BishopAccountability.org

Importing N.J.’s bishops sends the wrong message

By Rev. Alexander Santora
Jersey Journal
July 12, 2020

https://www.nj.com/opinion/2020/07/importing-njs-bishops-sends-the-wrong-message-faith-matters.html

In the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin said, “New Jersey is like a beer barrel, tapped at both ends, with all the live beer running into Philadelphia and New York.”

Those twin pulls still persist today. The Giants and Jets may play in the Meadowlands, but they are still considered New York teams. And Manhattan and Philadelphia television stations cover northern and southern New Jersey, but there is no statewide television station.

And for the Catholic church, the five New Jersey Roman Catholic dioceses are headed by bishops not native to the dioceses they lead. In fact, four of five aren’t even from New Jersey. (Bishop James Checchio is from Camden but heads Metuchen.)

And for the most diverse state in the union, four are of Irish ancestry.

If there’s any doubt that Franklin was right, consider what happened last month in the Diocese of Paterson. Bishop Arthur Serratelli’s retirement was accepted by Pope Francis, who appointed a Brooklyn priest, Bishop Kevin Sweeney, to succeed him.

There is a score of able Paterson priests who could have succeeded Serratelli, himself a Newark priest.

So what does that say to the local presbyterate not only there but among the some 2000 priests in the five dioceses: You are not good enough. That’s a morale buster, not booster.

The New Testament says little about the modern process of selecting bishops for a local church, but tradition has it that it would be a priest who comes from that region. In his letter to Titus, St. Paul writes: “This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.”

Someone from the region knows the people and the lay of the land, and it takes years, if ever, for an outsider to acclimate.

At first, New Jersey was considered, well, what else, part of the New York diocese. Then in 1853, the entire state became its own diocese, Newark.

The first bishops and archbishops alternated between New York priests and native Newark priests with the last being Thomas Boland. But since 1974, they have all be outsiders: Peter Gerety, a native of Connecticut; Theodore McCarrick, New York; John Myers, Illinois; and now Joseph Cardinal Tobin, Michigan.

The last Paterson diocese native was Frank Rodimer, who retired in 2004. For Trenton, it was John Reiss, their only native bishop ever, retiring in 1997. Camden and Metuchen have never had a native priest as bishop.

The selection of bishops is very secretive, lacks transparency and appears to be influenced by “an ole boys network.”

For example, Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn may have influenced getting one of his own priests, Sweeney, to come to Paterson. Sweeney could have remained in Brooklyn and perhaps have become their bishop since DiMarzio is past retirement age.

A church scholar told me that we elect the “Bishop of Rome,” the pope, so “why can’t local representatives be called on for the election of a local bishop.” That certainly would open up the process.

Under John Paul II, conservative, traditional priests would be selected so it was an ideological emphasis. It’s now the opposite under Francis with more pastoral men appointed at times but outsiders dominating in appointments. Early in his papacy, Francis warned about careerism in bishops but it has crept back in. Last month, a Florida priest born in Louisiana was made bishop in Texas.

In the U.S., Cardinals O’Connor of New York, Law of Boston, and Krol of Philadelphia used to be kingmakers, from the 1980s on. McCarrick was behind the appointments of Newark priests James McHugh (Camden, Rockville Centre), Paul Bootkoski (Metuchen), Michael Saltarelli (Wilmington, Delaware), Mort Smith (Pensacola and Trenton), and DiMarzio (Camden, Brooklyn).

But Cardinal Egan of New York trumped McCarrick to put Myers in Newark over McCarrick’s choice, Smith, an Orange, New Jersey, native.

“The selection of bishops seems tied into a particular model of church, remaining silent on certain litmus test issues,‘' the scholar said. “Few chosen, if any, would ever publicly promote inclusion of women in ordained ministry and promotion of optional celibacy.”

So, the system hasn’t changed much.

Today, Camden’s bishop, Dennis Sullivan, was born in the Bronx and Trenton’s David O’Connell in Philadelphia, which strengthens Franklin’s keg theory.

Tobin, though, is a bird of different feathers: the first cardinal to ever head a diocese in New Jersey breaking the Franklin curse.

He is a smart, savvy, social individual who could very well become the first pope from the U.S. He has been well received. And he probably is the closest ally of Francis in the U.S. hierarchy. Having him in the state outweighs the local choice in this instance and perhaps gives him a chance to influence changes in the process of selecting bishops in the future.

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