At milestone age, Cardinal Wuerl's influence grows

By Peter Smith
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
November 8, 2015

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/2015/11/08/At-milestone-age-of-75-former-Pittsburgh-Catholic-bishop-and-now-Cardinal-Donald-D-Wuerl-s-influence-grows/stories/201511080057

Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl greets worshipers following the 175th anniversary Mass of Thanksgiving at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON — The pageantry, puffs of incense and polyphonic choral voices filled the domed sanctuary as worshipers celebrated the 175th anniversary of the Roman Catholic cathedral parish in the nation’s capital last Sunday.

And when it was over, Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl stood in his formal vestments at the back of St. Matthew’s Cathedral. With a broad smile contrasting with his slight frame, he greeted one by one worshipers who ranged from Latino and African immigrants to government workers transplanted from the American heartland to even a few visitors from the cardinal’s native Pittsburgh.

He shook hands with some, hugged others and crouched to greet small children. He obliged a few requests to bless a holy object or pose for photos.

The cathedral wasn’t the only one having a milestone this month.

Cardinal Wuerl — who served as bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006 before moving here — marks his 75th birthday on Thursday.

As church law requires, he’ll send a letter on that date to Pope Francis, offering his resignation as archbishop of the fast-growing Archdiocese of Washington.

Don’t expect him to go quickly into retirement, however. Popes rarely accept bishops’ resignations right away, typically deliberating for months or longer on a successor. Cardinals often stay in their archdioceses for years.

And in fact, Cardinal Wuerl is hitting this milestone with as much influence as ever in his storied career, embraced by Pope Francis as an ally in his reformist papacy.

When the pontiff made his historic visit to the United States in September, Cardinal Wuerl hosted him in Washington. He had the historic role of formally petitioning at an outdoor Mass for Pope Francis to confer sainthood on an 18th-century missionary — the first ever papal canonization on American soil.

“Not bad for a kid from Mount Washington,” Cardinal Wuerl said soon afterward.

And Pope Francis has relied on Cardinal Wuerl for help in crucial matters, appointing him in 2013 to a body advising him on the appointment of bishops around the world.

For a fractious synod on the family last month in Rome, the pontiff named Cardinal Wuerl as the sole American on a committee that drafted a report on the proceedings. The report received at least a two-thirds consensus of bishops on every paragraph, including those on contentious issues involving divorce, remarriage, homosexuality and couples living together outside of marriage.

By giving the cardinal the job on the synod report committee, the pope knew he “was going to get it done and get it done well,” said his successor in Pittsburgh, Bishop David Zubik. “It’s very clear that Cardinal Wuerl has a close working and personal relationship with Pope Francis.”

Cardinal Wuerl often touts Pope Francis’ emphasis on offering a merciful hand to the marginalized rather than wagging an accusing finger.

“I really think he understands Pope Francis and is a wonderful interpreter of this pontificate,” said Thomas Stehle, a Butler native who is now director of music ministries at St. Matthew’s Cathedral.

Cardinal Wuerl laughs off the tributes to his stature, citing a younger bishop who sat next to the white-haired cardinal at a recent meeting in hopes of learning the ropes from “some old bishop.”

Guessing what Pope Francis has in mind for his future is “not my responsibility,” Cardinal Wuerl said in a wide-ranging interview in his office last week. “My responsibility is to do the letter and send it in.”

A cardinal with staying power 

Cardinal Wuerl has a resume with few parallels.

His stamina for committee meetings is legendary, both among U.S. bishops and at the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI tapped him for important positions as often as his stylistically contrasting successor, Francis.

Cardinal Wuerl is also part of a dwindling generation of active clerics who personally witnessed some of the Catholic Church’s most historic events of the past half-century. As a seminarian, he witnessed part of the reformist Second Vatican Council of the 1960s. He attended the conclaves that elected popes John Paul II and Francis.

That kind of background helps to explain how he could assist in forging consensus at the recent synod, and why one commentator said incoming U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan could take lessons from the local archbishop on vote-counting.

“There’s an advantage to having been around a long time,” Cardinal Wuerl said. “You know most of the people. ... You know what it takes to get consensus.”

The synod nights were long on writing and short on sleep.

“You just keep going,” he said.

That also goes for his usual workload, in which he often flies to Rome for midweek meetings, squeezed between Washington board meetings on Mondays and Fridays and weekend parish visits. He finds regular time for a treadmill and reports being in good health.

Cardinal Wuerl said one reason Francis keeps tapping him for help is that the pope wants “the voice of non-curial cardinals at these meetings,” or those who aren’t Vatican full-timers.

He’s had his share of controversies. Some saw his role at the synod as part of an effort to weaken the church’s position that marriage cannot be dissolved, something he forcefully denied.

