More on Francis, the Bridge too Far, And Why He Is Driving The Krazies Towards Schism

He drives them even

more krazy than theywere 

I want to go back to that article in The New Republic by Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig that explains why conservatives are reacting so negatively to Pope Francis. Conservationism, Bruenig states, by the very virtue of its name seeks “the conservation of some elements of the past.”  She differentiates this from American “neo-conservatism” which embraces the a sort of hybrid of Libertarianism and Tea Party agenda with a “fixation on markets and freedom from nosy states while simultaneously preferring a closer personal regulation of one’s behaviors.”  There is a natural bridge between conservatism and neo-conservatism.  An unregulated economy and a weak government preserve “traditional modes of living” in the face of the progressive social agenda that undermines—in the thought of the conservatives—the traditional social structures.  

This can help us see why Francis is so threatening.  He has, to date anyway, been far less outspoken about the injustices of the economic structures of the developed world than have been predecessors John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, and even Benedict XVI, but his often returning to the theme of income inequality heralds the possibility that after his upcoming encyclical on the environment he may throw in his lot with existing papal magisterium that decries the immorality of an unregulated economy.  And, as I wrote in the previous entry, when Francis talks about something he doesn’t let it stay in the realm of ideas as his predecessors were often inclined, but brings it home in very concrete—and challenging—applications.

What is threatening many on the right, among those neo-conservatives who want free market economy but “traditional” social values, is in addition to his rumbling about climate issues and income inequality, his willingness to have the Church find room (I hesitate to go so far as to say “embrace”) for new social structures.  He has said that the Church should “not be obsessed” with the abortion issue.  He has made it clear that gays are welcome in the Church and while he does not favor same-sex marriage he has been very open to the legally equivalent “civil unions.”  He has made it clear that he will not approve the ordination of women but neither he has issued the mandata of his predecessors that it not be seriously discussed even among theologians.  Indeed, to the panic of the neo-conservatives he seems to have no fears about open discussion of any topic. 

Even more troubling to some than his recognition that we are living in the 21^st century and not the 9^th, has been the change in pontifical style.  As Bruenig points out conservativism is more an attitude than a specific agenda.   It isn’t the disdain for traditional pontifical accouterments such as the Santa Claus cap, the Ruby-reds, and liturgical vesture that makes a pope look like a cross between Queen Elizabeth and the Infant of Prague that has alienated many conservative voices, it is what his style of being pope represents: a movement away from hierarchy.  Gone are the days of the austerely monarchial Pius XII; now we have an ordinary guy in a white robe with an occasional red clown-nose. 

It gave us great pleasure to have a pope like Pius XII.  We could be proud of the a triple-tiaraed aristocrat and bask in his reflected glory as he is carried around like a Babylonian God on his shoulder-high pontifical throne with ostrich plumed fans waving about.  What other religion had something like that???  C’mon, we were the best because nobody did it like our Pope.  And now, frankly it would be embarrassing to some to see the guy with black shoes that could use a shine and new heels, his black pants showing through the white cassock, and, yes, that clown nose.  I mean, What would Jesus say?  Well, actually Jesus wasn’t terribly impressed with the Temple priests of his day with their fancy robes and their elegant life-style.  I imagine that he would be pretty happy with Francis, but again, that’s only what I imagine.  I shouldn’t project my tastes onto Jesus. 

Well, let’s look at the bigger picture.  I don’t think it is Francis who really gets under the skin of the neo-traditionalists.  Not all conservatives, or even neo-conservatives are neo-traditionalists but all neo-traditionalists are neo-conservatives and some are genuine conservatives as well.  (To iron out that sentence you need to get out your old Logic 101 text, the implication being that one can be both a conservative and a neo-conservative.  But I don’t want to get too far off track.)  Let’s go back to the article for awhile, shall we?

