Conservative N.Y. archbishop elected president of Catholic bishops conference

Los Angeles Times

The nation’s Catholic bishops bucked decades of tradition Tuesday to select Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York as their new leader, cementing his reputation as a star of the American church and prompting some commentators to suggest that the U.S. Catholic hierarchy may be turning rightward.

Dolan’s election as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops— a position once held by Bishop James W. Malone of the Youngstown diocese — “signaled a clear ascendancy of the conservative bloc,” the National Catholic Reporter said. Others, however, said it primarily reflected Dolan’s personal charisma.

By sheer force of personality, the gregarious, often combative archbishop seems destined to play a more prominent role in public affairs than his predecessor, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago. He joked after the election that he was surprised, but that perhaps “the bishops are tired of short and skinny presidents.”

Dolan, 60, has been archbishop of New York for slightly less than two years. He was elected president of the bishops’ conference in a third-round upset over Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., who had been vice president for the past three years. Since the organization was established in 1966, vice presidents have routinely moved up to the conference’s presidency. The only exceptions were a vice president who died before the next election and another who retired.

“This was a big surprise,” said Father Thomas J. Reese, a theologian at Georgetown University. “This is the first time that a vice president has been defeated for president, so it’s unprecedented.”

Kicanas is known as a moderate who was a strong opponent of Arizona’s controversial immigration law. While he supports the church’s rulings against abortion, he has not denied Communion to politicians who support abortion rights, as more conservative bishops might do, and has gained the enmity of some on the Catholic right.

He also faced criticism for having ordained a priest who later pleaded guilty to sexual abuse of five children, although Kicanas denied reports that he had been aware that the priest was a pedophile.

Like Kicanas, Dolan has been willing to offer Communion to abortion rights supporters, but is considered more in line with Pope Benedict XVI’s preference for doctrinal traditionalists. He has gained national prominence in part through his vigorous defense of the church’s handling of sexual abuse cases, especially his denunciations of the New York Times for its abuse investigations.