Coming and Going

Archbishop Cordileone celebrating
Mass in the usus antiquior 

Recently over a hundred prominent San Francisco area Catholics published an open letter to Pope Francis petitioning “Holy Father, please provide us with a leader true to our values and your namesake.  Please replace Archbishop Cordileone.”  The letter was signed by leading lay Catholics from the worlds of philanthropy, business, law, civil service, and education. 

Signers complained that the Archbishop is very much out of touch with his flock and is not providing the sort of leadership requisite to his office as he does not know “who the bedrock of the San Francisco Catholic community is.”  The signers also charge that the Archbishop is responsible for “an atmosphere of division and intolerance.”  The loss of confidence in Cordileone’s leadership is not related to a single issue but has been building ever since he was named to the See.  Nevertheless, San Francisco being, well, San Francisco, his attempts to impose a “morality clause” on diocesan employees, including teachers in the Catholic schools that requires not only their adherence to Catholic doctrine but conforming their lives to Catholic sexual ethics has met with considerable resistance.  Later the Archbishop supported local pastor, the Reverend Joseph Illo, in banning girls from serving at the altar during liturgical services at the Star of the Sea parish where Illo is pastor.  Father Illo also distributed a pamphlet to young students listing potential sins including masturbation, sexual acts, abortion, and sterilization.  The pamphlet, designed to help individuals examine their consciences prior to confessing their sins, was deemed by many parents not to be age appropriate to their children.  Illo, a priest of the Stockton Diocese, transferred to San Francisco in hopes of beginning “an Oratory.”  The Oratorians are communities of secular priests who live together in a scholarly and gentlemanly way and generally sponsor churches where there is a revival of the pre-Vatican II liturgy done with great splendor. 

Jesuit Father James Martin, on the editorial staff of America magazine, said that such petitions to remove bishops have not been uncommon over the past few decades but neither have they been effective.  What is interesting in this particular situation, however, is that this past week Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City MO, has “resigned” under pressure from the Vatican.  Bishop Finn had been found guilty of sheltering from legal proceedings a priest whom the Bishop knew to have been guilty of child pornography.  Strangely enough, under Missouri law, that is only a misdemeanor, but a Vatican investigation determined that Finn could no longer function effectively as the spiritual leader of Catholics in the 27 counties of western and north-western Missouri. The question will be does Cordileone have the confidence of his flock to lead.  Conservative Catholics have started a push-back campaign to support Archbishop Cordileone.

Like Finn, Cordileone has a misdemeanor in his background—Cordileone’s for a 2012 driving under the influence (of alcohol) charge.  Perhaps more interesting, both Finn and Cordileone are protégés of Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke who remains a Cardinal in good standing but certainly a prelate in bad odor in Pope Francis’ Rome.  In other words, Cordileone, like Finn, lacks a mediatrix of needed grace at a time most needed. 

Meanwhile, priests and people in the Southern Chile Diocese Osorno continue to protest the installation of Monsignor Juan Barros Madrid as local bishop.  Pope Francis appointed Barros despite the claims of three men that Barros had been present when they had been sexually molested by Barros’ friend Fernando Karadima in the 1980’s and 90’s. Barros denies knowledge of Karadima’s sexual abuse of the men. Although criminal charges against Karadima were dropped due to the statute of limitations, after investigation the Vatican stripped Karadima of his priestly status.  Barros had served as a chaplain to the Chilean military before being named bishop. 

