Kurtz’s encounters on the margins

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Tom Roberts | Nov. 12, 2013 NCR Today
Fall bishops’ meeting 2013

I read with interest my colleague Michael Sean Winters’ blog on the meaning of the elections that occurred this morning at the meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Of Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., the conference president-elect, he wrote:

“Kurtz is not seen as belonging to any party or faction, and so ideally suited to lead a conference which has been dominated in recent years by conservatives, and is now grappling with Pope Francis’ call to focus on issues that have a more leftward tilt, at least as they intersect with U.S. politics. … Kurtz is a great guy and almost everyone likes him. Fr. Anthony Chandler, a priest of the Archdiocese of Louisville, and an old chum of mine, told me, ‘Archbishop Kurtz is a very genuine person. He works hard to give people the opportunity to share their views. He will work very hard. He keeps an amazing schedule in the archdiocese and gets to meet lots of people.’”

The term “genuine” applied to the archbishop would seem consistent with his reputation from his days as a priest in the Diocese of Allentown, Pa. Full disclosure, I knew him for a few years back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Fuller disclosure: my wife, Sally, worked for him when he was head of the diocese’s social justice office. She worked on a staff that helped him open the diocese’s first soup kitchen and on other programs for the poor and disenfranchised.

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