Philip Wallach and Justus Myers addressed a question they felt had been neglected during the Republican Party’s previous two presidential defeats: “What is conservatism?” Conservatism, they argued, is more a disposition than a set of political goals, one for which “social practices, habits, and institutions embody the accumulated wisdom of trial-and-error experience.” This thinking detaches conservatism from the realm of policy, and returns it to the core of conservative commitments, where they believe it should be. At the center of the conservative disposition, Wallach and Myers locate a belief that explains why conservatives “doubt the ability of fallible people to overhaul [the] evolved social order according to their vision of how it should be.” The conservative disposition springs from the conviction that there is something transcendently meaningful about the past. “Conservatism has the most to offer societies,” Wallach and Myers wrote, “that have much worth conserving yet run the risk of dissipating their inheritance through wrong-headed, sweeping changes.” What obtains today, in the conservative mind, does so because it was found worthy in the past, and humility should prevent us from meddling too much with received wisdom.

This treatment of the past unites religious and political conservatives. Indeed, the Catholic Church has its own version of the conflict between conservatism and progressivism that one finds in American politics. Between 1962 and 1965, the Vatican held the Second Vatican Council at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. It was the twenty-first ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, a meeting of Catholic leaders and theologians first convened by Roman emperors in the early years of the Church, and now by Pope John XXIII, to settle the place of the Catholic Church in the modern world. The ramifications of Vatican II, as it is known, still command the contours of contemporary Catholicism.

Vatican II addressed matters of liturgy: the language used in Mass (vernacular versus Latin), ecclesiology, and the place of Catholic teaching in the modern world. The intention of “modernizing” Catholic expression and teaching, which was brought up in the most incremental terms, was enough to alienate conservative Catholics. Church historian and professor Massimo Faggioli pointed out in his 2012 book Vatican II: The Battle for Meaning, that traditionalist Catholics “have grown much more vocal in denouncing the council as synonymous with disaster and chaos in the Church. Their negative view of the results of the liturgical reform could be applied uniformly to all of the major developments of Vatican II (ecclesiology, ecumenism, religious freedom, and the Church and the modern world) without altering their level of outrage.” Faggioli also observes the connection between “the main accusers of Vatican II as a ‘rupture’ with the tradition of the Church,” and those who “questioned the very legitimacy of Vatican II as a council in the tradition of the Church, its previous councils, and papal magisterium.” Traditionalists were offended not only by the outcome of Vatican II’s reforms, but by the idea of modernization itself, as though such a thing could be truly avoided.

First of all, I have respect for—and often am in agreement with—the sentiment that “social practices, habits, and institutions embody the accumulated wisdom of trial-and-error experience.”  And I agree that that there is something transcendently meaningful about the past.  I am, after all, a historian, but I don’t believe that everything that is more than fifty years old equates with received wisdom.  This is where there is a difference between Tradition and traditions—a distinction which neo-traditionalist columnists, bloggers, clergy and others seem totally incapable of making.  The red velvet and ermine cape some Popes used to wear (John Paul did not; Benedict did) is a tradition, not a Tradition.  Same story for the red shoes, the triple tiara, and even the white cassock.  Same for where the Pope says Holy Thursday Mass and whose feet he washes. 

A lot of the traditions went out at Vatican II, or as a result of Vatican II.  Mass in Latin.  Mass said ad apsidem (facing the back wall of the church, sometimes referred to as “the liturgical east” as opposed to “true east.”), religious women wearing faux medieval garb, subdeacons, communion kneeling and/or “on the tongue,” women wearing a hat or veil in church, black vestments for funerals, only men serving on the altar, and other customs—some admittedly ancient—which gave us Catholics familiar identity anchors but which are not part of the “deposit of faith” which constitutes the authentic Tradition (capital T).  There were some practices which fell into disuse whose disappearance I personally think was unfortunate.  While some of our devotional practices were eccentric (at the least) or even theologically confusing (at the least), I think a healthy devotional life, somewhat like a multi-vitamin—supplements the liturgical/sacramental prayer that is at the heart of Catholic Spirituality.  I also have to deplore the way far too many of us come dressed (or actually not dressed) for church; it is just rude and sloppy to pay so little attention to one’s appearance for an event that is of paramount importance.  But the essence of our Catholic faith remains—and my experience is that with a lot of the fluff and frills stripped away, those essentials stand out all the more clearly.  But there are those for whom being Catholic meant wearing a mantilla, or “hearing” Mass, or having one’s nuns veiled in eight pounds of black serge and rigidly starched linen.  And they feel very threatened by all that has happened in the fifty years since the Council closed.  Under John Paul and Benedict they somehow found a “hope” that the old might be restored and they could again have an identity that clearly differentiated them from those Presbyterians next door who have a cook-out on Friday evenings with beer and brats.  Francis has dashed that hope.  Francis has made it clear that “we” are not going back.  You can still go to your Latin Mass and have shrimp scampi for Friday dinner, but as for the rest of us, we are focusing on the issues of Mercy, Forgiveness, and subordinating our lives to God’s Kingdom here and now.  This is threatening because it runs the risk of having to look critically at things like income inequality, racism, commitment to peace in a world of violence, rejection of the death penalty, care for the environment, and other issues where the rubber of the Gospel hits the road of life in the 21^st century.  It makes us realize that we have to make a choice that no longer permits us to pledge allegiance to some heavenly kingdom while continuing to enjoy the benefits of our belonging to this earthly kingdom.   

