{"id":423,"date":"2009-04-15T11:43:15","date_gmt":"2009-04-15T11:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/2009\/04\/dolan-the-diplomat.html"},"modified":"2009-04-15T11:43:15","modified_gmt":"2009-04-15T11:43:15","slug":"dolan-the-diplomat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/04\/dolan-the-diplomat.html","title":{"rendered":"Dolan the Diplomat"},"content":{"rendered":"

True to form, at his first news conference as Archbishop of New York, held this morning before this afternoon’s installation Mass, Timothy Dolan was humorous, enthusiastic, engaged and–not swinging at every pitch. While many might see him as a “throwback” to Cardinal O’Connor, Dolan is actually a good deal more nuanced in his remarks. If O’Connor didn’t make the front page of The New York Post<\/em>, you’d wonder if he was feeling okay. <\/p>\n

Not Dolan. Pressed on the same-sex marriage bill Gov. Paterson will introduce in Albany tomorrow, Dolan demurred: “We bishops aren’t into politics, we’re into principles.” <\/p>\n

When pressed, he elaborated somewhat:<\/p>\n

\n

You can bet I would be active and present and I hope articulate in this particular position. Being still very new, my first day on the job, I would be eager to sit down with trusted advisers within this archdiocese like Bishop Sullivan and say: Tell me what we’ve done in the past. Tell me what’s worked. Tell me what is the best way to communicate the sentiments of the church on controversial moral issues, and this isn’t the only one… I wouldn’t be hesitant to talk about that in the future. I am, if you don’t mind my saying it, confessing it, hesitant to talk about it today… It might not be too appropriate to get into the particularities of some of these controversial issues…. I hope I can be more forthcoming in the future. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He also punted on a question about a statute of limitations bill in Albany that has been hugely controverial as it would open a one-year window for victims to sue the Catholic Church, in the main. <\/p>\n

Again, the new archbishop of New York deflected the question: <\/p>\n

\n

This is an area where I gotta listen. I understand my brother bishops in the state of New York have already been rather clear in addressing this issue. I appreciate what’s been done. I would anticipate I would be a partner and, after today, a leader, in that. If there’s going to be any change in that, if there’s going to be anything new in that, it’s a little premature for me to say. Something tells me, Paul, I’ll be eager to speak out on that issue in the near future. It might not be the best for me to say anything today. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I have to believe he will speak out, and not in favor of the main bill, but likely an alternate. And I am sure he will get some tabloids headlines in the near future. But he’s also here to build up the church, draw people into a community of faith–a point he was again eloquent on–and help newcomers, the immigrants, in the city.<\/p>\n

The NYT’s City Room blog has a good running account of the newser here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

True to form, at his first news conference as Archbishop of New York, held this morning before this afternoon’s installation Mass, Timothy Dolan was humorous, enthusiastic, engaged and–not swinging at every pitch. While many might see him as a “throwback” to Cardinal O’Connor, Dolan is actually a good deal more nuanced in his remarks. 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He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}