Dolan Chosen as President of U.S. Bishops’ Group

BALTIMORE — The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops elected Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York to be its president on Tuesday in a surprise move that reaffirmed the conservative direction of the Roman Catholic Church in America.

The vote makes Archbishop Dolan the most visible face of the church in the United States. It also suggested that the bishops were seeking a powerful and reliably orthodox voice to reassert the church’s teaching in the court of public opinion and to disarm critics who insist that the bishops have lost their moral authority as a result of their role in the sexual abuse scandals.

For the first time, the bishops overlooked tradition and passed over a vice president who was running for the presidency, Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson. Bishop Kicanas represents the more liberal “social justice” tradition of the American church and is known for advocating dialogue between Catholic liberals and traditionalists. Archbishop Dolan is considered a moderate conservative.

Archbishop Dolan said in a news conference after the vote that he would carry on the forceful opposition of his predecessor, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, to the recent health care overhaul because the bishops believed it would permit expanded government financing for abortion.

“My major priority would be to continue with all vigor I can muster what’s already in place,” Archbishop Dolan said. “It’s not like we’re in crisis; it’s not like all of a sudden we need some daring new initiatives. Thank God for the leadership of Cardinal Francis George, things are going well.”

Archbishop Dolan also suggested that he would not countenance other Catholic leaders and organizations when they take public positions that contradict the bishops. That is what happened this year when some groups representing Catholic hospitals and nuns came out in support of the health care overhaul bill, despite the bishops’ staunch opposition.

“We’re pastors and teachers,” Archbishop Dolan said of the bishops’ role, “not just one set of teachers in the Catholic community, but the teachers.”

Archbishop Dolan’s election consolidates the gradual shift in leadership and priorities for the bishops’ conference, which from the 1970s through the 1990s issued decrees on more traditionally liberal concerns like economic inequality, workers rights, the environment and peace. While the bishops still do take up issues like immigration and poverty, they are far more focused on shaping public policy to stop abortion and prevent the legalization of marriage between same-sex couples.

The bishops also set a decidedly conservative direction this year in their choice of a vice president to replace Bishop Kicanas. They elected Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., who is chairman of the bishops’ committee on marriage and an outspoken opponent of same-sex unions. The runner-up was Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver, who is a theological traditionalist and a political conservative. The tally was 147 votes for Archbishop Kurtz and 91 for Archbishop Chaput.

“This is a signal that the conference wants to be a leader in the culture wars,” said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown. “The two vice-presidential finalists were the two most conservative on the ballot. That says something about where this conference is going.”

The final vote for president, after 10 candidates were narrowed to two, was 128 for Archbishop Dolan and 111 for Bishop Kicanas. Three years ago, when the same two men were finalists for vice president, Bishop Kicanas defeated Archbishop Dolan by two votes, according to the Catholic News Service.

Robert P. George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton and an adviser to some of the bishops on political and moral issues: “You could imagine a different approach where the bishops would say, ‘This guy is too combative. We need someone more conciliatory.’ They didn’t do that.”

Professor George noted that Archbishop Dolan was the host of the meetings that produced the “Manhattan Declaration,” a manifesto issued last year by prominent evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders to reignite and unify religious opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and what the leaders considered as threats to religious freedom. Mr. George, who helped to draft the document, said Archbishop Dolan was one of the original signers.

It was impossible to tell whether the bishops were influenced by a last-minute lobbying campaign against Bishop Kicanas that was mounted by conservative Catholic bloggers, who accused him of being soft on abortion and homosexuality and of allowing a seminarian who was accused of sexual abuse to be ordained as a priest.

Several advocacy groups for victims of sexual abuse by priests had lobbied against Bishop Kicanas and Archbishop Dolan, saying both were involved in covering up abuse cases.

The Vatican has no direct role in the bishops’ vote, but had expressed its confidence in Archbishop Dolan this year by appointing him to a panel that was investigating seminaries in Ireland, which has been devastated by the sexual abuse scandal.

Archbishop Dolan has led the church in New York since April 2009. Before then, he was archbishop of Milwaukee, where he served for seven years. In New York, he has a full plate of challenges, including a budget-cutting effort that will close dozens of churches and parishes.

He has been chairman for three years of Catholic Relief Services, the bishops’ charity arm, and he traveled to Haiti several times after the earthquake in January to observe the church’s relief efforts there. (He stepped down on Tuesday as leader of the relief agency.)

Speaking of Archbishop Dolan’s strengths, Bishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of Oakland said, “Not that many people can combine that intellectual depth and that jolly, outgoing personality.”

In an upbeat news conference, Archbishop Dolan said his differences with Bishop Kicanas are matters of style and not substance. He said the bishops rejected the idea that they were divided left and right, between the “social justice” and “pro-life” camps.

“The bishops see those as part of a package deal. It’s not a cleavage between the two,” he said.

He said that the battle over the health care overhaul had put the bishops in a “delicate position.”

“We should have been doing cartwheels” when the health care bill passed, he said, because the bishops had long supported expanding coverage


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