Francis, the Bridge Too Far, and the Threat of Schism, more to say

Need More Be Said To Explain
The Paranoia?

I came across a fascinating article in The New Republic by Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig in which she adopts a view of Pope Francis as one who synthesizes the often contrasting views of Tradition and Modernity.  She also identifies how much opposition to the Pope’s agenda comes from the American Right.  Let me recommend the article and then let me quote two paragraphs.  Check out the article for yourself at http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121168/pope-francis-conservatives-battle-us-catholic-churchs-future   For now, check out her observations in the following paragraphs

THE WORLD’S MOST RENOWNED CHRISTIAN THEOLOGICAL GUIDE IS, of course, the Pope. He is, in a sense, a steward of the Church’s religious past, a clerical leader who must mediate the institution’s traditions as a public figure and symbol, and in his writings and pronouncements, which bear a great deal more authority among the Catholic faithful than do papal visits or interviews. The Church views herself in terms of apostolic succession and papal primacy—terms that describe a continuous transmission of authority that can be traced to the original apostles of Christ. The Pope has a special relationship to the past, being the recipient of so much carefully preserved thought and practice. Each Pope, therefore, must make use of the richness of Church tradition, while also ministering effectively to a world of ever-evolving challenges and realities.

Pope Francis ascended to the papacy two years ago, becoming Catholicism’s first leader from South America. A curious narrative soon emerged with regards to his approach to the past and the traditions of the Church among cultural, political, and religious conservatives in the United States. He has made no substantial changes to Catholic doctrine, and yet has nonetheless earned opprobrium worthy of extreme tampering. It seems rather that Francis inspires uncomfortable feelings, and affronts particular dispositions rather than particular doctrines. A key moment for testing this hypothesis is on the horizon: This summer Francis is expected to publish an encyclical—an authoritative papal document indicating an issue’s pressing priority—on the environment. It will reportedly address matters of environmental stewardship and climate change. (No specifics of the document have been issued yet.) As its release draws near, American conservatives have begun protesting supposedly vast reforms that have not happened. Steve Moore, chief economist at The Heritage Foundation, has declared Francis an adherent of a “modern pagan green religion”; Maureen Mullarkey, a writer for the religious journal First Things, charged the Pope with “bending theology to premature, intemperate policy endorsements.” No one but Pope Francis and his closest advisers know what is contained within the encyclical. Conservatives troubled by the very suggestion of a theological approach to climate change have been forced to expose more id than argument, dragging in such temporal terms as modern and premature. Pope Francis will travel to Washington, D.C. in September to address Congress, a visit already hotly anticipated. To understand the responses of conservative Catholic politicians like Representatives Paul Ryan and Peter King to papal pronouncements on inequality and climate change requires untangling the Church’s other trinity: of the Pope, the past, and the right wing.

