UNITED STATES
Vatican Insider
Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville has replaced Timothy Dolan as president of the US Bishops’ Conference. He was elected at a bishops’ assembly in Baltimore
JOHN ALLEN JR *
ROME
Catholic bishops in the United States, who are perceived in recent years to have moved somewhat to the right, today find themselves coming to terms with a Pope whose words and deeds have emboldened the Church’s progressive wing. Logically speaking, that seems to present the American bishops with three core options:
– Resistance, pushing back against the new papal line.
– Adjustment, not watering down their pro-life concerns or vigilance about orthodoxy, but locating those matters within the new vision presented by Francis.·
– Capitulation, utterly overhauling their priorities and ways of doing business to satisfy popular expectations of the ‘Francis effect.’
In effect, at their Nov. 11-14 meeting in Baltimore the bishops appear to have chosen the middle path. By electing Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville as the conference president, replacing the charismatic Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, the bishops chose a centrist known both as a champion of the church’s pro-life teachings but also a flexible pragmatist capable of adjusting course in light of the new direction being set in Rome.
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