Cardinal Dolan may be retired — but he’ll always – Latest News
Checking in on bishop’s strikes
“I’m still a cardinal. Friends might call me Timothy, but I’m still a cardinal. Still a priest. Still loving New York,” Timothy Cardinal Dolan advised me.
Remember the day you grew to become an archbishop?
“Yeah, I’d had 7 ¹/₂ years in Milwaukee before coming to New York 17 years ago. I told my mom, ‘I’m kind of nervous. This is a big diocese. It’s got problems,’ and she said, ‘What are you worried about? They didn’t ask you to go there.’ ”
Faithful good friend
“My first day walking into St. Patrick’s I’d heard troubling things. Like New Yorkers were haughty. Didn’t like people from the Midwest, journalists were offensive.”
What about mates? When you’re as high as an archbishop, can you have got actual mates?
“It’s more difficult. You got to be friendly with everybody. Real friends are few and far between. I love my priests, but can’t be as friendly with all because I’m their boss. Their shepherd. I think now I can begin to make friends. Like, you know about that gift you sent me? I drank it already.”
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Not that I’m ungracious, but it was fairly costly.
“And worth it. So last week, on my 76th birthday, I went out with four guys who’ve been secretaries for me in the past. Look, I had a baptism and a Mass with a thousand people this morning. I did a wake two days ago, a funeral Saturday. This stuff I’ll still do but I won’t have to go to meetings, cut budgets or those neuralgic decisions about merging parishes, moving priests, closing schools. Won’t have to do the stuff I don’t like.”
Mass appeal
“As for faith at present, younger adults from faculty to age 35, it’s up. The priesthood is up, but not as a lot as we’d like. People wanting a church marriage ceremony additionally up. Pardon my mentioning this, but donations have elevated, too. We’ve had gloomy information about people leaving God. Not Catholic anymore. Don’t trust the church. I can’t be a Pollyanna about that. It’s positively there.
“Other good issues are occurring. As for Catholic faculties closing, first of all, there’s not as many children as there used to be. Secondly, public faculties, thank God, are attempting to improve. Back then, children went to our faculties as a result of they had been higher than the others. Same with hospitals, nursing houses and health-care services.
“As to special responsibilities as a former archbishop — it’s if my successor [Ronald Hicks] asks me to take them. Already he’s invited somewhere but can’t make it and he asked me to go in his place. I said, ‘Sure.’ I’m still on boards like the Catholic University of America, still have some duties left in Rome.”
Leo’s at bat
“I grew up in a loving household within the little city of Ballwin, Mo. Its coronary heart was the neighborhood parish. I went to high school there. I really like what I do, but issues have simply develop into more sophisticated. More bureaucracies, more state calls for, labor issues and accrediting issues that do completely not a factor to help us.
“And great that our new pope [Leo XIV] is American. A Yankee Doodle Dandy. Loves America, eats peanut butter. Loves the White Sox.”
The who? Please. They’re not the New York Yankees.
“And he’s from Chicago.”
Please. Dead people vote in Chicago.
So the Three Wise Men had been on their approach to Bethlehem from Third Avenue. Suddenly one ground his camel to a halt. He stated: “Now, listen, guys, remember, no mentioning how much we paid for the gifts.”
Only in New York, children, solely in New York.