 CONSERVATIVES HAVE BEEN WARY OF FRANCIS since his ascension in March 2013. On the day he was named Pope, the far-right Catholic blog Rorate Caæli called Francis “a sworn enemy of the traditional Mass.” In the following summer, legendarily plainspoken Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput said that the right wing of the Church “generally have not been really happy” with Francis’s papacy. Francis had that week made his famous quip, “Who am I to judge?” when asked about homosexuality. He was referring specifically to gay people who follow Church teaching and seek a celibate life within the Church, and thus his statement was entirely in keeping with Catholic doctrine. The trouble seemed to stem largely from the fact that he had used the modern parlance gay. In May 2014, conservative Catholic writer Michael Brendan Dougherty published a provocative op-ed in The Week arguing that “Catholics must learn to resist their Popes—even Pope Francis.” Dougherty suggested that the legitimacy of papal teaching—and in a sense, the principle of papal infallibility—was subject to review by the greater body of Catholic faithful. The duty of the believer, he concluded, “is not just to rebuke and correct those in authority ... but to throw rotting cabbage at them, or make them miserable.”

There have always been grumblings about popes, but the differences in opinion between Francis and the movement collectively known as the “American right” appear especially numerous, and unusually bitter. In October 2014, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, who is Catholic, wrote that in matters of marriage and family life, “[Francis] may be preserved from error only if the Church itself resists him.” The “error” he referred to was Francis’s leadership at the Synod on the Family, held in Rome in October. The Pope’s hand-picked prelates had drafted a working document for the synod, which contained early, and mildly positive, language regarding homosexual orientation and the possibility of communion for the divorced. “Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community,” the document originally read, adding, “For some [divorced and remarried persons], partaking of the sacraments might occur were it preceded by a penitential path.”

The final report issued from the synod was substantially revised, and most of this language was removed. Communion remains generally unavailable to the divorced and remarried, and Church attitudes toward homosexuality continue to be negative. Conservatives were nonetheless rattled by Francis’s willingness to flexibly address what appear to be “modern problems”: gay people in the Church and the ever-growing number of divorced and remarried persons. At the end of his column, Douthat wondered, with some anxiety, if Francis might “be stacking the next synod’s ranks with supporters of a sweeping change” that would leave traditionalists unfairly on the wrong side of history.

The Heritage Foundation, Maureen Mullarkey, Rorate Caeli blogsite, Archbishop Chaput, Ross Douthat, Michael Brendan Dougherty—with the possible exception of the bloggers at Rorate Caeli, these are not stupid people.   (Actually Rorate Caeli used to be a pretty reputable site but the last few years has become more polemical than substantive.)  What about Francis is triggering this backlash from the right and what does it mean?

Within my lifetime we have had seven popes.  Pius XII, the Pope of my childhood and the man who will ever epitomize the papacy for me—much as I might wish it different—was an intellectual progressive but faced with the real challenge that post-war Italy might go Communist, forged a close alliance with Eisenhower/Dulles America where, for us, to be Catholic was to be American.  We might be Republican, were more likely Democrat, but never questioned American policies—at home or abroad—and so we stood for political and social conservatism.  Our local gauleiter  Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York, assured us that we, as a nation, were on God’s chosen path.  The face of Catholicism in America was Fulton Sheen whose weekly television show reinforced the collective naiveté that all was well in heaven and its earthly colony from sea to shining sea.  You didn’t see Catholics marching with Dr. King—at least at first—Archbishop Thomas Toolen of Mobile rallied his fellow bishops to keep the Catholics home in Ohio and Boston and let the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians do the Christian thing in standing up for human rights.   That is why we were shocked and appalled when a young priest by the name of Father James Groppi began leading marches for fair housing polices in Milwaukee.  Catholics didn’t do that sort of thing.  And you didn’t see Catholics marching against the War in Viet Nam, Spelly saw to that.  And that is why were were shocked at the Berrigan brothers and their friends.  Of course by that time Pius was entombed beneath the High Altar of the Vatican Basilica and we had been blessed with the human face of John XXIII and the genteel visage of Paul VI.  And there had been the Council.  John and Paul and their Council had done a lot to change the tenor but not the practice.  We had Pacem in Terris and  Mater et Magistra and Gaudium et Spes and Popolorum Progressio—each of which was pretty radical in terms of its social vision but very little of which trickled down to the folk in the pews.  This has been the major problem with the implementation of Vatican II: we were shown the trees but never saw the forest.  Or, in the minds of most of our priests and practically all of our bishops, there was no forest.  Changes yes—but a changed perspective?  They never got it and so could never pass it on.   Yeah, yeah, yeah—our altars were changed to “face the people” and the “sign of peace” was introduced at Mass, but we never got the basic change in emphasis from Church as religion, institution, rules and rituals, something you do on Sunday to a community of disciples committed to carrying on the work of Jesus in proclaiming the Good News to this broken world in which we live.  We thought that one could have charity for the poor and unfortunate without a passion for the justice that would break the shackles that weighed them down.  We never understood that without a passionate commitment to justice, charity was no more than an empty, even cynical, sentiment. 

