Timothy Dolan: Archdiocese Of New York Leader

Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan has been chosen by Pope Benedict XVI to succeed Cardinal Edward Egan as the Catholic Archbishop of New York. As the New York Times notes, the succession marks a shift from a business-oriented leadership to one more open and personally welcoming:

Cardinal Egan, who is 76 and served for nine years, focused on the business and financial duties of his office. He excelled at fund-raising, closed many parishes and schools and says he erased a $48 million budget gap left by his predecessor, Cardinal John J. O'Connor. But his leadership style had its critics, including many priests and parishioners who felt the cardinal was removed and imperious.


Archbishop Dolan, by contrast, has earned a reputation for being convivial with parishioners, accessible to the news media and not above smoking cigars with his seminarians. Yet behind the scenes, he has quietly reeled in theologians and priests who question church doctrine. And he has disappointed advocates for victims of sexual abuse, who accuse him of failing to find and remove all offenders from the ministry -- though they acknowledge that he was one of few bishops to make public a list of abusive priests.

Last September, in this spirit of defending church doctrine, Dolan penned an op-ed for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wherein he lambasted Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then-Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden for their abortion stances:

It was not the bishops who started this rhubarb but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who took it upon themselves to explain Catholic teaching on abortion to the nation - and blundered badly.

...

But church tradition is equally clear that bishops are the authentic teachers of the faith. So, when prominent Catholics publicly misrepresent timeless Church doctrine - as Biden and Pelosi regrettably did (to say nothing of erring in biology!) - a bishop has the duty to clarify. Cardinal Justin Rigali and Bishop William E. Lori were thus hardly acting as politicians, "telling people how to vote," but as teachers.

Pelosi and Biden have been criticized recently by the Vatican for the same reasons, suggesting that Dolan's tenure over the New York Archdiocese will be one very much aligned with Rome on this pivotal issue.


Source: huffingtonpost.com