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I hope for orthodoxy and loyalty to Church teaching. Is that bad?
Gregory has said Bernardin was his mentor.
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aimee
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I hope for orthodoxy and loyalty as well. I believe they mean he is a liberal and all that it means …which we here in Atlanta will just have to stand our ground …we’ve had to do it before so…its been a while …I prefer to give him Bishop Gregory the benefit of the doubt for now…
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I want to give just two small examples of Bishop Gregory and his liberalism. When he was head of the USCCB they started an abuse board. Some on that board were very heterodox Catholics. Some are pro choice. He could have intervened, right? At the height of the abuse crisis during the USCCB meeting they had several dissenting Catholics speak to the bishops. I was very angry. Did he have any orthodox Catholics lecture the bishops? None were related in any press stories. He is a lib and his mentor was Bernardin. Enough said. I hope he changes.
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chicago
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I don’t know how much real authority the President of the Conference has over such things. In many ways, he is more of an administrator than anything. Remember, this is essentially a Parliamentray system they have.
Ok, STOP IT!
I don’t believe that you can prove your assertations of his being a “liberal”. Is he something less than a hardline conservative? Sure. But he’s also quite far from a leftist Catholic. Indeed, I would say that he is most certainly orthodox and loyal to Church teaching. Show me even one place where he has been in contradiction! In fact, I’d bet that the homily, alone (which I still recall as having a profound effect on my own life) that he gave one Ash Wednesday when I was in minor seminary would move you to quickly change your opinion and leave you begging for preachers with such profound dedication to the cross.
Have you actually ever had any interaction with the man or are you just ranting because he has an historical connection to Chicago, having become an auxilairy bishop when Cardinal Bernardin was here? I know that the name “Bernardin” is akin to a dirty curse word among conservative Catholics. Not only was Bernardin not the greatest of boogymen that everybody makes him out to be (he probably actually was more friendly to and did more for certain conservative and traditional Catholic causes than some bishops who would be considered to the right of him - nobody ever wants to talk about the good things he did, though), but there were a LOT of people from whom he was a mentor. I’ll give one example: Archbishop Kelleher of Kansas City. He’s recognized as being much more right leaning. But, he also, would probably call Bernardin his mentor, for it was under Berndardin that he became an auxiliary bishop, just like Gregory. In fact, the pectoral cross which Kelleher wears is Cardinal Bernardin’s; Kelleher asked him for it in a bold move, and the humble Cardinal took it off and gave it to him. So please don’t make outlandish accusations about a good man, a good priest, a good bishop, just because you don’t like the late Cardinal and find Wilt to be less than your own imagined ideal candidate.
Alas, unless you are planning on moving to Atlanta, you won’t have to deal with him, anyway. So let sleeping dogs lie and leave well enough alone.
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Pleeeaaseeeeeee. I have heard it all now. Let me guess, he is at the mercy of all those heterodox underlings on staff? If this stuff happended once in a 30 year period I would believe you, but it goes on all the time. Apparently, no bishop is responsible for anything anymore.
I am not alone in my opnion. Is he as far left as Clark or Hubbard? Perhaps not, but he is still a lib. I know you are not exactly conservative so I will not expect you to know a lib when you see one. Bernardin was a lib and much more. Spin as you wish, we can all read and discern for ourselves.
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katherine2
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And Gregory has John Paul II as the man who promoted him to Archbishop of Atlanta.
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katherine2
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The right wing reaction to theat meeting was one of the low points of the wing-nut caucus of the Catholic Church.
They right wingers lied about the good characture of some of the people the bishops met with.
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chicago
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You are proving my point. The reason they had the speakers which they did, for instance, was likely precisely because of all the underlings forcing their own hands.
But, again, you are failing to understand the nature of their system. As President, he isn’t there so much to give it his own direction in heavy handed leadership as to administer the will of the bishops. It’s not like being President of the U.S.A. He can’t just dictate his own will. It is more like being the head of a party caucus in a legislative body where you are merely the spokesman doing the bidding of the consensus whole and trying to foster some sort of agreement between them all. Most of the real work in the bishops’ conference happens at the committee levels. Ironically, the restructuring of the bishops’ conference which actually has been improving things somewhat, and making it more truly a Bishops’ conference rather than an operation overrun just by the bureaucrats, was constructed by none other than Cardinal Bernardin.