John Paul’s encyclicals, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis,  Dives in Misericordia, Laborem Exercens, and Centesimus Annus, were the most radical papal statements yet, but like those of his predecessors they remained largely unread by American Catholics.  Moreover, John Paul’s interest in forging a political alliance with the Reagan administration in order to weaken the Soviet Bloc meant he chose bishops in this country who would not rock the Reagan/Republican boat.  Those prelates who took the social teaching of the Church seriously—men like Archbishops Raymond Hunthausen, John Quinn, or William Borders or Bishops like Ken Untener—found themselves beyond the good graces of Rome. Even Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago found himself isolated from fellow American Cardinals and pretty much without any influence in the Papal Apartments or the Secretariat of State.  So along comes Francis and the idea that he is writing an encyclical on the environment has sent the climate-change deniers on the American Right into a total panic. Why?  Well, because Francis, despite his Jesuit roots, doesn’t hide behind pontifical ambiguities.  He is plain spoken, makes the rubber hit the road, and says what he means and means what he says.  He is, in a way, validating Father Groppi and the Fathers/brothers Berrigan.  Ms Bruenig is right—no doctrine has been changed, but far more threatening we have a Pope who is taking the teachings of the Gospel and the Church seriously and threatening to point out to us that we too should take them seriously.  

Foundations of the Anglican Church, CX

William Juxon, Archbishop
of Canterbury from 1660
until his death in 1663.

All good things must come to an end—and so too the Cromwellian dictatorship over the Commonwealth. In this posting, we will look at the restoration of Crown and Bishops in England after the Civil War and the Commonwealth. 

Oliver Cromwell died on September 3, 1658 and was succeeded as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth by his son, Richard.  Richard lacked his father’s resolve and in the face of conflict between the Army and civilian government, resigned.  The majority of the English people had grown very disillusioned with Puritan government.  The draconian laws that restricted any games or pleasure on the Sabbath, the abolition of holydays—including and especially Christmas, the wordy and drab forms of worship in the churches, the excessive Calvinistic moralism all combined to wear down even the dour English.  With the resignation of Richard Cromwell as Lord Protector and the aimless policies of the Council of State—the group that had served as the “Privy Council” to Cromwell Senior and Cromwell Junior, the administration of government began to implode.  The office of Lord Protector was replaced by a seven (later eleven) member “Committee of Safety.” This arrangement lasted only two weeks.  Fighting broke out in England as the Royalists under George Booth began to push against Parliamentarian government.  General John Lambert defeated Booth’s army and tried to put down the rebellion but Cromwell’s governor of Scotland, George Monck, saw the inevitable end of the Commonwealth and led his forces to defeat Lambert.  Monck entered into secret communication with Charles II, son of the “martyred” Charles I, who issued the Declaration of Breda from his exile in the Spanish Netherlands.  This declaration promised a general pardon for all involved in the rebellion against the monarchy, assured all who had purchased or legally obtained property during the Cromwell years that they would retain ownership, and finally promised payment of back pay to the army and guaranteed all officers that they would continue to serve under the monarchy as they had under the Commonwealth.  Eight weeks later Charles was back in England and on the Throne. 