Others were dismayed in 2011 when the doctrinal committee of U.S. bishops, which he chaired, publicly described the writings of a Catholic theology professor as erroneous. Cardinal Wuerl said it’s the job of bishops to safeguard church teaching, but members of the Catholic Theological Society of America said the action came without dialogue in advance. Theologians should not merely echo the catechism but offer “new ways of imagining the continuity of tradition,” said an article in Commonweal magazine by John E. Thiel, a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America.

What no one disputes is his wide influence.

Cardinal Wuerl “has and deserves the profound respect of the conference of bishops” in the U.S., Bishop Zubik said. “He is clearly seen as a hard worker.”

The Rev. Thomas Reese, senior analyst at the National Catholic Reporter and author of multiple books on the Catholic hierarchy, said Francis clearly “likes and respects” the cardinal.

“If I was Francis, I would give him a job in Rome when he turns 75,” he said. “That would allow Francis to appoint a new archbishop in D.C. while at the same time getting an additional ally in Rome. Wuerl knows Rome and would be a loyal adviser.”

Pittsburgh, deep in his soul

Now-Cardinal Wuerl was born in one southern Pittsburgh neighborhood, Carrick, and raised in another, Mount Washington. He went to church and school at the landmark St. Mary of the Mount parish, overlooking Downtown.

“I tell the priests here [in Washington], Pittsburgh will always be my mother,” he said. “That’s where I received the faith, that’s where I grew up. Being bishop there for 18 years was bonding.”

After ordination, Father Wuerl worked as a pastor in Greenfield, on staff at the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy and as a seminary rector and secretary to Pittsburgh Bishop John Wright. 

When then-Cardinal Wright’s health was failing in 1978, Father Wuerl assisted him as a rare non-cardinal allowed into the secret conclave that elected John Paul II as the first non-Italian pope in centuries. 

That pontiff later made him an auxiliary bishop in Seattle, where Bishop Wuerl was scorched by critics for being assigned to take charge of areas where the incumbent bishop was perceived as too liberal.

That short-lived assignment was followed by a long tenure in Pittsburgh, where he became known for removing sexually abusive priests from ministry years before his colleagues made it a policy. He also oversaw a wrenching downsizing of the diocese’s oversupply of historic ethnic parishes.

In Washington — where his office is in a neighborhood of numerous Mexican restaurants and international markets — he has faced a very different task.

While Washington is seen as part of the Northeast Corridor, in Catholic terms it is a fast-growing Sun Belt diocese where churches are not emptying but rather struggling to find room for a flock of government-related workers and immigrants.

If Pittsburgh is defined by a sense of “stability,” Washington is marked by “vibrancy,” Cardinal Wuerl said. “Here you have people coming and going all the time.”

The archdiocese, covering the District of Columbia and five Maryland counties, has about 630,000 Catholics, up more than 20 percent since the turn of the century, with Masses celebrated in 20 languages each weekend.

Cardinal Wuerl said when he looks out at worshipers in the cathedral — one of dozens of Washington parishes to offer Masses in English and Spanish — “I’m looking out at the face of the world.”

Cathedral parishioner Marcos Pacheco said Cardinal Wuerl has strongly defended immigration policies that keep families united. The cathedral pastor, Monsignor Ronald Jameson, said the archbishop frees up his pastors to carry out their shared vision. “He’s one who wants to collaborate,” he said.

In the world’s most powerful capital, “all the mechanism of government is concentrated here,” said Cardinal Wuerl. “That’s what people are concerned about.”

Former U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart, a Republican from the North Hills who also served in the state Senate, said she could turn to Cardinal Wuerl for Catholic perspective on pending legislation and is “at heart a teacher.”

Cardinal Wuerl’s formal personality contrasts with the garrulous charm of his predecessor, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. But while the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops takes the lead in lobbying on policy issues, Cardinal Wuerl has a de facto role as pastor to many Catholic politicians. Former House Speaker John Boehner even quoted Cardinal Wuerl as providing spiritual counsel when he was preparing to step down.

“He has meetings without a lot of fuss or fanfare, but doing it in a very substantive way,” said Monsignor Jameson. 

Cardinal Wuerl said that like many Catholics, he’s energized by Pope Francis. The pontiff, he said, has rekindled the initial enthusiasm that followed the Second Vatican Council, which was tamped down after a period of what he called “incomplete teaching” and unacceptable experiments with worship liturgy, followed by popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI reassertion of traditional doctrines and devotions.

“Now comes Francis to say, thank goodness we have all of that to stand on, and now let’s pick up the threads of ... legitimate and real renewal coming out of the council,” he said. “That's why people find him so exciting in the sense of saying we need to find fresh ways to lead to Jesus.”