O’Malley seen as No. 1 voice of U.S. Catholics

By Priyanka Dayal Mccluskey
BostHerald
March 24, 2014

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2014/03/o_malley_seen_as_no_1_voice_of_us_catholics

FACE OF AMERICAN CHURCH? Cardinal Sean O’Malley, right, yesterday attends the annual Nation of Immigrants Community Seder at University of Massachusetts Boston, above with professor Samuel J. Bernstein, and below with Brother Anthony Zuba.

The national spotlight has focused on Boston’s humble, soft-spoken Cardinal Sean O’Malley, now emerging as the pope’s closest ally in North America, poised to influence the future of the church well beyond Boston and to be the voice of American Catholics in Rome.

Highlighted in recent reports such as a front page USA Today article yesterday that suggested he is “the most powerful Catholic in America,” the cardinal went about his business yesterday, devoting his attention to the plight of immigrants, without addressing the talk swirling around him about his close relationship with the new pope.

Already part of Pope Francis’ inner circle, O’Malley was named to a new Vatican commission on sex abuse over the weekend, making him the only American in the eight-member group.

“We’re happy the commission is developing,” O’Malley told reporters in brief remarks yesterday. “It’s a great need for the church, and I’m honored to be asked to be a part of it.”

He told the Herald he would like Pope Francis — a personal friend whom he visited in Argentina in 2010 — to visit Boston.

“Oh, we’ve invited him,” O’Malley said. “We’ll see what happens.”

O’Malley, who like Francis is fluent in Spanish, clearly shares a close relationship with the pontiff unparalleled by any other American prelate, experts said yesterday.

“This is one more indication that Pope Francis looks to Cardinal O’Malley as a leader in the church and a great conduit for the kind of policy that the pope wants to put forward in the world,” said Matt Emerson, a writer for the Jesuit magazine America.

O’Malley is known for uniting various factions of the church, Emerson noted: “He’s a guy who’s not easy to label … He’s someone who’s generated a lot of respect and loyalty in a lot of different camps.”

As archbishop of Boston, O’Malley is known for his tough response to the clergy sex abuse scandal.

“I think we have finally begun to turn the page on the culture that protected sexual abusers in the church. By choosing Cardinal O’Malley, he is saying this culture has to change,” the Rev. James Bretzke, a Jesuit priest and theology professor at Boston College, said of Pope Francis.

Abuse victims say neither O’Malley nor the church has done enough. Barbara Blaine, president and founder of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the pope’s new anti-abuse commission looks like a public relations stunt — but said she welcomes O’Malley’s addition to the group if he can prompt the pope to punish abusive priests and the bishops who conceal them.

“We would encourage Cardinal O’Malley to insist that other bishops at least do what he has done,” including publicly posting the names of known sexual predators, Blaine said.

O’Malley’s growing status among Vatican advisers means he may be spending less time in Boston and more in Rome — and that he’ll effectively be the voice of Catholic America.

“He’s going to be the cardinal that’s going to be reflecting the American church experience to the pope,” Bretzke said.