One of the first concerns was to restore the Church to its former status.  In 1662 Parliament passed an act of Uniformity imposing a new Prayer Book and requiring ordination by a bishop for all clergy.  Those who had been ordained according to Presbyterian polity during the Commonwealth were required to submit to re-ordination by a bishop.  Approximately 2000 clergy refused and lost their livings.  The Act of Uniformity also imposed a new Book of Common Prayer upon the English Church.  Anglicans and Presbyterians had met for the Savoy Conference in 1661 but in the end were unable to agree on a liturgy acceptable to both sides. The failure to agree on a liturgy and the disenfranchisement of those clergy who would not accept Episcopal Ordination (or re-ordination in the case of those already ordained during the period in which the episcopacy was abolished from 1646 until 1660) led to a final separation of the Presbyterian/Congregationalist faction in the Church of England from the Anglican/Episcopal faction.  Those who broke with the Established Church were referred to as non-Conformists (because they would not “conform” to the official rites) and included Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists.  (The Methodists, originally a 18^th century movement within the Church of England also joined the non-Conformists when it broke with the Anglican Church.  More will be written on that in later posts.)

The Episcopacy was restored in the Church of England in 1660 and William Juxon, who had been Bishop of London before the suppression of Episcopacy in 1646 was named Archbishop of Canterbury, thus guaranteeing continuity in lineage and Apostolic Succession (at least according to Anglican perspectives) with the pre-Civil War bishops.  Similarly Accepted Frewen (yes, his first name was ‘Accepted’—that is the sort of things evangelicals do to their children), one-time bishop of Litchfield and Coventry before the Civil War, was named to York guaranteeing the succession in the Northern Province as well. 

In doing some background for this entry I found out that George Montaigne who served briefly as Archbishop of York before the Civil War and previously held the sees of Lincoln, London, and Durham had, among his consecrators when consecrated as Bishop of Lincoln in 1617, one Marco Antonio de Dominis who himself had been the Catholic Archbishop of Split in Dalmatia.   De Dominis had apostatized when caught in a political dispute between Venice and the papacy.  He later returned to the Catholic Church, and he was still later tried for heresy.  Be that as it may, it is interesting to note that Catholic lineage was re-instated into the Anglican line as early as 1617. De Dominis also was co-consecrator for Nicholas Felton who served first as Bishop of Bristol and later as Bishop of Ely.  Montaigne had little chance to consecrate bishops himself when Archbishop of York—he only held the see a few months before his death, but as Bishop of Durham he probably would have been a co-consecrator for a number of bishops in the Northern Province and as Bishop of London for a number of bishops in the Canterbury province.  

Old School

De mortuis nihil nisi bonum (of the dead, [speak] nothing unless it is good) has always been one of my favorite Latin aphorisms but it would put us historians out of business.  It would also permit the ideologues to totally distort the truth about the past, something that a wide variety of the krazy spectrum—from the ‘Tea-Party’ folk in politics to the Latin Massers in the Church—do well enough already with their various rewrites of history, secular and religious.

And today Cardinal Edward Egan, former Archbishop of New York, is laid to rest.  The television is replete with a variety of people ranging from the policeman who stands in front of the Cardinal’s residence on Madison Avenue to a Knight of Malta resplendent in the cowl of his Order saying what a warm and kind man His late Eminence was.  De mortuis nihil nisi bounum is about selective memory.  History needs to be more rounded.

There are good things one could say about the Cardinal. Edward Egan was not a bad man and even if he were, everyone has something good that can be said about them.   His family testified to his love for them and his love for the people of New York.  Love he may have had but he certainly was not one to emote in public or even show affection.   He certainly was there for the people of New York in the aftermath of 9/11 and, while not a warm man, he was dutiful in personally performing the funeral rites of many and visiting many more in hospitals.   

He was a great money man.  And despite all our liberal “disdain” of filthy lucre, the fact is the Church needs money to accomplish its mission.  On the one hand, Cardinal Egan was a great fund-raiser and, on the other, he could tighten a budget in a way that Scott Walker could only envy—and, unfortunately, too often with the same amount of human suffering of which the good Governor is proud of in the great State of Denial, I mean Wisconsin.  Egan was more successful in reaching solvency for the Diocese of Bridgeport when he was bishop there than he was in New York, but New York’s problems were much greater and, on the bottom line, he didn’t do bad for New York from the fiscal perspective.  He was slow to close underpeopled churches which has left headaches for his successor but which somewhat modulated his unpopularity among those parishioners whose churches he kept open. 

