was raised to the rank of Monsignor in 1976, becoming an Honorary Prelate of His Holiness in 1980. That same year, he became pastor of St. Bernard Parish in Wauwatosa.^[1]

Episcopal career

On March 24, 1992, Bruskewitz was appointed the eighth Bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska. He received his episcopal consecration on May 13, 1992, from Archbishop Daniel E. Sheehan, with Bishops Glennon Flavin and Leo Brust serving as co-consecrators, at the Cathedral of the Risen Christ.^[3]

The diocese has the highest priest-to-Catholic ratio in the United States. Father Robert Matya and Monsignor Timothy Thorburn attribute this fact to Bruskewitz' emphasis on orthodoxy,^[4][5] though the Catholic News Agency credits part of the success to the presence of a seminary within the diocese and points out that the adjacent diocese of Omaha has the second highest ratio.^[4] With regard to Lincoln and other dioceses with many priests, it has been noted: "Fidelity to the magisterium and traditional spirituality are strikingly manifest."^[6] Bruskewitz himself notes that "the orthodoxy, conservatism, and enthusiasm of the clergy, both young and old, bear witness to the splendor of the Catholic priesthood in southern Nebraska."^[6]

Bruskewitz is considered one of the most conservative bishops in the Church,^[7] having described homosexual acts as "intrinsically disordered" and as not coming "from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity".^[8] Furthermore, his diocese is currently the only one in the United States where female altar servers are not allowed diocese-wide.^[9]

Bishop Bruskewitz published a book entitled Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz: A Shepherd Speaks.^[10]

On September 6, 2010, Bishop Bruskewitz formally submitted his resignation to Pope Benedict XVI upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75 for bishops. Pope Benedict accepted his resignation on September 14, 2012, and appointed Bishop James D. Conley, auxiliary of the Archdiocese of Denver, as his successor.^[11]

Views

Tridentine Mass

Bishop Bruskewitz was one of the earliest proponents of the Tridentine Mass. Before Summorum Pontificum, Bishop Bruskewitz was singled out in an article in The Wanderer as one of the few U.S. bishops "...who have been generous in the Ecclesia Dei indult application, as requested and emphasized repeatedly by the late Pope John Paul II."^[12][13] The others were Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis, Bishop Álvaro Corrada del Rio of Tyler, Texas; and Bishop Thomas Doran of Rockford, Illinois.

National guidelines on sex-abuse programs

Bruskewitz is willing to express himself forcefully and is occasionally at odds with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. For example, he rejected an audit by the Conference's National Review Board of his plans to implement national guidelines on sex-abuse programs, making reference to both the Review Board and the former president of Pace University:^[14]

Some woman named Patricia O'Donnell Ewers, who is the chair of something called 'A National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People,' has said that her board 'calls for strong fraternal correction of the Diocese of Lincoln.' The Diocese of Lincoln has nothing to be corrected for, since the Diocese of Lincoln is and has always been in full compliance with all laws of the Catholic Church and with all civil laws...The Diocese of Lincoln does not see any reason for the existence of Ewers and her organization.

The issue brought his diocese to national attention. Bruskewitz was the only one of 195 bishops attending a June 2002 meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops who refused to sign the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

1996 decree of automatic excommunication

Bruskewitz gained national attention^[15] in 1996 for decreeing automatic excommunication on Catholics in his diocese for membership in the following groups. In his statement, he asserted "Membership in these organizations or groups is always perilous to the Catholic Faith and most often is totally incompatible with the Catholic Faith."^[16][17][18]

• Call to Action, with its Nebraska affiliate Call to Action Nebraska, which aims to get the Church to change its teachings in areas such as mandatory celibacy for priests, male-only priesthood, the selection process for bishops and popes, and opposition to artificial contraception^[19]
• Planned Parenthood and Catholics for a Free Choice, for activities giving support for the legalization of abortion.
• The Hemlock Society (now renamed Compassion & Choices), for its advocacy of euthanasia.
• The Society of St. Pius X and its St. Michael the Archangel Chapel^[20][21][22] for "fraudulently advertising themselves in Lincoln as 'in full union with Rome,' causing confusion, ambiguity, and uncertainty on the part of many of the faithful in Lincoln..."^[23]
• Freemasonry and its affiliate organizations (Job's Daughters, DeMolay, Eastern Star and Rainbow Girls), for beliefs and practices that the Vatican considers incompatible with Catholicism.^[18]

Call to Action appealed to Rome against his decree, but in 2006 the Congregation for Bishops upheld his action.^[24][25][26]

Regis Scanlon considered that the controversy created by Bruskewitz's decree may have been one of the factors that led Cardinal Joseph Bernardin to initiate without success his "Catholic Common Ground Project" to bring American Catholic factions together, based on the belief, which Scanlon decried, that "limited and occasional dissent" from the Magisterium of the Church was "legitimate".^[27]

Denial of Communion to politicians who support abortion

In 2004, Bruskewitz stated that he would deny the Eucharist to Catholic politicians who supported abortion, including 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry.^[28][29]

Arms

Arms of Fabian Bruskewitz Notes The coat of arms was designed and adopted when he was installed as the Bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska. It was designed by Paul J. Sullivan of Narragansett, Rhode Island.[30] Adopted 1992 Escutcheon The arms of his jurisdiction, the Diocese of Springfeld in Lincoln, is seen in the dexter impalement (left side) of the design. The right upper section, the gyronny of red and silver. In the center of it is a gold (yellow) plate, on which is placed a dove. The lower portion is a slight variation of the arms of the Bruskewitz family, the 1st and 4th quarters has with blue crosses. Motto For his motto, he has selected the title and first line of an ancient hymn of Gregorian Chant to the Blessed Virgin Mary "SUB TUUM PRAESIDIUM" which means "Under thy protection". Symbolism The right side of the arms is his personal arms. The upper section, the gyronny of red and silver (white), is a variation on the arms of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, where he served until his election to become the Bishop of Lincoln. The center dove, is to honor Saint Fabian, his baptismal patron. The lower portion is a slight variation of the arms of the family "Bruskewitz," and by the use of this device His Excellency honors the heritage of his parents Wendelin and Frances (Talsky) Bruskewitz. The family arms have been varied, for difference, by replacing the blue roundels in the 1st and 4th quarters with blue crosses, of the Faith.

References

External links

• Article by Bruskewitz: "Homosexuality & Catholic Doctrine"