Perhaps we don’t quite define liberal the same and someone doesn’t have to be so far left (or should I say just not dogmatically down the line hardline right) to you to be dismissed as such. But I have seen and dealt with more than my fair share of real ecclesiatical liberals and know what one is and what one isn’t. Wilton Gregory isn’t.
Oh, I wouldn’t deny that he was generally liberal leaning. Though I do think that the people who try to make him out to be the practical incarnation of Ecclesiatical Liberalism in it’s worst essence both overstate their case and fail to understand the man for what he truly was.
If one just sees “liberal, liberal” everywhere, then nothing stands out as being the real problem when it is truly manifested.
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HagiaSophia
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Bishop Gregory was elected president of the bishops’ conference in November 2001, and the sexual abuse scandal exploded two months later.
Victims’ rights groups were less than ebullient about his promotion.
“He’s better than most, but by no means a saint,” said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. Mr. Clohessy said that Bishop Gregory had started out well but failed to drive the reforms home, and that the oversight groups the bishops created were toothless.
Some priests and bishops said the policies Bishop Gregory advocated were not compassionate enough toward wrongly accused priests or those who had repented and reformed.
The change in leadership was welcomed by John Dearie, chairman of the Atlanta affiliate of Voice of the Faithful, which has worked during the scandal for a say by laity in church matters. “Our hope is that Bishop Gregory will be more receptive than the outgoing archbishop” to such (name removed by moderator)ut, Mr. Dearie said.
Archbishop John F. Donoghue submitted his resignation from the Atlanta Archdiocese at 75, as required. Mr. Dearie said Archbishop Donoghue had refused to allow his organization to meet in chuch buildings.
nytimes.com/2004/12/10/national/10bishop.html?oref=login
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Victims’ rights groups were less than ebullient about his promotion.
“He’s better than most, but by no means a saint,” said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. Mr. Clohessy said that Bishop Gregory had started out well but failed to drive the reforms home, and that the oversight groups the bishops created were toothless.
Some priests and bishops said the policies Bishop Gregory advocated were not compassionate enough toward wrongly accused priests or those who had repented and reformed.
The change in leadership was welcomed by John Dearie, chairman of the Atlanta affiliate of Voice of the Faithful, which has worked during the scandal for a say by laity in church matters. “Our hope is that Bishop Gregory will be more receptive than the outgoing archbishop” to such (name removed by moderator)ut, Mr. Dearie said.
Archbishop John F. Donoghue submitted his resignation from the Atlanta Archdiocese at 75, as required. Mr. Dearie said Archbishop Donoghue had refused to allow his organization to meet in chuch buildings.
nytimes.com/2004/12/10/national/10bishop.html?oref=login
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Illini
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As a fellow native of the Land of Lincoln, I second that (except the interaction part). There have been many claims that Bishop Gregory is "not orthodox" and "liberal." Where is the evidence? I have not seen it. "Bernardin was my mentor" is not evidence. Mentors guide; they do not make carbon copies. There also seems to be a vocation crisis and a prevalence of liberal groups in the Belleville diocese, which can cause concern. But do we really know it is not better today than it was in 1994, when he inherited a mess, or that they will spring up in Atlanta?
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I do agree that it is too bad to see Archbishop Donahue retire, but let's face it, he's 76 and deserves the time off. Gregory will serve Atlanta well and will be pleased that the faith and vocations are strong there.
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fix
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I watched the lefties give their speeches. I saw the list of dissenters. As they say all heresy begins below the belt. The lefties prove that almost every time.
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chicago
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I don’t recall that comment or know it’s context, so I can not speak particularly to it. However, it does remind me of a response he once made to me when I said something in passing about the frustration which many in the Archdiocese experienced over the large scale closings and reorganization of parishes in the early 90’s. He suggested that while people initially are hurt and outraged, that they eventually come through it and learn to deal with the new situations and things ultimately aren’t so bad as they initially seemed. I understand what he was getting at. There’s no use in escalating emotions and perpetuating a problem. At some point, we need to move on and ought to be able to integrally. Just remaining in our tears doesn’t appear to effect anything positive. But at some level I also thought that “he just doesn’t get it” and wondered if he truly appreciated the long lasting sting of pain and resentment which many of the faithful experience due to such scandals and sadnesses. He’s trying to peaceable move a tough situation positively forward, I’m sure. But, in doing so, is he risking leaving some behind and at a loss of feeling abandoned by the Church.
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