He also was a staunch promoter of priestly vocations though the quality of men he attracted to his seminary and the “reforms” he enacted at the seminary in Yonkers (Saint Joseph’s, Dunwoodie) are not universally admired.  One would have to say that the Jury is still out on those questions.  He certainly didn’t anticipate the “Francis Model,” though the worst system will still produce some good priests and the best system some rotten apples.  He also missed Francis’ boat when it came to providing a retirement residence; let’s just say that it wasn’t a downward move when the left the official Archbishop’s residence on Madison Avenue for his new retirement digs. 

He was a staunch defender of the unborn but also a proponent of interpreting canon 915 to exclude those in public life who saw their public duties differently.  He instructed then Mayor Rudolf Giuliani not to receive Holy Communion and was furious when the Mayor received Communion at Pope Benedict’s New York Mass in April 2008, issuing a public rebuke of the Mayor over the matter. 

Both as Bishop of Bridgeport and Archbishop of New York, Egan had somewhat of a checkered history when it came to the issues of reporting clerical sexual abuse.  His position in Bridgeport was that there should be an internal hearing to determine the credibility of the accusation before the individual was reported to the civil authorities lest the priest be the victim of unfounded allegations.  Priests were grateful for this protection from potentially false or ill-motivated claims but it was in violation of the civil law.  In 2002 he gave an apology saying: "If in hindsight we also discover that mistakes may have been made as regards prompt removal of priests and assistance to victims, I am deeply sorry."  However he was later to retract this apology saying “I never should have said that…I don’t think we did anything wrong.”  

In New York the Cardinal lost the confidence of many of his priests and an anonymous letter from the priests was circulated, published, and sent on to Rome saying “During the last six years, the Cardinal’s relations with the Priests of New York have been defined by dishonesty, deception, disinterest and disregard.”  The writers of the letter said they had to remain anonymous, at least as regards the published letter, because of Egan’s “vindictive” nature. 

Cardinal Egan’s episcopacy needs be measured by the fact that like so many of the Bishops appointed during the John Paul years, he was the wrong sort of man to be a bishop.  Like his best friend and soul-mate, John Richard Keating, a fellow Chicagoan and fellow Canon Lawyer, Egan had the heart of a bureaucrat, not a shepherd.  The Church needs bureaucrats; it is—among other things—a bureaucracy.  But it is not at its heart a bureaucracy and it shouldn’t have bureaucrats at its heart—that is, in the ministry and office of Bishop.  This isn’t to say that Edward Egan wasn’t a good man, or even—in his own way and according to his own gifts—a good priest.  He just wasn’t what the Church needs.  Conservative though he was, he was no right-winger.  He had no interest in validating the “Old Rites,” but then he had little or no interest in the “New Rite” either.  The slovenliness of his funeral rites were appropriate to his own liturgical style.  He was a lawyer, a money-man, a person dedicated to making the system run as efficiently as possible.  He did that well and as I wrote above, we need those sort of persons around—on the chancery staff—but not necessarily among the ordained and certainly not with miter and crosier.  John Paul gave us some good bishops but mostly corporation men like Egan.  Benedict gave us brighter men, men who could think, but not necessarily braver men or holier men.  Benedict’s bishops (for the most part), like those of his predecessor, were climbers.  Every so often an O’Malley or a Curlin or a Morneau got snuck in, but over the last thirty-five years for the most part we got our Cordileone and Lori and Finn and Morlino and Dewayne.  It will take some time to clear them out and hopefully we will in the future receive more bishops like Blase Cupich or Christopher Coyne or Robert McElroy.  In the meantime, eternal rest to Edward Egan.  He may not have been the best we could have hoped for, but neither was he the worst.  While I am not an admirer, I did think that singing the Dies Irae as he was carried to his crypt was more than a bit harsh.  He was as good a man as he was able.  God be good to him. God be good to us all.