TradCatkKnight: Francis Axis To Avoid

Throughout American Catholic history, the archdioceses of Boston, Washington and Chicago have always been important centers of influence, generally led by strong prelates with national and international profiles.
In the 1980s, arguably no American was more consequential in John Paul II’s Vatican than Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, until the explosion of the sexual abuse scandals that ultimately cost Law his job in 2003.

For most of that time, Cardinal James Hickey of Washington stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Law as an American power-broker and papal ally.
Equally, no American prelate was more influential during the same period in providing a slightly different, more social justice-oriented vision of the Church and its role in the culture than Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, under his rubric of the “seamless garment.”
Flash forward 20 years, and the geographic roles were a bit reversed. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago was seen as the primary intellectual interpreter of both John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI in the United States, while Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, both on the job and after his alleged retirement (I say “alleged” because McCarrick has remained busier after leaving office than most people are in it), is seen as a center-left, reformist point of reference.
After 2003 and Law’s departure, new Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston was so focused on internal crisis management that he didn’t emerge as a national and international leader until later down the road.
As those examples also illustrate, while Boston, Chicago and Washington have always been important forces, they haven’t always been exactly in alignment. Sometimes, they’ve even represented rival ecclesiological, theological and political outlooks.
That, however, is not the case in 2016, when one could make a good case that those three cities now form a key “Pope Francis Axis” in the American church.
Chicago is occupied by Cardinal Blase Cupich, Francis’s first major episcopal pick in the United States and a man clearly in sync with the Pope Francis agenda.
He’s reached out to gays and lesbians, supported calls at the two Synods of Bishops on the family for opening Communion to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, and broadly established himself as a leader of the more progressive constituency within the bishops.
Boston, of course, is led by O’Malley, who in some ways was basically Francis before Francis was cool. He exudes the same personal simplicity and humility, the same love for ordinary people and direct pastoral contact, and the same instinctive preference for concrete human experience over ideology.
O’Malley also speaks fluent Spanish, is the lone American on Francis’s “C9” council of cardinal advisers from around the world, and was also tapped by Francis to lead his new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which is leading the pontiff’s reform effort on the clerical sexual abuse scandals.
Finally, there’s Wuerl in Washington, who may actually be the most important “Francis man” in the States of all.
The Archbishop of Washington since 2006 and a cardinal since 2010, Wuerl has long been seen as one of the most effective behind-the-scenes figures among the American bishops, engendering wide respect for his intellect, his management skill, and his almost preternatural sense of calm.
At the two Synods of Bishops on the family in 2014 and 2015, Wuerl was the only American named by Pope Francis to the drafting committees for the summit’s final documents.
That was in part likely because Wuerl had dropped strong hints that he was open to a “pastoral” solution to the debate over Communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, and has since emerged as one of the most forceful defenders in the States of the pontiff’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
We got another small but telling reminder of Wuerl’s reach this week when Bishop Edward Burns, his former secretary in Pittsburgh, was named as the new shepherd of Dallas. That’s another Wuerl man in a key post, which has long been considered a key index of ecclesiastical clout.
It’s worth noting, by the way, that the man Burns replaced in Dallas, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, is also a friend of Wuerl, having been an auxiliary bishop in Washington and serving briefly under Wuerl as the archdiocese’s vicar general.
Farrell currently heads the pope’s new Dicastery for Family, Laity and Life, …Read more »