So where will it all end.  It is anyone’s guess, of course, but I will be very surprised if any action is take against Archbishop Cordileone.  It would be a bad precedent to act on a public petition, especially one signed by only one hundred people and a somewhat self-selected group at that. On the other hand, the effort launched by conservative Catholics to support the Archbishop might in turn trigger a more popular response.  There is no doubt that if push were to come to shove, Cordileone would lack the support of the majority of Catholics in his Archdiocese.  This is not only due to his princely ways and dogmatic leadership.  Frankly, many American bishops could not win the support of the majority of their flocks.  People may not mount petitions or get out and demonstrate, but despite the great popularity of Pope Francis, and the loyalty that most give to their local parishes, Americans rarely get much positive energy about their bishops.  At the end of the day, American Catholics are (culturally) Protestants and have never understood the Catholic structure.  While the Popes, even the less popular ones like Pope Benedict, remain a strong symbol of our being Catholic, we really tend to congregationalism and somewhat resent a prelate who usually does not know us well interfering with our parishes and, even more perhaps, taking a percentage of our parish funds for his causes.  Given the size of American dioceses, a parish might only see a bishop once or twice in a year and then in a highly ritualized context.  As long as they are dignitaries they can’t function effectively as pastors.  The fact that so many appointed over the last thirty-some years were chosen not for their pastoral style but for their canon-law ability has not helped their estimation in the eyes of the rank and file.  In Cordileone’s case—as in Finn’s—their penchant for “rings and things and buttons and bows” has certainly not helped them establish the sort of genuine rapport that a few of their predecessors in the episcopal dignity—people like Bernard Topel or Tom Gumbleton or Ken Untener—were able to accomplish.  Archbishop Cordileone is particularly ill-suited for the Church of San Francisco yet I doubt that he will be removed.  On the other hand, as long as Francis is Pope, I don’t expect he will be upwardly mobile either.  But then, Francis is old and Cordileone is still young so que sera, sera.  

Time For San Francisco Bishops To Kiss

Bishop Marc Andrus
Episcopal Bishop of
California

Well, San Fran Archbishop Cordileone pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of reckless driving (he had been arrested for DUI, a charge commonly reduced for first-time offenders) on October 1, three days before his installation in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, San Francisco.  Present outside the cathedral (where admittance was by invitation only) were the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a troupe of transvestites who favorite rig is nun-drag—dressing up in the pre-Vatican II style wimples and veils.  (Lots of super-orthodox Catholics would love to see those habits, just not on gay men.) The good “nuns” were protesting the new Archbishop’s public opposition to legalization of gay marriage, but even if he approved of same-sex marriage they would have been there anyway.  They never miss a Catholic party.  And who says there is a vocation shortage?  Somebody is just not recruiting the right folks.  Also outside the cathedral was a delegation of the neo-Catechumenal Way, a conservative movement within the Church, with banners thanking the new Archbishop for “teaching the truth about the family.”  The neo-Cats are an interesting group and we should do some entries on them so that you know more about them. 
One person who was not inside the Cathedral was Bishop Marc Andrus, the Episcopal Bishop of California.  Bishop Andrus had arrived late for the service and was not seated.  There are conflicting reports that the Bishop had been asked to wait until the liturgical procession had entered the cathedral and then would be taken to his seat among the VIP ecumenical and interfaith guests or whether he had been refused seating all together.  The first story sounds more credible but in any event he “left in a huff.”   To be honest I don’t know why he had bothered to come to the installation.  Catholic bishops never attend the consecration of installation of their Episcopalian colleagues—they send some junior-grade monsignor as their representative.  This would have been the perfect occasion for bishop Andrus to send Dr. Jane Shaw, the Dean of Grace Cathedral or one of the woman canons to represent him and score a point or two about the role of women in the Church.   

I am not as quick to discount Bishop Andrus’ account of being treated with less civility than due a bishop, even one of another denomination.  Bishop Andrus had written a somewhat barbed public letter “welcoming” Archbishop Cordileone to San Francisco.  While affirming areas of common interest, the Bishop admonished the Archbishop to remember his constituency and their special characteristics.  He also made it very clear that those Catholics who found Cordileone’s Catholicism a bit too narrow would find a friendly home in the Episcopal Church.  Here is part of his letter:

In working together with the Archdiocese of San Francisco, however, I will not change my course with regard to the full inclusion of all people in the full life of the church. I hope that public disagreements can be handled respectfully and that criticisms of public statements may be met with mutual respeect. Some Catholics may find themselves less at home with Salvatore Cordileone's installation and they may come to The Episcopal Church. We should welcome them as our sisters and brothers.
Even as we welcome those who may join us and look for ways to work with our Roman Catholic siblings in the faith, we will not be silenced in our proclamation of God's inclusion. Our ecumenical partnership should be founded in our following Christ and shared service. It is our Christian duty to take stands in public or from our pulpits when others - especially those of our own faith - are in error and trying to suppress the rights of others who, too, have been created in God's image.

