An Election among Bishops sets Catholic and Secular Media Afire

The election of a new president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is normally a fairly staid and predictable affair. The Current president steps down and his vice-president steps up and the cycle continues. Not this week.

In what the Washington Post called a shocker, and the Los Angeles Times called surprising, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York defeated the Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas 128-111. Now while a surprise development, Bishop Kicanas’ election was clearly not a done deal in the days leading up to the annual meeting of the Bishops. Questions had been raised about the manner in which he dealt with the priest abuser Daniel McCormack. Bishop Kicanas quickly denied the assertions but in some senses the damage was done. Sexual Abuse victims in the United States saw the rejection of Kicanas as a victory for victims and evidence that the U.S.C.C.B. was finally starting to take the issue of clerical abuse seriously. A statement by SNAP on the election said “We can hope that his shocking defeat will help deter future clergy sex crimes and coverups by the Catholic hierarchy.” But it wasn’t just victims who saw Dolan’s election in these terms.

Just as any secular election provokes contemplation, analysis and conjecture, so it is this year with the USCCB election. The obvious right left divide is being raised with Archbishop Dolan being characterized as a move to the right and the rejection of Kicanas as evidence of a rejection of the so-called Liberal wing of the Bishops’ Conference. Or there’s the view that electing Archbishop Dolan the Bishops were looking for a strong leader as Rocco Palmo told the Catholic News Agency. And there’s the view, from Maureen Fiedler, that sees Dolan beating Kicanas as a signal that the Tea Party virus is alive with the hierarchy of the Church in the U.S. John Allen in the National Catholic Reporter offers a much more nuanced take on why the Bishop’s might have chosen Dolan over Kicanas and it’s worth reading simply because it suggests that neither the folks cheering the election nor those decrying the election are exactly right.