Well of course Bishop Andrus welcomes refugees from Cordileone’s Catholicism.  Without disaffected Catholics and the occasional social-climbing Methodist, there would be no Episcopal Church. Although a firm supporter in the ecumenical movement, I think a little tension on the local level between Catholics and Episcopalians is a good thing.  The Episcopal Church is not just “Catholic Lite” and the more clear the differences between us—superficial differences to be sure, there being “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all” (Ephesians 4:5-6)—but important differences none the less, the more faithful we each are.  I think we Catholics stand as a reminder to our Anglican and Protestant “siblings” of the Tradition handed down and they stand to us as a reminder of the radical freedom granted by the Gospel that transcends the Law.   Without our voice, there would  be only moral chaos; with only ours Christianity would revert to the religion of the Pharisees. So you two bishops, kiss and make up and get on with the work of the Gospel.      

 

 

A Note on the Costume of Prelates



Archbishop-Designate Salvatore Cordileone

of San Francisco processing through the

streets of the Bay Area--seriously,  not

making this up!



You may have noticed that I don’t post the comments that come into my blog as it isn’t my intention to hold discussions but rather to present little known aspects of history or to make commentary on current situations in the light of the Church’s previous experience.  When I do get a question or a comment that merits some attention, I do try to respond indirectly.  In my last posting, I showed a picture of François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon,  (1651-1715) Archbishop of Cambrai (1696-1715) and it included a picture of the Archbishop wearing a blue mozetta over his rochet.  I had an inquiry asking if Fénelon were a Sylvesterine Benedictine as, my correspondent (an obvious lover of arcane knowledge) reminded me, until Paul VI reformed the costume of prelates in 1969 prelates  who were Benedictines of this congregation wore blue.  But the answer is no—Archbishop Fénelon was not a religious but rather that the custom of bishops and archbishops wearing amaranth purple (actually a red tending towards the purple) is a fairly recent phenomenon.  Previously this reddish color was reserved for monsignori of the papal household.  The Gilbert Stuart portrait of John Carroll, the first Catholic Bishop for the United States, has Carroll in a green mozetta.  Only those bishops and archbishops who, in addition to their responsibilities in their own dioceses, were made honorary members of the papal household wore the amaranth purple habits.  Sometimes people ask why monsignors dress like bishops when in fact historically it was bishops who began dressing like monsignors.  This reminds me of the old joke that while we don’t know when Jesus instituted the priesthood—was it the Last Supper (Do This in Memory of Me) or Easter Night (Whose Sins you Forgive are Forgiven), we do know when he instituted Monsignors.  You can find it in Matthew 6:28.  “See the lilies of the field—they neither toil nor spin; yet not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these.”  In any event, in the middle of the nineteenth century it became all but universal that a man, on being made a bishop, was also automatically named an honorary prelate of the papal household and the green or blue episcopal habit disappeared in favor of the red.  The relic left behind, however, is that on his coat of arms a bishop’s (or Archbishop’s) hat is green, not red.  And the cord by which his pectoral cross is suspended is intertwined green and gold, not red and gold. 

Archbishop John Carroll, a man of

more restrained taste

Until the reforms of Paul VI, bishops (and Archbishops and Cardinals) of the monastic and mendicant orders wore choir vesture of the same design as secular prelates but of wool (not of silk) and in the traditional colors of their orders.  Thus most Benedictine prelates wore black; Franciscans grey; Dominicans  and Cistercians, white and black; Carmelites, brown and white and so on.  Prelates who were religious of the various societies and congregations (as distinguished from the “Orders”) such as Jesuits, Theatines, Oblates, etc. wore costumes of amaranth red (bishops and archbishops) or scarlet (cardinals) but of wool or broadcloth in deference to their vows of poverty rather than the silk of the secular clergy.  It made for a more colorful Church and was a bit more fun.  In 1969 however, Paul VI made drastic changes in the vesture of prelates.  He not only standardized the choir habit of all Western Rite prelates in color and design and fabric, but he abolished from papal ceremonies the cappa magna—the great cape with a train of nine yards that bishops could wear in their jurisdiction and Cardinals could wear wherever they wished.  He didn’t forbid prelates from wearing it in their own dioceses or Cardinals from wearing it outside the Diocese of Rome, but the vesture almost died out.  It has received a recent resurgence through the pomposity of such distinguished hierarchs as Raymond Burke, George Pell, Dario Castrillón-Hoyos and now Archbishop-designate Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco.  Of course in San Fran Archbishop Cordileone will fit right in wearing a long train of silk.  I’m sure he won’t be alone in his penchant for lots of silk.